The Will of the People has been replaced with a Rule by the Bureaucratic Class.
The Bureaucratic class dress themselves in fake charity — to help women and children, minorities, and trees, but these are the lies they tell themselves while they oppress the poor, raze the trees and use sexist, racist policies to line their pockets.
It’s a trend occurring all over the West. But nowhere was it more obvious when the people elected Donald Trump, and the all-knowing Bureaucrats did everything in their power to extinguish the people’s votes.
“I have witnessed the death of democracy” says Michael Pack, the man Donald Trump put in charge of the $850 million dollar institution called the U.S. Agency for Global Media which reaches 350 million people each week in 70 languages. Pack was selected two months after Trump took office, but the Democrats and bureaucrats stalled his appointment for three long years. Pack finally took office in June 2020. His experience exemplifies the control of the faceless Blob of Bureaucracy.
The Death of Democracy
In a sense, we all witnessed it. From the moment Donald Trump was elected president until the day he left office, government officials refused to follow his orders that conflicted with their own views, in spite of their obligation to serve whoever is president. The permanent bureaucracy felt they knew better. After all, they were experts, while the president, in their estimation, was an ignoramus, or worse, unfit for office.
My goal, my only goal, was to return the news services to their legally mandated mission: to report news that is “accurate, objective, and comprehensive” (in the words of the VOA charter, which is U.S. law), and to promote American ideals like democracy and human rights around the world. In this modest, nonpartisan goal, I was doomed from the start. The USAGM permanent bureaucracy was ready to undermine every move of my administration, with the help of their allies in the media, Congress, and the courts, as well as pro bono lawyers. After all, they had been preparing for years while my nomination languished.
The Voice of America ran a repackaged advert for Joe Biden during an election year, with no context, as if it were reporting.
Everyone knew this violated the VOA charter, which is U.S. law that we all are required to uphold, and possibly other campaign and broadcasting laws. When we called this to the VOA’s attention, they took it down, though reluctantly. A week later, we discovered an audio version was still available. As CEO, I decided to launch an investigation to determine who was responsible …
When is the law, not the law. Whenever it suits the bureaucracy:
However, never before I became CEO had there been any consequences for breaking the law. My inquiry was a shock to the system, but I felt I had to uphold the law.
My actions were immediately attacked by the legacy media and by concerned congressmen, all in touch with the people I had fired. They charged that I was interfering with journalists and, once again, trying to turn the VOA into Trump TV.
Lies go unpunished:
One reporter mocked me for saying that the VOA spot was targeted at getting out the Muslim vote in Michigan for Biden, citing how few Urdu speakers there are in Michigan. But the VOA spot was in English, as he well knew, and he also knew that his readers would not know this.
Those who show no respect for taxpayers, voters or the President are promoted to spend more taxpayer dollars to show less respect…
The most senior person responsible was Kelu Chao, then the head of VOA language services. In her case, I merely gave her a verbal reprimand that did not appear in her personnel file. She, too, immediately signed on to a suit against us, alleging a violation of her first amendment rights. Today, she has been rewarded by the Biden administration and is the acting CEO of USAGM, my old position. All others involved in this scandalous misuse of taxpayer funds have been rehired and many promoted.
This is only one of a long list of similar stories. In short, there was no way for me, a Senate-confirmed agency head, to assume authority over this mid-sized agency. The permanent bureaucracy and their allies simply would not permit it. Bad as it was for me, it is so much worse at bigger agencies like the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence agencies. No matter that Donald Trump was the duly elected president of the United States, federal bureaucrats did not accept that. After all, they knew better how to run the country, so that is what they did. This is tyranny, pure and simple — government by unelected bureaucrats, subverting the will of the majority.
Pack does not think the two most obvious plans to claw back standards or balance can succeed:
The first group says the problem is that Donald Trump did not get enough qualified, experienced, government professionals in key political appointments soon enough. Next time, we need to have a government in waiting, ready to serve. Surely, this is a good idea, but far from sufficient. In my agency of 4,000 people, I could bring in about 10 political appointees. We were outnumbered 400-to-1.
Pretty much all mid and senior level bureaucrats are partisan open political agents.
Even immediate mass firings are unlikely to work:
I highly doubt that this ambitious objective could be achieved, given the size and nature of the modern federal bureaucracy. Government bureaucrats have powerful civil service protections. In eight months, I could not fire a handful of people whom career adjudicators recommended terminating for cause, such as gross mismanagement leading to security lapses. I put them on administrative leave with pay and then started the process of removal. All have been brought back.
Even if the new administration could institute a 30% across-the-board cut, the wrong people would likely be fired. The best at scheming, the most committed ideologues, are the most skilled in surviving reductions in force.
Many of these institutions are beyond saving, and need razing and rebuilding. But when any part of the Bureaucratic Blob is attacked, all parts of the blob fight back. Cancel one institution and the rest will march in the streets, fearing they will be next.
That doesn’t mean we can’t split the hydra, setting up new institutions in parallel — ones with good people, clear focus, to hire good people. But we need to think carefully about the incentives. All organizations funded by Big Government will always and inevitably become tools to promote Big Government. Perhaps they all need a limited span, an end date. Perhaps Government jobs need a term limit and the Head of a national Health Body shouldn’t be allowed 30 years to build an empire? Just for starters…
Even better, without hunting for more rules on top of rules, what we all really want is just Real Media. With better mass media, we’d get better politicians and get rid of cheating Department Heads, who served themselves.
Think about how we make that happen. We know it could be a smashing ratings success.
The People still outnumber the Rulers:
So, what can be done? The good news is that about half of Americans know, in their gut, that the government no longer represents the will of the people. They need to rise up and demand an end to this tyranny. We did it before, in 1776. This time, we have a constitution and a rule of law, so we don’t need an armed revolution, but we do need an unarmed one, a peaceful democratic revolution. If a large majority of the people forcefully demand change and reflect this at the ballot box in a clear mandate, then and only then reform can come. Democracy will then return, and we will once again have a government of, for, and by the people. Many gave their lives for this. Now, it is our turn.
People need to stop hoping they can vote for one knight in shining armor to save them. No one man can defeat the Green-blob, the Bureaucrat Web, — whatever we want to call them, on his own. The March through the Institutions took decades and a concerted effort by a million footsoldiers. It takes a movement. But a movement is just a few percent of the population who are very very determined and who believe it can be done.
h/t to David E who also adds this ancient bit of television. Art in it’s purest form. The series Yes Minister never mentioned “Labour” or “Conservative” because it was not about one party versus the other but about the Bureaucrats versus the Politicians. That’s part of the shell game. The People are taught to see one or other Party as the enemy, when the real adversary rules from behind the curtain.
Errata: Apologies. Michael Peck corrected to Michael Pack.