Behind the Interim Scenes

The interval between when the results of a U.S. presidential election are known and Inauguration Day is always an instructive period. If it occurs with a president’s re-election, there is usually a minimum of visible change, and conversely, if the election brings in a new president, there is much change and many new faces in the incoming government.

This cycle, however, presents a particularly rare case – the election brings in a new president Donald Trump who is also, after four years of Joe Biden, a second-term president.

This has only occurred once before in U.S. history, and that occurred many years before any American now living was born.

President Trump has chosen and nominated new persons to take charge of the various cabinet departments and security and intelligence positions and boards, along with composing his own White House staff. Several men and women who served Mr. Trump in his first term are returning to different positions. Many of them worked on the Trump-Vance 2024 campaign. Almost all of these persons are already well-known to Mr. Trump, who has made it very clear that loyalty would be valued at a premium in his second administration.

A number of his appointments are “controversial” in a conventional sense, but having clearly run for a second term promising to make significant reforms and changes in the executive branch and its large bureaucracy, these Trump nominations and appointments should not be all that surprising.

The fact is that most of the “controversy” exists in the minds of the Democrats who lost the election and in the biased media figures who openly and uncritically supported the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the campaign cycle.

In 2016 and 2017, when Mr. Trump was forming his first term administration, his opponents delayed many of his cabinet and other personnel choices far beyond a normal period. In 2020 and 2021, Senate Republicans were much more prompt in their “advise and consent” role with Joe Biden. Since Trump has only four years at most, and more probably only two years given historical trends in midterm cycles, to enact and fulfill his campaign promises and policy agenda, the president-elect seems determined to move quickly to have his appointees on the job.

Already, one of his cabinet choices has withdrawn — facing not only Democratic but also some Republican opposition in the Senate. Most of Mr. Trump’s other choices, however, are more likely to be approved. He has said he would make “recess” appointments if any other of his choices are blocked or unnecessarily delayed. New Senate Majority Leader John Thune has pledged to facilitate the recess appointments if necessary.

President Biden, during his first days in office in 2021, signed numerous executive orders that, in effect, canceled many of his predecessor’s policies. President Trump will now do the same with Mr. Biden’s various policies. However, many other changes will require legislative action. Still, others will need the new cabinet secretaries and their deputies to bring reform to their huge bureaucracies, most of which will stubbornly resist change.

That is the major area of political combat that lies ahead after Inauguration Day and will test the loyalty, determination, and ingenuity of Trump’s cabinet appointments. The so-called “Deep State,” or permanent power bureaucracy, has no intention of agreeing to many, if not most, of Mr. Trump’s reforms and other changes. This is where his choice of appointees will be truly tested.

Mr. Trump made the present state of the federal bureaucracy and its unaccountable control over so much of government policy — and thus of the lives of every American — a central issue of his campaign to return to the White House.

The power of entrenched government bureaucracies is not just an American phenomenon. It is a global problem going back centuries and not limited to representative democracies. The vast Austro-Hungarian Empire of the 19th century exemplified the inherent growth and power of unwieldy bureaucracies. The literature of Franz Kafka and Robert Musil, and many other writers in that time and milieu, made it a natural and profound theme in their literary work more than a hundred years ago.

In the years that followed, bureaucratic culture became the focus of sociological studies and a political issue everywhere, and today it is a subject virtually every person knows about first-hand.

Of course, governments, like all organizations, require bureaucracies to function. Many individual bureaucrats are competent, hard-working, and compassionate. But bureaucracies, especially those whose members are not accountable, tend to think they know better than those who are accountable — in this case, those who are elected — and resist what voters want to happen through those they elect. The result is often political sabotage, public corruption, and social stagnation.

The behind-the-scenes activity at Mar-a-Lago is the preparation for this historic confrontation. Trump’s choices must not only be loyal, but they must also have the ability to outmaneuver and thwart the bureaucrats who resist reform and change. It is no small task. Nor is its outcome certain.

Today’s behind-the-scenes preparation will soon become tomorrow’s open political combat. If it succeeds, it will be Donald Trump’s historic legacy. If not, it will be more and more government and fewer and fewer resources for what needs to be done.

Barry Casselman is a contributor for AMAC Newsline.