In a recent interview with Reuters, sources revealed that the establishment in Washington, DC is preparing to resist and thwart reforms proposed by a potential second Trump administration. These reforms aim to purge the administrative state by firing career bureaucrats from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI. If re-elected, President Trump plans to drain the administrative state or “deep state,” as he refers to it. The term “administrative state” describes unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies that exercise power to create and enforce their own rules, effectively usurping the separation of powers between the three branches of government.
This resistance is led by Democrats fearing a Trump return to the White House. They plan to use mass protests and legal means to stop any reforms from a Trump administration. Patrick Gaspard, the chief executive of the CAP Action Fund, told the New York Times that “what Trump and his acolytes are running on is an authoritarian playbook,” necessitating efforts to democracy-proof institutions and values. Similarly, Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, expressed concerns about a potential Trump agenda of reform and outlined plans to resist it.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has mapped out 63 scenarios to combat Trump’s policies, with one form of resistance being mass protests against his proposed reforms. The ACLU’s director, Anthony Romero, stated that they are planning for both a Biden victory and a Trump victory. In the latter scenario, the focus is on limiting the damage from an “epic era of abuse of power.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticized Democrats for their anti-democratic actions, describing them as a direct threat to democracy. Trump’s focus on overhauling the federal bureaucracy stems from his belief that career bureaucrats within the administrative state improperly target conservatives and conservative ideals with the help of the national security state or intelligence apparatus.
To counter this, Trump plans to place new constraints on the DOJ’s authority by decentralizing its power to other law enforcement agencies. He would also eliminate the FBI’s general counsel, an office that worked against his presidency and the investigation into the 2016 Russia hoax. Before leaving office in 2021, Trump signed an executive order (EO) reclassifying federal government employees as Schedule F, allowing for enhanced accountability and job performance within bureaucratic agencies. Biden canceled this EO upon assuming office in 2021, but if Trump returns to the White House, he will likely reimplement it and purge unelected technocrats running the federal government.