The Trump Administration has subjected government officials to a number of unprecedented executive orders prompting experts to ponder whether America is backsliding into autocracy.
Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy, has drafted orders stating he and his allies intend to “flood the zone” to overwhelm those who oppose the Trump administration. Since then, scare tactics, firings, and prosecutions of officials with dissenting political views have occurred.
Trump Fires Inspector Generals
In a recent move, President Donald Trump eliminated numerous political watchdogs known as inspector generals — governmental officials established to detect malversation within the government. Since beginning his second term, President Trump has fired seventeen inspector generals, according to The New York Times.
The Telescope asked Palomar Professor of Political Science, Peter Bowman, what the implications are of firing these inspector generals.
“It’s very alarming now,” Bowman said. “Republicans for decades have been wanting to reduce the size of government … That all said, the way they are going about it is constitutionally and legally alarming.”
“A lot of these federal agencies have inspector generals as a sort of watchdog to make sure the implementation of administrative rules are not done in a way that is illegal or unethical or any actions that present a conflict of interest,” he said.
Bowman explained that the recent actions of the Trump administration are unilaterally attempting to eliminate referees and dismantle the administrative state without the consent of Congress.
“A lot of regimes have backslid from democracy to autocracy. And a lot of consolidating, building, and budding autocracies have started this way,” Bowman said.
Administration Sends Letters to Local Officials
The Trump administration has also used scare tactics to suppress potential opposition from local governments, according the Los Angeles Times. The article also stated that numerous letters have been sent to state and local government officials admonishing them not to interfere with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
A memo from the Department of Justice states, “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands.
“This is a scare tactic, plain and simple. The president is attempting to intimidate and bully state and local law enforcement into carrying out his mass deportation agenda for him,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a Jan. press conference.
Administration Realigning Federal Workforce
Earlier this year, the Trump administration set an agenda for realigning the federal workforce.
A memo from the Office of Personnel Management declared that federal workers should be loyal and strive for excellence, according to a report from the Associated Press.
In response, American Federation of Government Employees Union President Everett Kelley said the memo from the OPM is meant to pressure employees disloyal to the new administration to resign.
“Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Kelley said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.
The purging of the workforce is part of a burgeoning movement to overhaul institutions that the administration considers “wasteful, disloyal or standing in the way of its objectives,” according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
Regarding the administration’s effort to reform governmental institutions, Professor Peter Bowman sees the firing of inspector generals as shedding light on the real motivation for remaking the workforce.
“The fact that Trump has summarily fired all these inspector generals, it tells me and a lot of analysts and political scientists that he and Elon Musk are not interested in cost savings as they are in putting in political appointees of the same position,” Bowman said.
Attorney General Vows to Take Action
The newly appointed Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has made statements that suggest she, too, could be taking action against government officials.
Bondi promised prior to being appointed that “politics will not play a part” in determining her investigations, according to The New York Times. Despite her promises, the New York Times reported that Bondi voiced her intent to prosecute those involved with former Trump legal cases.
Bondi said she intended to scrutinize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who initiated the first-ever criminal case against a president. Former special counsel Jack Smith could also come under scrutiny vis-a-vis his oversight of the investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents and his effort to reverse the 2020 election. Bondi also plans to examine New York Attorney General Letitia James whose civil fraud charge accused Trump of inflating the value of his properties, also according to The New York Times.
When Bondi was sworn into the position, she pledged to take action against officials who “substituted their personal political views or judgment for those that prevailed in the election.”
The Telescope asked Palomar Professor of History Bill Jahnel for his opinion on Bondi’s statement. “Bondi’s comments were clearly more directed at what we would term the ‘civil service,’ whom we have grown over the years to consider to be more functionaries that get business done rather than political players.”
However, Bondi’s statement has political implications when a government official’s views and not just their actions are concerned. Appointees under the Trump administration seem to be filtered by fealty to Trump’s agenda rather than dedication to political neutrality, as Jahnel explained.
He explained that Bondi’s statement is “particularly troublesome” because it requires “fealty and political agenda” instead of expertise.
“The conflation of opposing medical or legal expertise as ‘political opinions’ that need to be punished can indeed have an effect that hampers the practice of good government and reverts the American Government to systems that more closely resemble governments dominated by one-party rule, which we have historically criticized as corrupt and undemocratic,” Jahnel said.
