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> Executive agencies and ancillary entities that are 90% controlled by democrats regardless of who wins the election Yeah, uhh, citation needed. Tell us about

> Executive agencies and ancillary entities that are 90% controlled by democrats regardless of who wins the election Yeah, uhh, citation needed. Tell us about the 90% of executive agencies that are headed by democrats today.

rayiner 1y ago
It's not just about who is the "head" of the agency. In practice, the career civil service has tremendous power and discretion to run the agency; political appointees can't do much without their cooperation. And the career civil service overwhelmingly is Democrats. 85% of federal employee donations went to Kamala Harris, 90% of you exclude the DOD: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/11/federal-employees-donate-42m-presidential-race-mostly-harris/400760 https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/11/federal-employees-.... The proportion of republicans in AOC's district in the Bronx and Queens is more than twice as high as in the federal government outside the DOD. And given that federal workers tend to be highly educated, and more educated people tend to be more politically ideological, you get a federal government that's a true monoculture. Certainly, we can debate about the degree to which the career civil service zealously carries out the agenda of the current elected administration. I suspect it depends on the agency. What's disturbing to me is the people who think the career civil service should serve as a "check" on the elected administration. These are the people who cite political appointees overruling career civil servants as itself an example of "dismantling democracy." They are the ones who cheered on civil servants who declared their "resistance" to Trump in 2017 at the start of his term. This view--which I think is fairly widespread--nakedly embraces the idea that "democracy" is where one party always runs the government, and that electing a President from the other party simply means that he gets to cajole and try to persuade civil servants into carrying out some of his agenda.

rayiner 1y ago

It's not just about who is the "head" of the agency. In practice, the career civil service has tremendous power and discretion to run the agency; political appointees can't do much without their cooperation. And the career civil service overwhelmingly is Democrats. 85% of federal employee donations went to Kamala Harris, 90% of you exclude the DOD: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/11/federal-employees-donate-42m-presidential-race-mostly-harris/400760 https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/11/federal-employees-.... The proportion of republicans in AOC's district in the Bronx and Queens is more than twice as high as in the federal government outside the DOD. And given that federal workers tend to be highly educated, and more educated people tend to be more politically ideological, you get a federal government that's a true monoculture. Certainly, we can debate about the degree to which the career civil service zealously carries out the agenda of the current elected administration. I suspect it depends on the agency. What's disturbing to me is the people who think the career civil service should serve as a "check" on the elected administration. These are the people who cite political appointees overruling career civil servants as itself an example of "dismantling democracy." They are the ones who cheered on civil servants who declared their "resistance" to Trump in 2017 at the start of his term. This view--which I think is fairly widespread--nakedly embraces the idea that "democracy" is where one party always runs the government, and that electing a President from the other party simply means that he gets to cajole and try to persuade civil servants into carrying out some of his agenda.