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Trump’s Executive Order on Bias Training Sparks Widespread Alarm, Confusion
Posted
November 20, 2020
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4:51Now PlayingWhen the final chapter is written on the impact Donald Trump’s presidency has had on government, it will tell the story of an administration that has undermined its capabilities in ways that are both well-known and under the radar. At best, this administration has sabotaged its own success. At worst, it's weakened the nation’s ability to respond to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, the economic crisis and a host of national security issues.
Trump has ousted his own appointees at the Pentagon and elsewhere in a manner that has become the president’s signature — by tweet. Dismissing Defense Secretary Mark Esper and, more recently, Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and replacing them with acolytes fits the long-standing pattern of an administration that has seen four White House chiefs of staff, four national security advisers and unusually high Cabinet turnover.
The latest purge is unsurprising because we’ve seen it before in Trump's relentless drumbeat of workforce upheaval and instability. But beyond the high-profile changes in key leadership positions, alarming examples of turmoil have occurred outside of public scrutiny, including the loss of significant numbers of career employees and their expertise at multiple agencies.
The Department of Education, for example, which has championed many controversial policies, lost more than 14% of its career workforce, while employment at the Department of Agriculture fell by almost 8%, in part because of a decision to relocate two major research offices from Washington to Kansas City. The move resulted in a huge exodus of talent.
Non-foreign-service employment at the State Department fell by nearly 9% from December 2016 to December 2019, a period that saw nine senior positions turn over at least once. Currently, more than one-third of the assistant secretary or undersecretary positions are vacant or filled by acting officials, leaving career diplomats and civil-service staff without direction and many initiatives adrift.
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