The civil service at least below the top rank is supposed to be a professional bureaucracy insulated from political firing and hiring. https://en.wikipedia.org

The civil service at least below the top rank is supposed to be a professional bureaucracy insulated from political firing and hiring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system > In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. It contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity. > The term was used particularly in politics of the United States, where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 due to a civil service reform movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States. > The term was derived from the phrase "to the victor belong the spoils" by New York Senator William L. Marcy,[1][2] referring to the victory of Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, with the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.[3] ... Note that this bit of corruption and incompetence was so entrenched once it got going that it was impossible to get rid of it for decades.