In his recent rally in Florence, South Carolina, Donald Trump spoke in support of candidates he would like to see in office. That was the main purpose of his rally. But he said something else that received less attention but which was even more important — that if he were re-elected, he would introduce reforms so that the president would have the authority to fire everyone in the Executive Branch. In his words, he would make them all “fireable.”
While this may have popular appeal, it is actually quite dangerous; it would produce the most significant increase in presidential power in American history.
Trump claims that this expansion of power is a way for him to eliminate what he has termed “the deep state,” but whatever you think about that term, Trump’s proposal would just make things worse. It is true that the president cannot fire anyone he wants to fire, except for those who are political appointees. This limitation on presidential power exists because of the Pendleton Act of 1883 (later strengthened by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978), which created the merit system of hiring members of the bureaucracy.
The merit system for the civil service (a better term than “deep state”) is good for the country, because it demands evidence of expertise for hiring and a verifiable cause for firing employees. This also means that the civil service can oppose any president who attempts to act outside of the law, since the rank-and-file employees are not beholden to the president. The merit system was created to eliminate what Trump has called the swamp. Back in the 1800s it was called the spoils system, when federal jobs were given as rewards to political loyalists, regardless of the level of their incompetence.
In the 1800s, the Executive Branch was very small, but it grew enormously under Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1900s and has continued to grow. It currently includes 15 departments, which I want to list here because seeing these helps one understand the breadth of governmental operations contained within them: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs. There are other entities, such as the Federal Reserve, that are part of the Executive Branch, but whose employees are not at this point “fireable” by the president. Again, all of these have political appointees in key leadership positions (including Cabinet secretaries, who are “fireable”), but the merit system exists for most civil servant jobs.
The Constitution put a delicate system of limited government into place, including separation of powers and checks and balances. And while the Founders (especially Alexander Hamilton) talked of the importance of an “energetic executive,” they were unanimous about the principle that the president was not to be a king or tyrant. Ours was to be a republican (with a lowercase “r”) government. If a modern president can fire anyone in the Executive Branch at will, we will no longer have limited government.
Imagine what could change if this proposal were implemented. What used to be civil service jobs would be handed out like candy for presidential loyalists who would be eager to please the president with everything they did. This would mean that any president would be able to use the CIA and the FBI for political purposes, and anyone standing in the way could be fired immediately. Political opponents of the president could be harassed and jailed at will. The IRS could become a political tool used to intimidate or threaten anyone who disagreed with the president. And the Department of Justice could launch investigations into the president’s opponents and could be forbidden to investigate the president or anyone the president wanted to protect. This would be a nightmare.
I have no idea what is motivating Trump to make this proposal, but it would have deep and lasting implications for our future. It would create a much deeper swamp than the country has ever seen. And it would effectively create regime change in America. It would destroy the delicate balance established by the Constitution — a balance that can sometimes be frustrating but which is essential for keeping our nation from transforming from a republican, representative government to a regime of almost unlimited presidential power.
If this were to happen, there would be no need for another attempted insurrection in the United States; the country we know would have fallen — using T.S. Eliot’s expression — with a whimper rather than a bang.
