10 ms·

Why I’m leaving 18F

165 points by hodgesmr 9y ago

EternalData 9y ago
Important reading. More people are going to have to make hard choices like this as the months unfold, I'd imagine.
andrewla 9y ago
I don't mean to imply that the actions of the Trump administration are healthy or appropriate. But having just read "Dereliction of Duty" [1] about the Kennedy and Johnson administration and how the Vietnam War was managed in its early days, I think it's clear that the kind of behavior here, especially around valuing personal loyalty over competence or being given accurate information is not a new phenomenon. The fallout of Watergate, especially the fact that the executive no longer routinely records conversations, mean that we'll never have a good idea of normal/not-normal in this context ever again the way that we have it for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. So I can't say whether subsequent presidents have made similar decisions, but the "personal loyalty" thing is very definitely not a new thing. Note that this isolation from reality had large-scale disastrous consequences at that time, so this is not to say that we should become complacent about it. But in itself, I'm finding the "not normal" critique to be a bit shallow; a sort of tu quoque that substitutes for actually criticizing the concrete actions of the administration. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7834 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7834 -- written by H. R. McMaster, our current National Security Adviser, who I sincerely hope will hold to the standards that he advocates in that volume.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  The "norm" then was to crack down on the wrong when it came to light. Watergate's actions were done in secret and the heroes of the story were journalists investigating the wrongs and trying to correct them. Just because the past wasn't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't stop striving for perfection. Watergate having happened doesn't give the administration a blank check to carry out Watergate-level actions in public and treat them as if they were normal and as if they were right.
  - andrewla 9y ago
    Watergate was under Nixon, not Johnson or Kennedy -- I was merely pointing out that the side effect of Watergate was that presidents no longer recorded their conversations. This prevents us, for the sake of determining what is "normal", from having a record of what was actually being said by the president and his advisors while these terrible decisions were being made. Watergate was a criminal act. The acts of Kennedy and Johnson were not criminal, just irresponsible. In particular, cronyism and requiring personal loyalty are not "not normal" as alleged, and the "not normal" argument in general wears a bit thin and lacks any historical perspective.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      The article here points out that yes, the "normal" in US politics has since about the founding of the country been that the only fealty oath used by the federal government was one to the Constitution and the People. Cronyism and personal loyalty were not criminal, but were considered unethical and when such things come to light, it was the job of a free press and other parts of the government to fix them and make things better. It was never openly "normal" in any school of American government history to accept cronyism or personal loyalty. Sure it happened, but the goal was to reduce and/or eliminate it; that was the presumed "norm".
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rrggrr 9y ago
> Every day he [Trump] remains in office, civil servants have to ask themselves if political appointees are being given their positions due to merit, or to personal loyalty to Trump, or someone else in the Administration. Sounds like it was time for the author to move on and I wish him well, but his impact was highest inside the tent. With patience, flexibility and choosing his battles wisely he might have had some influence within his sphere of responsibilities. The author conflates norms for appearances. For good or bad Trump largely dispenses with appearances and practices his political maneuverings in the open, appearances be damned. But the practices are the same either way. I've interviewed for an executive branch position where having voted years prior for the opposite party disqualified me. I've worked in a state campaign where my relatives, having donated to the opposite party, placed me under suspicion. Patronage and loyalty testing are the OLDEST of political practices. None of this is new under Trump, and none of it ever changes except in times of indisputable and existential national crisis. Existential crisis is pretty much upon us. Much blame is deserved across the political spectrum for how we've arrived here.
- francisofascii 9y ago
  Reminds me of this quote supposedly said by Andrew Jackson: “If you have a job in your department that can't be done by a Democrat, then abolish the job."
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Trump has repeatedly praised Jackson, so there may be a reason for that...
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  "This stuff happened before at a smaller scale by everyone," is a terrifying argument of normalization. It was wrong then. The norms were to crack down on that sort of thing when it happened. Now it's an excuse because the past wasn't perfect that we should normalize the worst excesses of wrongness as the new right. That's frightening.
  - 9y ago
skybrian 9y ago
Here is the part that's news: "18F (and the larger service we created for it and its sibling organizations, the Technology Transformation Service), is being reorganized via administrative order into the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service. [...] "We were subsequently told that the new Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service would [...] immediately become a political position, with a person appointed directly by the White House." (The rest is standard anti-Trump rhetoric.)
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  > (The rest is standard anti-Trump rhetoric.) Everybody's saying it so it must be unimportant! It's not new so who cares!
  - draw_down 9y ago
    Yeah, people think they're really fucking cool with that sentiment sometimes. "Oh wow, news flash, VCs are sexist". Super unhelpful attitude.
    - kenning 9y ago
      Is this post satire?
  - skybrian 9y ago
    You don't have to repeat the same old thing just to show that you care. Do something more useful.
pmh 9y ago
Reminds me a bit of this earlier piece on Lawfare: https://www.lawfareblog.com/your-city-or-your-soul-moral-compromise-and-government-service https://www.lawfareblog.com/your-city-or-your-soul-moral-com...
pmorici 9y ago
I don't really find this post to be rational. 18F started out as a part of the executive office of the president. Their whole recruiting pitch revolved around the ego boost of the proximity to power. It was later moved under the umbrella of the GSA. Nothing described in this blog post with respect to 18F is exceptional or abnormal. The heads of major agencies and their sub components have always been political appointees. Government agencies reorganize internally constantly. 18F started out life being run by a political appointee and has previously been reorganized from the EOP to the GSA. The only difference now is that the OP doesn't care for the politics of the current administration.
- degenerate 9y ago
  For an example of how incompetent the GSA is, and why moving 18F underneath it was such a crap idea, look no further than the 2012 Oversight hearing on "Addressing GSA's Culture of Wasteful Spending": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oekP6OGbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oekP6OGbo The GSA is a living, breathing oxymoron. They try to simplify government purchasing by making 999 rules and hoops to jump through, burning through cash and taking a percentage of every contract put through the organization. It's a giant cancerous scam that was allowed to grow so big it can't be killed or stopped, like the IRS/Fed.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  I think you might be confusing the U.S. Digital Service, which started in the executive office of the president and is still there, and 18F, which started in GSA and is still there.
  - pmorici 9y ago
    I should have been more exact. The original 18F team was made up largely of former Presidential Innovation Fellows a program created by the EOP. The Presidential Innovation Fellows program predated 18F and was moved under the purview of 18F when it was created. So you are right wasn't part of the EOP but everything else still stands. They were created by the head of the GSA, a political appointee and a program created by the EOP was reorganized into them at their creation.
krschultz 9y ago
In addition to the obvious political angle, it's nice to see an engineer talking about their duty to the populace. Software engineers hand waive this off because we generally aren't building things that can kill people. We are however building things that have tremendous impact on people's lives, and many in our profession do not seem to take that seriously.

165 points by hodgesmr 9y ago

Important reading. More people are going to have to make hard choices like this as the months unfold, I'd imagine.

I don't mean to imply that the actions of the Trump administration are healthy or appropriate. But having just read "Dereliction of Duty" [1] about the Kennedy and Johnson administration and how the Vietnam War was managed in its early days, I think it's clear that the kind of behavior here, especially around valuing personal loyalty over competence or being given accurate information is not a new phenomenon. The fallout of Watergate, especially the fact that the executive no longer routinely records conversations, mean that we'll never have a good idea of normal/not-normal in this context ever again the way that we have it for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. So I can't say whether subsequent presidents have made similar decisions, but the "personal loyalty" thing is very definitely not a new thing. Note that this isolation from reality had large-scale disastrous consequences at that time, so this is not to say that we should become complacent about it. But in itself, I'm finding the "not normal" critique to be a bit shallow; a sort of tu quoque that substitutes for actually criticizing the concrete actions of the administration. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7834 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7834 -- written by H. R. McMaster, our current National Security Adviser, who I sincerely hope will hold to the standards that he advocates in that volume.

WorldMaker 9y ago
The "norm" then was to crack down on the wrong when it came to light. Watergate's actions were done in secret and the heroes of the story were journalists investigating the wrongs and trying to correct them. Just because the past wasn't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't stop striving for perfection. Watergate having happened doesn't give the administration a blank check to carry out Watergate-level actions in public and treat them as if they were normal and as if they were right.
- andrewla 9y ago
  Watergate was under Nixon, not Johnson or Kennedy -- I was merely pointing out that the side effect of Watergate was that presidents no longer recorded their conversations. This prevents us, for the sake of determining what is "normal", from having a record of what was actually being said by the president and his advisors while these terrible decisions were being made. Watergate was a criminal act. The acts of Kennedy and Johnson were not criminal, just irresponsible. In particular, cronyism and requiring personal loyalty are not "not normal" as alleged, and the "not normal" argument in general wears a bit thin and lacks any historical perspective.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    The article here points out that yes, the "normal" in US politics has since about the founding of the country been that the only fealty oath used by the federal government was one to the Constitution and the People. Cronyism and personal loyalty were not criminal, but were considered unethical and when such things come to light, it was the job of a free press and other parts of the government to fix them and make things better. It was never openly "normal" in any school of American government history to accept cronyism or personal loyalty. Sure it happened, but the goal was to reduce and/or eliminate it; that was the presumed "norm".

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rrggrr 9y ago

> Every day he [Trump] remains in office, civil servants have to ask themselves if political appointees are being given their positions due to merit, or to personal loyalty to Trump, or someone else in the Administration. Sounds like it was time for the author to move on and I wish him well, but his impact was highest inside the tent. With patience, flexibility and choosing his battles wisely he might have had some influence within his sphere of responsibilities. The author conflates norms for appearances. For good or bad Trump largely dispenses with appearances and practices his political maneuverings in the open, appearances be damned. But the practices are the same either way. I've interviewed for an executive branch position where having voted years prior for the opposite party disqualified me. I've worked in a state campaign where my relatives, having donated to the opposite party, placed me under suspicion. Patronage and loyalty testing are the OLDEST of political practices. None of this is new under Trump, and none of it ever changes except in times of indisputable and existential national crisis. Existential crisis is pretty much upon us. Much blame is deserved across the political spectrum for how we've arrived here.

francisofascii 9y ago
Reminds me of this quote supposedly said by Andrew Jackson: “If you have a job in your department that can't be done by a Democrat, then abolish the job."
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Trump has repeatedly praised Jackson, so there may be a reason for that...
WorldMaker 9y ago
"This stuff happened before at a smaller scale by everyone," is a terrifying argument of normalization. It was wrong then. The norms were to crack down on that sort of thing when it happened. Now it's an excuse because the past wasn't perfect that we should normalize the worst excesses of wrongness as the new right. That's frightening.
- 9y ago

skybrian 9y ago

Here is the part that's news: "18F (and the larger service we created for it and its sibling organizations, the Technology Transformation Service), is being reorganized via administrative order into the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service. [...] "We were subsequently told that the new Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service would [...] immediately become a political position, with a person appointed directly by the White House." (The rest is standard anti-Trump rhetoric.)

tinus_hn 9y ago
> (The rest is standard anti-Trump rhetoric.) Everybody's saying it so it must be unimportant! It's not new so who cares!
- draw_down 9y ago
  Yeah, people think they're really fucking cool with that sentiment sometimes. "Oh wow, news flash, VCs are sexist". Super unhelpful attitude.
  - kenning 9y ago
    Is this post satire?
- skybrian 9y ago
  You don't have to repeat the same old thing just to show that you care. Do something more useful.

pmh 9y ago

Reminds me a bit of this earlier piece on Lawfare: https://www.lawfareblog.com/your-city-or-your-soul-moral-compromise-and-government-service https://www.lawfareblog.com/your-city-or-your-soul-moral-com...

pmorici 9y ago

I don't really find this post to be rational. 18F started out as a part of the executive office of the president. Their whole recruiting pitch revolved around the ego boost of the proximity to power. It was later moved under the umbrella of the GSA. Nothing described in this blog post with respect to 18F is exceptional or abnormal. The heads of major agencies and their sub components have always been political appointees. Government agencies reorganize internally constantly. 18F started out life being run by a political appointee and has previously been reorganized from the EOP to the GSA. The only difference now is that the OP doesn't care for the politics of the current administration.

degenerate 9y ago
For an example of how incompetent the GSA is, and why moving 18F underneath it was such a crap idea, look no further than the 2012 Oversight hearing on "Addressing GSA's Culture of Wasteful Spending": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oekP6OGbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oekP6OGbo The GSA is a living, breathing oxymoron. They try to simplify government purchasing by making 999 rules and hoops to jump through, burning through cash and taking a percentage of every contract put through the organization. It's a giant cancerous scam that was allowed to grow so big it can't be killed or stopped, like the IRS/Fed.
snowwrestler 9y ago
I think you might be confusing the U.S. Digital Service, which started in the executive office of the president and is still there, and 18F, which started in GSA and is still there.
- pmorici 9y ago
  I should have been more exact. The original 18F team was made up largely of former Presidential Innovation Fellows a program created by the EOP. The Presidential Innovation Fellows program predated 18F and was moved under the purview of 18F when it was created. So you are right wasn't part of the EOP but everything else still stands. They were created by the head of the GSA, a political appointee and a program created by the EOP was reorganized into them at their creation.

krschultz 9y ago

In addition to the obvious political angle, it's nice to see an engineer talking about their duty to the populace. Software engineers hand waive this off because we generally aren't building things that can kill people. We are however building things that have tremendous impact on people's lives, and many in our profession do not seem to take that seriously.