The author did an excellent job of identifying the problem, but the solution goes begging.
As a career federal government employee for 36 years (retired), I can vouch for the premise that the majority of government employees lean left politically. Why is that? To me, it is quite obvious. The Democrats are the party of Big Government, ergo most government employees have a vested interest in supporting the Democrats rather than a party that supports smaller, limited government. The Republicans are seen as the enemy.
The Democrats and public employees at all levels of government have a symbiotic relationship. The Democrats support increased benefits for public employees in return for political support including campaign contributions. Public employee unions endorse and fund Democrat politicians who, in turn, provide and protect public employee benefits. Unless we change that relationship I see little hope in fixing a very real problem.
The real danger is a partisan administrative state that has enormous control over the lives of the citizens and will manipulate data to achieve political objectives. Even if the Republicans were able to seize the reins of government, they would be faced with a partisan bureaucracy that will resist change and undermine their efforts thru delay and damning leaks to the media.
The Pendleton Act was supposed to eliminate political patronage in filling government jobs and to go to a merit based system. The Act did not foresee the rise of public employee unions, which have become a substitute for patronage. The first step in addressing a partisan civil service is to eliminate public employee unions.
Excellent post, thanks.
Consevatives should really be seeking out and applying to Federal positions. Sure, we’d all like a smaller government, but it makes no sense for that to be any sort of impediment to getting Conservatives into available positions.
There’s an excellent opportunity right now in that the Gvt is giving all sorts of hiring preferences to veterans, who tend to be both more Conservative and less corruptable to begin with.