The original progressives presumed that a permanent federal bureaucracy would be politically neutral. That hasn’t been the case for a very long time. Therefore, real progress today should lead to seriously trimming what is accurately called our administrative state and dramatically increasing the number of political appointees.
While the latest round of “no kings” rallies may have come and gone, the most prominently displayed sign held by the rally-goers is not likely to disappear any time soon. And what might such a placard read? “Save Our Democracy” of course.
Actually, those signs should demand that we “Save Our Bureaucracy,” since that’s what their holders seem most determined to rescue, especially since that is the real target of our alleged king.
To be sure, bureaucracies of one sort or another are a necessary part of government. And that would be all governments all the time, not just our federal government during our modern time. But the best bureaucracies might be better defined as necessary evils, rather than simply necessary.
The best bureaucracies might also be those that do the bidding of democratically elected leaders. After all, what’s the point of a presidential election if not to have the winner poised and able to advance the policies that elected him in the first place?
Of course, Congress and the courts have important roles to play as well. The founders surely sought to ensure that. Far from an afterthought, the separation of powers is the key feature of our constitutional system, a system in which Congress was presumed to be the first among equals. Article I, after all, deals not with the powers and duties of the executive, but with those of Congress.
At last report no president, including the current one, has tried to eliminate either the Congress or the courts. To seek to persuade members of both? Certainly. To challenge them? Of course. To defy them? On occasion. To circumvent them? On other occasions. To actually veto acts on one branch and/or threaten to, in effect, veto acts of the other branch. Yes and yes.
Many presidents, both Democrat and Republican, heck most of our most effective presidents, have resorted to at least four of the above during their term of office. It goes with the territory. In fact, perhaps the best example of a past president as defier-in-chief was Andrew Jackson, who at one time or other resorted to all five.
That would be the same president who was routinely referred to as “King Andrew,” since he vetoed more bills sent to him by Congress than all previous presidents combined. It was not for nothing that the Whig party came into being to challenge Jackson, since the whigs of England were anti-monarchists. For that matter, it’s also not for nothing that the current president likes to think of himself as the reincarnation of Andrew Jackson.
The parallels are certainly there. Any list of our most populist-minded presidents would have to have these two at or very near the top. Each has had his issues with Congress and the courts. Each defied Congress and the courts. Each regarded the presidency as the first among equals. Lastly, Jackson put in place something called the “spoils system,” a system that likely would be the envy of his would-be Jacksonian successor.
“To the victor belongs the spoils” was the cry of Jackson and the original Jacksonians. And what were those spoils but government jobs, no, make that temporarily-held bureaucratic posts. That, in fact, would soon become the order of the day for both Democrats and Whigs and then for Democrats and Republicans. Such was essentially the story from Jackson on.
Well, not “on” until today, but “on” until the passage of the Pendleton Act and the concept/reality of an independent civil service was put in place in the 1880s, followed by the bipartisan progressive movement of the early twentieth century and its goal of a nonpartisan, expertise-driven permanent bureaucracy.
What a wonderful idea–at least in theory, if not in practice. Of course, it’s a good idea to have experts on hand to help advise those in power. Of course, it makes sense that such individuals should be politically neutral. But of course that’s not exactly the way things have turned out.
What happened? Our bureaucracy has grown as all bureaucracies inevitably grow. In doing so, our federal bureaucracy has also taken on powers and interests of its own. This, too, is virtually inevitable. What must be added to this brew is a unionized bureaucracy–a concept opposed by Democratic presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, but a fact of bureaucratic–and political life–that is very much a reality today.
Democratic presidents since Kennedy have not simply made their peace with a unionized bureaucracy; they have embraced and benefited from the same. And Republican presidents? GOP executives from Nixon through Trump One did little to nothing to change or reform, much less eliminate, a status quo that somehow managed to keep enlarging itself and asserting itself and its interests. During that same time, whether with Republican acquiescence or indifference–or willing cooperation, the federal bureaucracy has pretty transformed itself into its own interest group that functions largely as an arm of the Democratic party.
That would be, institutionally speaking, the same Democratic party that once held Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, honoring their political founding fathers. The irony is inescapable. Jefferson liked to preach that the best government was the least government. And Jackson? Well, no more need be said.
Then there is something called the Chevron deference. In 1984 in a case involving the Chevron company the Supreme Court ruled that the courts should defer to a federal bureaucracy’s “reasonable interpretation” of a law. The practical impact of that decision was to give additional clout to bureaucrats, while further diminishing the already diminishing role of Congress. The Court gradually did chip away at that ruling and finally overturned it in 2024. How all of this will play out politically and constitutionally is yet to be determined.
In the meantime Trump Two is moving against our behemoth bureaucracy on many fronts, whether that means defying it, dismantling it, dispersing it, or “DOGEing” it, rather than simply deferring to it. The result will not restore the Jacksonian spoils system. Nor should it. But it’s worth keeping in mind that such a system did have undeniable benefits for democratic government.
The original progressives presumed that a permanent federal bureaucracy would be politically neutral. That hasn’t been the case for a very long time. Therefore, real progress today should involve reforming the handiwork of the progressive reformers. It should lead to seriously trimming what is accurately called our administrative state and dramatically increasing the number of political appointees. Such action might actually help restore our democracy.
For that matter, both the Jacksonian spoils system and the current Trumpian effort to reform the existing system are much more consistent with saving “our democracy”—or what’s left of what was once our constitutional republic—than anything that those who wave “Save Our Democracy” placards might have in mind.
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