Newt Gingrich: The People vs. the bureaucrats

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By NEWT GINGRICH | DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION

A recent survey of senior government employees revealed that 42 percent of them plan to work against the incoming Trump administration.

According to Tyler O’Neil, managing editor of the Daily Signal, “A surprising number of federal government employees admit they are gearing up to act like a deep state, opposing the incoming second administration of Donald Trump.”

He cited a poll by RMG Research Survey, which had been commissioned by the Napolitan Institute.

This should not surprise us. Much of the federal bureaucracy was recruited from liberals who came to Washington to impose their values and views on the American people. Many of the regulatory agencies consider it their jobs to force the American people to do what bureaucrats proscribe.

Trump and the Make America Great Again movement are a mortal threat to these bureaucrats. If President-elect Donald Trump does what he said he would do during the campaign, he is going to threaten the lifetime work of many senior federal bureaucrats. Everything they spent years trying to impose on the American people will be wiped out by the Trump administration.

The new Elon Musk–Vivek Ramaswamy Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is an example of the kind of threat Trump represents for establishment bureaucrats. The DOGE’s goal to cut $2 trillion from government spending will shatter the patterns, habits, procedures, and systems of the bureaucratic Washington establishment.

Imagine you spent 20 or 30 years methodically building a system that would let you achieve your ideological goals — even if the American people opposed you. Then imagine your life’s work is suddenly threatened by outsiders who are businesspeople who thrived outside the typical Washington environment. You would be horrified. For you, the barbarians are at the gate.

This is not a new problem. A senior official in President George W. Bush’s Defense Department once told me that the Pentagon bureaucracy just hunkers down to outlast new administrations. They refer to appointed officials as “the summer help.”

During the first Trump administration, a senior State Department official pointed out to me there are about 27 appointees in the Foreign Service — and 13,000 full-time bureaucrats who oppose them. Like the Paul Newman film “Fort Apache, the Bronx,” he told me “we are in the building, and they are surrounding us.”

This continual problem of bureaucracies manipulating or ignoring elected officials was brilliantly captured in two BBC TV series “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister.” Producer Antony Jay was a senior adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Many of the episodes grew out of actual civil service manipulation against the prime minister. She said it was her favorite TV show. Every Trump appointee should watch the series.

Trump cannot possibly achieve his extraordinary goals if 43 percent of his senior bureaucracy is actively undermining him. Furthermore, bureaucracies that overrule elected officials violate President Abraham Lincoln’s principle, which he articulated at Gettysburg. We want “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Lincoln understood the importance of the elected executive controlling the instruments of government. In a small government (which exploded in size to win the Civil War), Lincoln replaced 1,200 of the 1,500 policy-making bureaucrats.

Since many of the people Lincoln replaced were Southerners, or pro-South, he could not possibly have won the war had they stayed in their positions. Replacing his opponents in the government with supporters was one of the key decisions that enabled the Union to endure four long, bitter years of war and prevail.

Trump does not have the power (nor would he have the ready replacements) to have an proportionate shift in today’s much larger government.

However, he must have the ability to replace bureaucrats who clearly try to sabotage, slow walk or undermine his policies.

This is a key principle the American people will accept. Once they have selected a chief executive that person should be able to execute. If they cannot, the whole system is beyond the control of the American people.

The Constitution has no provision for acceptable bureaucratic tyranny. It provides for the people to rule through elections to the House, Senate and White House.

Controlling rogue bureaucrats — and passing laws necessary to execute that control — will be a key test for the Trump administration and those who want to Make America Great Again.

This will be one of the first great struggles of the new administration.

Newt Gingrich is the former Speaker of the House. For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast. This was republished from Gingrich360.com with permission.

22 COMMENTS

  1. The bureaucrats are nothing more than a shakedown of the American taxpayer by threat of the law and putting you in jail. They’re stealing from the American taxpayer and getting rich at the same time partying and playing on private jets and fancy restaurants all over the world. One would think that the taxpayer would not be happy with the amount of money that’s being leveraged out of their wallet every day. So the bureaucrats don’t work they take hard earned money from people that do work and pretend that they’re watching out for their best interests, bureaucrats equal liars, and cheaters.

  2. I read yesterday in MRA’s Peoples March story that the organizers were looking for people to “resist” the new administration. I remember my ex-patriot cousin (East Timor) calling for people to “resist” the first Trump administration. I don’t know if these people give any consideration to what they are actually asking people to do, namely: resist the will of The American People as expressed in the election. Can’t they just please go away?

    • Ironically, the 43% of the reluctant folks are slightly less than the % of the population that voted against Don. People fail to remember that although Don won the electoral college vote, he barely won the popular vote. Those peeps have a great memory.

      • You sure about that…? /s 2020 was about “anyone blue no matter who” and “orange man bad”. So.. 2020 produced a senile old man who has advanced stages of dementia and has to wear depends just to get through the day. I’m guessing you voted for the shady pines candidate, even though you knew deep down that he would crash and burn. In 2020 with rampant ballot box stuffing, joey did win with unvetted ballots. Before you start screaming at the sky that it was a lie, I did watch the security video footage from a Atlanta polling place that had closed because of a “sprinkler system leak”, re-opened late at night and continued to run suitcases full of ballots through the counters. It’s kind of hard to dispute the video when it’s date/time stamped. The same footage the police would request while gathering evidence for charges. If this happened in Atlanta, I imagine it happened in other blue cities. Your hatred for America shows in every post you throw on here. You should seek a professional.

  3. Speaker Gingrich hit the nail on the head. While there has been lots of talk about limiting the terms of elected officials, the real power in DC resides within the federal bureaucracy. They will be in overdrive to thwart every Trump action that is not in their own self-interest.

    President Trump will initiate sweeping changes in DC, just watch federal employees launch conscious resistance and undermining efforts against our elected leader. To fully achieve substantial change, and return government power to the people, there needs to be term limits on federal employees. A smaller federal bureaucracy, filled with employees who support elected officials directions and do not act as a resistance to our best interests is how our Republic should function.

    President Trump faces four years fighting an internal battle with our federal workforce, but there is no other person with the fortitude, tenacity, and strength who can take on the deep state monster. Wishing DJT success in Making America Great Again!

  4. While we hear sreams of dismay about Project 2025, it is exactly what is needed and hopefully it will be fairly executed. It’s almot too late to save our republic but it can be done. Let us pray it works.

  12. Solution:
    Eliminate 22% of the federal positions by next week. Now you are down to 21% bad bureaucrats under Trump. Conduct a massive witch hunt to locate the bad actors. Pay federal employees a head hunter and bounty to rat out the bad bureaucrats. Get rid of them. Now, down to 10%.
    Conduct Nuremberg styled trials and threaten executions. The really bad ones will exit on their own. The remaining miserable Deep State and Administrative State actors……round them up and execute at 6:00 am. That’s how you do it.

    • There’s no hate like Christian love.

      You sound like such a nice person Lakreesha. I hope you aren’t passing your corrosive attitudes on to your kids if you have any.

    • Have you ever had a government job, Lakreesha? If you needed a job and Government job was on offer, would you refuse to take it? Tell the truth.

  14. Mr Newtie underestimates federal employees. Many I know will be happy to see the slugs fired (EEO, DEI, Affirmative Action, Diversity Committee, etc.). These were the people who got in the way and hindered the work being done, while demanding who should be hired and promoted without regard to qualifications or experience. Meanwhile the workhorses had to wait for promotions until the slugs were promoted, and had to do their jobs for them, since they were incompetent. Believe me, there are many federal employees who are secretly celebrating Trump’s actions.

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