With baseless claims of a ‘deep state,’ President Trump trashes notion of civil service

Long before I ever found my way to Boise State, I taught at a number of Chicago universities offering courses in public administration and budgeting, public finance and budgeting, human resource management in the public sector and other courses for students interested in the public service.

My students would find careers in local, state and federal government. I always had enormous respect for their “calling,” knowing full well that their public sector careers might not generate the income other students who studied business administration hoped to earn in the private sector. Calling is the right word because they were driven by a desire to contribute to the public good and serve their fellow citizens in government.

There is not a time when I walk into an office to renew my driver’s license or read a report in the news about a police officer who came to the rescue of a citizen in need that I don’t think about all the law enforcement officers in my classes seeking to improve their skills and knowledge of government as they advanced in their careers. Given the large number of federal agencies in Chicago, many of my students served in the federal civil service or they were working toward a master’s degree that would make them more attractive job applicants to the federal civil service.

Throughout most of the 19th century, the route to most jobs in the federal government can best be described by an old saying, “to the victor goes the spoils,” the spoils being the government jobs the winner of the election was able to reward his supporters. Patronage, as it was called, became the tool politicians at the federal, state and local level used to encourage supporters to work for them, knowing that a victory would mean a job in government.

Then, in 1881, James Garfield was elected president and he went to work on civil service reform, writing a law that would bring civil servants into government on the basis of merit and competitive exams. Garfield was assassinated in the first year of his presidency by a disgruntled office seeker, but that made the case for civil service reform even stronger, and his successor, President Chester Arthur, signed the reforms into law.

Originally, the Pendleton Act applied to only a few positions, but they multiplied over the years to current day with most federal government positions governed by the civil service reforms instituted in the 19th century and strengthened over the years.

I thought of our federal civil servants recently when I learned that a federal agency had recruited a very successful member of Boise’s business community to a high-level position in a federal agency in Washington. That word “calling” came to mind, how some people answer a call to public service over a career in the private sector because they know they can make a difference in the public realm and apply their expertise to a higher purpose. Here out West, it could be a federal official in the Bureau of Land Management answering the call to preserve and protect federal lands.

Wherever they are and whoever they are, in local, state or federal government, they deserve our gratitude and support for their devotion and commitment to good government.

Unfortunately, much of the good will and support our federal officials have enjoyed was trashed by President Trump’s election and his call for “draining the swamp” and his reference to a “deep state” that he accused of running the federal government against the will of the people and encroaching on the individual rights of Americans. His promise to “drain the swamp” can hardly be taken seriously since his revolving door at the White House has sent a cast of nefarious characters in and out of office, some of them headed for the courts and prison time. But he still beats the drum against the “deep state” and picks up the support of simple-minded conservatives who see bogey men and women in every federal agency.

David Rhode, whom I interviewed recently at Reader’s Corner about his book, “In Deep: The FBI, The CIA, And The Truth About America’s ‘Deep State,’” decided to look back over recent history to see if there is any substance to Trump’s claim of a “deep state.” It’s tough to find a more respected member of the national press, a two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the only reporter I ever interviewed who was captured by the Taliban and then escaped their clutches.

Although Rhode’s analysis covers the CIA and FBI, he examines the broader charge that an ever-growing federal bureaucracy, an administrative state, has somehow overruled the will of the people and grown so powerful that it threatens our individual rights.

The book will be particularly interesting to Idahoans because Rhode launches his study with a focus on Idaho Sen. Frank Church’s Senate Select Committee that detailed decades of illegal misconduct by the FBI and the CIA. Rhode assesses each presidential administration since then to see how the Church Committee recommendations have been implemented to prevent future abuses.

By the time Rhode arrives at his epilogue, he concludes there is no “deep state” in the conspiratorial way Trump uses the term nor is there any evidence of a widespread, politically motivated coup. He does see the Church Committee consensus having completely broken down under Trump, thanks to Trump’s distrust and disdain for government and his conspiracy theories and attacks on anyone whose job it is to investigate abuses in government.

Finally, Rhode flips the “deep state” accusation Trump levels at the federal government. He suggests that if the “deep state” is a group of officials who secretly wield governmental power with little accountability or transparency, then Trump and his loyalists fit the definition of the “deep state” by creating a parallel, shadow government of like-minded loyalists who eschew transparency and democratic norms.

Rhode has performed a valuable service to his nation with this comprehensive review of the impact of the Church Committee reforms over recent years and his findings of the true “deep state” in Washington today. It also serves as a reminder of the day when Idaho enjoyed the service of a U.S. senator who stood up for what is right and didn’t hide behind a failing and corrupt president — a missing person in today’s Idaho congressional delegation.