US Civil servants are being asked who they voted for in 2024 election

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-civil-service-loyalty-transition-b2678674.html

by belter • 1 year ago

145 116 1 year ago

independent.co.uk

Terr_7• 1 year ago

This is not normal.

The next step on this path would be for Republicans to introduce some innocuous-sounding legislation... Perhaps something like "Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Restoration_of_the...

Terr_7• 1 year ago

P.S. To be more explicit, these provisions:

[§4] Officials whose previous political activities do not guarantee that they will always be fully committed to the national state may be dismissed from service.
[§7] Dismissal from office [...] shall be pronounced by the highest Reich or state authority, which shall make the final decision without recourse to the courts.

And that's how the freshly-arrived executive guy started unilaterally firing people he felt were insufficiently servile to his agenda, ignoring prior checks-and-balances and without appeal.

nitinrao• 1 year ago

Does loyalty give you enough talent?

Yoric3• 1 year ago

I don't think that the current administration favors talent all that much. In fact, aren't they attempting to get rid of many of the civil servants to replace them with magical LLMs?

BoredPositron• 1 year ago

If the money is right? I guess we will see a flood of „I am not interested in politics“ people like in every other oligarchy spring up in the US.

vkou• 1 year ago

Autocrats rarely value talent over loyalty. Look at the qualifications of the Oberfuhrer appointed as secretary of defense the other day for an example (With a 51/50 split because of 3 Republicans voting no - precisely the amount that is completely meaningless. His predecessor was appointed 91/2.)

Your mistake is assuming that good governance is a goal of the current administration, and anyone who only voted for it because of $3.50 eggs will be in for a rude surprise. And I will have not a drop of sympathy for them - they are adults who should have known better. None of this is a surprise.

rsynnott4• 1 year ago

Talent has never seemed to be something that Trump was particularly interested in.

lazide7• 1 year ago

talent/competence gets in the way of loyalty more often than not - much easier to do what you are told when you don’t know what to do anyway.

akmarinov• 1 year ago

Just say Trump and move on?

Terr_7• 1 year ago

How well has that strategy worked out for the Republican party internally over the last ~9 years?

Rather than enabling them to glide over the brief uncomfortable moment with their backbones and stated principles intact, it seems to have left them congratulating the emperor on his new clothes.

There are additional layers here because "I voted for Dear Leader" both pumps up the narrative of popular inevitability a regime tries to advertise, and it also binds the speaker more tightly to the regime by making it hard for any broad opposition to cohere. ("If they lied once, why not twice?")

lazide7• 1 year ago

Of course. But until enough people feel the pain to actually fight back (and not in the courts, but you know - violently, so there are actual consequences), it’s clearly suicide to do anything else, yes?

lnsru• 1 year ago

If you’re older and with mortgage yes.

apexalpha3• 1 year ago

Just say Trump and move on?

Just wear the yellow sticker and move on.

Yoric3• 1 year ago

Best guess: at this stage, this is (yet another) move to get civil servants to quit, rather than having to lay them off.

Nevertheless, chilling and, I imagine, very illegal.

jemmyw• 1 year ago

No - these people are loaned to the NSC, they don't lose their job if they no longer have a position there, they return to their previous position in the agency they came from.

Yoric3• 1 year ago

Good to know, thanks.

dtgm92• 1 year ago

Voting should never jeopardize your career... the last thing you want with voting is to associate fear and possible job insecurity. You should be able to freely vote for anyone without any consequences.

chii2• 1 year ago

Yep. Luckily, you can easily lie about who you voted for, and it's not possible to verify.

Etheryte• 1 year ago

For now. We should never accept basic freedoms being sidelined like this just because there is another one that protects us — what if that one gets the same treatment.

janice1999• 1 year ago

As long as you didn't voice any ungood thoughts about Dear Leader anywhere...

whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by President-elect Donald Trump's team

perihelions• 1 year ago

The norm of democracy is government doesn't ask people who they voted for; not that people lie to the government about who they voted for.

Wow, is the Overton Window shifting fast.

kristianc2• 1 year ago

A good thing the parties don't have registered party affiliation lists they can x-verify the information against then. Of registered voters in the US, 47% have declared a party affiliation.

lawn• 1 year ago

You think they would stop at not being able to verify it properly?

They'll gladly fire you for "not being loyal enough" whatever the cause, for example like ever questioning the dear leader or refusing to do exactly as told.

Terr_7• 1 year ago

Forcing victims to compromise themselves is part of the strategy. Even as a lie, it demoralizes them, binds them to your organization, and isolates them from one-another.

carlosjobim5• 1 year ago

1. Presidents and other rulers will always put people who align with them politically in the important offices. Because that's what the people voted for. Anything else would be undemocratic. It's not about "job security".

2. Nobody can know who you voted for.

wiml2• 1 year ago

A good president isn't a "ruler"

eesmith4• 1 year ago

The US switched from the spoils system to the civil service system because the voters did not want a system where rulers could always put people who align with them politically into non-political offices.

The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (passed in 1883) and subsequent laws were put into place democratically. To think otherwise is farcical.

Guiteau took the spoils system pretty personally, as you might recall.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 1 year ago

Under authoritarians, voting is theatre where everyone under the leader are rubber stamps which approve whatever the authoritarian wants. If they don't they get removed. Currently we're seeing 'soft' removals where people are being fired, or reclassified and then fired. If nothing stops this track then in future (not sure how far out) we'll be hearing stories about officials 'falling out of windows' as so many of Putin's people have.

blased• 1 year ago

Voting should never jeopardize your career...

Weird how, as a conservative, I've never felt even remotely supported (for lack of a better word) at any of the numerous jobs I've had.

In fact it's very clear that workplaces generally cater to liberals and it seems those people have no theory of mind regarding anyone but themselves.

delichon• 1 year ago

The alternative to a president picking the advisors they want is to continue to employ advisors that they don't want, but to ignore them. How is that an improvement for anyone, except possibly the advisor?

I suppose one way to limit presidential power is to somehow force them to take meetings with advisors that they can't fire. You could neuter them with endless required meetings. That sure seems to be effective at my workplace.

rat87• 1 year ago

The civil service at least below the top rank is supposed to be a professional bureaucracy insulated from political firing and hiring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. It contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity.
The term was used particularly in politics of the United States, where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 due to a civil service reform movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States.
The term was derived from the phrase "to the victor belong the spoils" by New York Senator William L. Marcy,[1][2] referring to the victory of Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, with the term spoils meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.[3]

...

Note that this bit of corruption and incompetence was so entrenched once it got going that it was impossible to get rid of it for decades.

Arnt• 1 year ago

Civil services typically have both kinds — political appointees and career servants,

The career servants are there for expertise and stability. For the political leadership, they bring deep knowledge of what's happened in the past years. For their department and for the population that the state serves, they bring stability and continuity to the projects their department executes.

Remember that the Department of Foo carries out Foo-related projects. One generally does not want to replace all the senior people mid-project.

CapricornNoble2• 1 year ago

For their department and for the population that the state serves, they bring stability and continuity to the projects their department executes.

The less polite term for what you are describing is "The Deep State": unelected government bureaucrats who keep stuff rolling despite political turnover. Brian Berletic has some good videos on YT where he's described the continuing escalatory actions of the US with regards to Russia across every Presidency of the 21st century, both Democrat and Republican.

Bureaucrats keeping the Department of Commerce consistent is probably fine. Bureaucrats keeping the Executive Branch's own National Security Council (which is what the article is about) from changing course on major issues including foreign policy? Probably NOT fine.

andyjohnson0• 1 year ago

The alternative to a president picking the advisors they want is to continue to employ advisors that they don't want, but to ignore them. How is that an improvement for anyone, except possibly the advisor?

This isn't about political advisors, its about normal career civil servants.

wiml2• 1 year ago

The problem is the president seeking yes-men and sycophants.

Do you think it would be reasonable for you to have to submit your voting history before posting on HN? Why not?

rsynnott4• 1 year ago

Bloody hell, the US is really speedrunning to failed state, isn’t it?

Is this even _legal_?

yongjik• 1 year ago

Is this even _legal_?

That never stopped Trump, though ... (shrug)

apexalpha3• 1 year ago

Is this even _legal_?

Does that matter when you stuff the legislative and judicial branches with loyal followers?

dawnerd• 1 year ago

Would it even matter? He was found guilty and just kinda let off without even a slap in the wrist. He’s crazy empowered to do whatever he wants, he stacked the Supreme Court and congress is basically all his too. Political views aside, this is a complete breakdown of our checks and balances

osrec• 1 year ago

America starting to look more and more scary with each passing day. Not sure where it eventually ends up, but the trajectory doesn't look too good.

tallanvor• 1 year ago

I've been living overseas for 18 years and 6 months ago I was starting to feel like it might be time to move back to the US. That's off the table now.

richie_adler2• 1 year ago

Even after the first Trump presidency happened?

smitty1e• 1 year ago

After the experience of being sold out by Vindman the first time around, wanting to know that the staff isn't going to sandbag him seems natural for Trump.

Also natural are these breathless takes from the media.

So it goes.

bananapub• 1 year ago

it's just beyond belief that 100 million americans saw this career criminal who promised to absolutely fuck things up while lying about what he was going to let his mates do, and said "yeah, seems like a plan".

DoingIsLearning• 1 year ago

I think the moment that clicked for me was when I heard young people in my family circle (25 and below), _in_Europe_ claiming that Trump "will likely be good for the economy".

When I dug deeper they were effectively repeating talking points they heard on TT. When I dug deeper I also realized they are conditioned to distrusted mainstream news, but somehow 10sec videos on TT are legit.

If you can shape the opinions of young men in Europe, raised in social-democratic nations to have them believe that a bankrupt, convict, conman, traitor, kompromat, will be good for the US and global economy then you can truly shape any opinion anywhere.

Swizec• 1 year ago

I think the moment that clicked for me was when I heard young people in my family circle (25 and below), _in_Europe_ claiming that Trump "will likely be good for the economy".

Same. I am on a plane from visiting family in Europe right now. They are all convinced Trump is good for America. When pressed, they agree he may not be good for America’s people, but definitely good for America.

The young ones get their news from Rogan (and do their own research), the old ones get it from TV and think the left-wing neoliberal elites have gone too far and must be stopped.

Nobody in my family is actually right-wing and they agree with all left-wing policies when presented individually. But not when they’re asked about “the left”.

rsynnott4• 1 year ago

There's precedent; notably see Berlusconi. Who, even after being removed from power and convicted of tax fraud, _managed to get elected again_ (albeit as an MEP; Italy does tend to treat their MEP vote as a _bit_ of a joke).

(Like Trump, Berlusconi was given special treatment; he was jailed for four years, but it was commuted to unpaid community service. Many countries indulge in this sort of special handling for their criminal politicians, and it's really a terribly bad idea; it only encourages more misbehaviour.)

CapricornNoble2• 1 year ago

Within mere days of Trump coming into office, we've seen:

1. ICE round up and deport violent illegal aliens. [1]

2. The US military deploy to assist with securing the southern border. [2]

These both appear to be fairly easily to implement and with tangible impacts and yet.... the previous administration did neither. So was their inaction due to incompetence, or malevolence? Either way many Americans are looking at the lying, cheating, corrupt NYC real estate demagogue and thinking "Maybe he can fix some of the stuff we actually care about...". Which is an absolutely scathing indictment of The Establishment (tm) politicians IMO.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/first-images-ice-mass-depor...

[2] https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photo-Collections/19870/d...

entropyneur• 1 year ago

As someone who lived most of my life under authoritarianism, this rings so many alarms. Pressing civil servants and government workers to vote the way you need is basically the first trick in the dictator's manual.

pavlov• 1 year ago

And the point isn’t that they should actually vote a particular way.

The point is that they should start feeling that it’s inconceivable to become a whistleblower, regardless of what they see on the job, because the implied punishment is so high.

Terr_7• 1 year ago

Also, the authority forces individuals into acts that bind them tighter to the regime while isolating them from other options. Ex:

"Bob wants to join the resistance. He says he was lying about the loyalty oath the oppressors."

"I dunno, even if Bob was always lying about that, it still makes him the kind of person who would deceive people in order to keep his job, so I'm not sure we can trust him either."

lazide7• 1 year ago

this is what is setting off alarms?!?

rsynnott4• 1 year ago

I mean obviously a lot of stuff should be, but this is a very bad sign; it's very much something you tend to see in democracies that go dictatorship.

pjc503• 1 year ago

They never said "only this". Anyone with an authoritarianism alarm has long since taken the batteries out of it.

JumpCrisscross3• 1 year ago

Pressing civil servants and government workers to vote the way you need is basically the first trick in the dictator's manual

I'm blown away this isn't illegal.

pjc503• 1 year ago

It probably is, but - guess what - they stacked the Supreme Court, which determines what is and isn't illegal. Same deal as in Poland.

prasadjoglekar• 1 year ago

I read the article and learned something new. Non political (aka career) Members of the NSC are deputized from their parent agencies - FBI, DOJ etc. Those that are removed return to their parent agency to continue line work.

And these are not some line DMV workers. They are high officials. It's not nearly as alarming as the headline makes it sound. I think it's fair for a new elected political leadership to expect high officials to be aligned with the policies they were voted in on.

JumpCrisscross3• 1 year ago

It's not nearly as alarming as the headline makes it sound

It is from a national security perspective. A body borne out of WWII has been rendered into a partisan shell [1]. That's a lot of institutional knowledge walking out the doors.

We started dismantling the spoils system in the 19th century and, other than in Chicago, had largely eradicated it by the nuclear era [2]. It's wild to think that a nuclear superpower's national security advisory board is no longer going to be merit based.

(From a domestic political perspective I agree it's being blown out of proportion.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Securit...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system#Reform

gatlin• 1 year ago

I don't have much of anything in common with the incoming admin but even I can see what you're saying is true. This is a special privilege, not a job, that is being conditioned. If everyone keeps crying wolf we won't be as alert when something fascist does happen.

belter• 1 year ago

Wait until they ask all government projects to rename git branches from main to master....

https://youtu.be/P2PIco48G4k

Spacemolte• 1 year ago

This is extremely scary... and very much not a surprise.

saboot• 1 year ago

The article is from January 13 .. why post it now?

sethammons• 1 year ago

can anyone confirm if the fearmongering in the article took place after the inauguration?

whamlastxmas• 1 year ago

The headline is a lie. It doesn’t even try to support it in the article. They were asked if they can support the agenda that is literally their job to support.

dzonga• 1 year ago

this was outlined clearly in the project 2025 doc - which is / was online.

so why are people suddenly surprised ?

StefanBatory• 1 year ago

because it was fearmongering! Exactly like Brexit, don't listen to the Remain!

happytoexplain2• 1 year ago

As always: Shock/outrage != surprise. We should be shocked and outraged by evil deeds, regardless of how clearly forecasted.

DinoDad13• 1 year ago

The only constant in this universe is "change" so what ideology can be more illogical than one that rejects change? We are about to learn this lesson again as a society.

apexalpha3• 1 year ago

It's crazy to me how many things Trump and his friends get away with simply by doing another thing.

Launch a shitcoin and rugpull it for personal benefit just before the inauguration?

Who cares just do some other preposterous thing.

Oh now that's in the news? Well just do another one...

penguin_booze• 1 year ago

"Whom" they voted for.

zwerdlds• 1 year ago

"For 'whom' they voted."

difosfor• 1 year ago

Isn't it illegal to force people to tell who they voted for? That seems like one of the most basic democratic freedoms to protect.

notcrazylol• 1 year ago

Its kinda funny looking at it from another country. Before Trump was president, anyone who associated with Trump was labelled every bad word in the dictionary - racist, sexist, etc. If you had said you voted for Trump and supported Trump, you would lose your job - example being the Trumps administration's Publicist(? I dont know the exact job description). She had to disassociate with Trump so that she could be hired elsewhere.

Now since he won the election and the tides have turned, these very people who labelled others and fired people who sided with Trump, when faced with the same issue are making this a big issue. US media and the people there are something else lol.

Also if you guys had the same scrutiny for all the other presidents, your country would have been better. A person who said "okay" to bomb 8 countries and receive a Nobel peace prize? Well played.

rich_sasha• 1 year ago

Didn't Trump have some of his first term plans frustrated by "civil disobedience" of his civil service?

I'd love to see his decisions overturned, but I suppose it shows the dangers of trying to smother populists in non-democratic ways. He is reacting reasonably to his first term, and he is not shy of such actions.

A better way to fight populism long-term is to deliver a system of fair government, and education so people can recognize that and not vote for tyrants. I am amazed what state schooling actually does for 12 years, at a huge cost to worldwide budgets, with people coming out the other end barely able to do maths and reading comprehension.

Terr_7• 1 year ago

Didn't Trump have some of his first term plans frustrated by "civil disobedience" of his civil service?

IIRC some portion of it was "wait one week and he'll forget the crazy thing and lose interest" and some "I won't commit crimes for you." I feel those both deserve a separate category.

underseacables• 1 year ago

No, I'm sorry that's not true. That's absolutely illegal. Everyone who works in the federal government knows this. If just one person was confronted by their manager and asked who they voted for, that person would already be on the news screaming, and the union would be having a meltdown.

I call BS.

vaadu• 1 year ago

Fake news. They are asking people who work on the National Security Council.

This isn't happening government wide.

US Civil servants are being asked who they voted for in 2024 election

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