How the ‘deep state’ will fight tooth and nail against Trump’s revenge presidency

President-elect’s plans to take on federal bureaucracy sends government employees into blind panic

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Following the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of Elon Musk to make swingeing cuts to the federal government, civil servants are said to be quitting in droves.
Government insiders said employees were already resigning and looking for work in the private sector amid concern that their roles will be “politicised” under Mr Trump’s second administration.
Others fear they will be sacked.
Mr Trump has drawn up unprecedented plans to take on federal bureaucracy, promising to bring back “Schedule F” – a controversial order he introduced at the end of his first term, which would have made it easier to remove civil servants who disobey him.
The move is one measure he has proposed to take on the Washington “swamp”, which he says blocked many of his policy plans between 2017 and 2021.
“Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state,” the president-elect told supporters at his first rally of the 2024 election cycle.
“The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”
Since winning the election on Nov 5, Mr Trump has appointed the billionaire Mr Musk and Vivek Ramaswasmy, an entrepreneur and former Republican primary contender, to run a Department of Government Efficiency.
Mr Musk has said he intends to “delete” around 75 per cent of federal agencies, and has railed against bodies he says “serve no purpose apart from the aggrandisement of bureaucrats” with “fake jobs”.
He has also called for an end to work from home policies in the federal government.
His pseudo-agency, “DOGE”, will recommend cuts to be enacted by Mr Trump by executive order.
In a recent op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy said they plan to reduce the size of the government without passing any new legislation.
Among so-called swamp-dwellers, the reaction has been one of blind panic.
Jaqueline Simon, the policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said Mr Trump’s victory and his appointment of Mr Musk meant many of the union’s members were planning to desert their posts.
“Schedule F would involve reclassifying positions in the civil service and essentially turning them into political appointments,” she said.
“People would be fired or hired at will, they could be fired for any reason or no reason, including [their] politics and questions about an individual’s loyalty to Donald Trump.”
“I’ve heard people say that if they are ‘Schedule F-d’, they are retiring.”
The AFGE was one of the most prolific complainants in judicial reviews against Mr Trump during his first term, challenging his decision to alter collective bargaining clauses in federal workers’ contracts.
The organisation is thought to be planning more legal challenges in Mr Trump’s second term, when he will have control of both branches of Congress and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench.
Meanwhile, Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), said he and his colleagues were getting ready “for a really, really big fight” when asked about Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy’s plans.
The federal government employs almost three million people, many of whom work in Washington DC.
The size of the government peaked during the Second World War, then fell sharply in the 1950s before trending upwards into the mid-1990s. It has since declined marginally.
The federal debt, however, has continued to rise more sharply than ever before, spurred by stimulus packages and economic life support programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It now stands at more than $35 trillion, or $104,000 per person.
Mr Trump’s election could see the sharpest reduction in the civil service headcount and spending in decades.
But of those who stay, many are planning to fight.
“Trump-prepping” is now widespread among government employees, with some citing concerns about working on some of his more controversial policies, including the mass deportation of illegal migrants.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights nonprofit that filed more than 400 challenges to Mr Trump’s policies during his first term, has announced plans to “fight back” against his second administration.
Anthony Romero, the organisation’s president, said on the day after the election that it would focus on the four policy areas of migrant deportations, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, abortion rights and legal protections for whistleblowers.
The outgoing Biden administration is also trying to “future proof” the federal government, including by passing legislation that would reduce the effectiveness of a second Schedule F if it is passed after Mr Trump’s inauguration.
It has also attempted to spend the remainder of a budget allocated to military aid for Ukraine, and to bake in federal grant programmes for green energy and semiconductors that form part of Mr Biden’s “Bidenomics” industrial policy.
Jesus Soriano, a federal government scientist at the US National Science Foundation, told The Telegraph he was concerned that Mr Musk would recommend the closure of some research agencies and cut grant funding.
Mr Musk’s DOGE has taken to his social media platform, X, to criticise the US government’s decision to fund some research.
The agency claimed the government had handed out grants for “$100,000 to study if tequila or gin makes sunfish more aggressive” and “nearly $1 million to study if cocaine makes Japanese quail more sexually promiscuous”.
It’s not clear if this was genuinely the case.
However, Mr Soriano said a major reduction in federal research funding could see the US slip behind competitors in the development of AI, semiconductors and other technologies.
“The effects will be progressive, when it comes to the lack of development that occurs when the scientific enterprise is disrupted,” he said.
“In the long term, it will be difficult to redress.”
He added that many of his colleagues are “starting to look for jobs” or “preparing Plan Bs” because of Mr Trump’s election.
“There is self censure and fear, so employees are keeping their opinions to themselves, but I do know that many are planning and taking steps to leave through retirement or attrition, which represents a very expensive brain drain,” he said.
“Although no reform has been enacted, just the public comments alone are already having an effect.”
When Mr Trump takes office on Jan 20, his appointees are planning to launch a war on the state with immediate effect.
Allies at the America First Policy Institute and Heritage Foundation have spent years preparing hundreds of executive orders to be signed on his first day in the White House – many of which are designed to reform the government.
Mr Trump’s plans for revenge on the administrative state are already in motion. But who will win round two?
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