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“Personnel is policy” is one of the few Beltway clichés that rings true. In a government that employs 2.7 million civilian employees, a President with the best intentions will fail to implement his policies if his administrators drag their feet, let alone actively sabotage him. Republican presidents are always surrounded by hostile territory in the federal bureaucracy, but this is never more so than with Trump. And he has a particularly unusual problem: what to do with RATs (Republicans Against Trump) and #NeverTrumpers.
So far I have no major complaints. Trump has listed immigration patriot and Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, leading to shrieks from the ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center, and assorted other usual suspects [Trump’s Pick of Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist Sparks Backlash, NBC News, November 14, 2016]. At the same time, Trump picked the Establishment GOP chairman Reince Priebus as chief of staff, saying he and Bannon will serve as equals.
I’m no fan of Priebus, but he has been loyal to Trump. I suspect this means that Priebus will deal with the administrative aspects, while Bannon will focus on strategic and political advice. Other immigration patriots like Peter Thiel, Lou Barletta, and Kris Kobachhave important positions the transition team. The heroic Stephen Miller, who wrote most of Trump’s greatest immigration speeches, may become chief of the Domestic Policy Council.
Yet even with solid top picks in the White House, there are thousands of other jobs at various agencies and departments. Typically, Republican lobbyists, the lawyers involved with the Federalist Society, and all the hacks at various DC think tanks staff these positions. But these people were almost universally hostile to Trump. So what do we do with these #NeverTrumpers and Republicans Against Trump (RATs) who now are scurrying to board the administration? ...
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