Why I’m leaving 18F
medium.com
medium.com
Sounds like it was time for the author to move on and I wish him well, but his impact was highest inside the tent. With patience, flexibility and choosing his battles wisely he might have had some influence within his sphere of responsibilities.
The author conflates norms for appearances. For good or bad Trump largely dispenses with appearances and practices his political maneuverings in the open, appearances be damned. But the practices are the same either way.
I've interviewed for an executive branch position where having voted years prior for the opposite party disqualified me. I've worked in a state campaign where my relatives, having donated to the opposite party, placed me under suspicion. Patronage and loyalty testing are the OLDEST of political practices. None of this is new under Trump, and none of it ever changes except in times of indisputable and existential national crisis.
Existential crisis is pretty much upon us. Much blame is deserved across the political spectrum for how we've arrived here.
> The norms were to crack down on that sort of thing when it happened
This what the GP is really getting at. This was never cracked down on in the past (I have no clue where you'd get the idea from that it was) because it wasn't done in the open as it is now. Now that it's blatant, we may finally have an opportunity to fight it.
It wasn't done in the open because all kinds of structures, both formal and informal, were erected to crack down on it after the last time it was done so flagrantly in the open; OTOH, those have been systematically eroded over the last several decades so that with the political branches sand judiciary all in the hands of the same faction, they no longer function to restrain it.
> This what the GP is really getting at. This was never cracked down on in the past (I have no clue where you'd get the idea from that it was) because it wasn't done in the open as it is now. Now that it's blatant, we may finally have an opportunity to fight it.
We have books now on the subject to even talk about it, and having that knowledge open helps to prevent the next one done in secret. That's not a very visceral "crack down", but it has been often considered sufficient, at least in the past, in the cases where the best we can do is post-hoc handling of the situation and further attempts at prevention.
Yes, it's easier to fight things in the light, but don't mistake blatant violations for "light". The goal posts for the fight move when it is so blatant; the risks are that normalization happens and "oh well, this terrible thing is how things are done now" becomes true. Blatant acts mean the aggressors get to hold the light and control the narrative of what they point at. "We are doing nothing wrong, see, look at all this not wrong we are doing."
Exactly. Except that second part is nowhere in the first post.
The management of appearances is a reflection of the prevailing social norms.
No one hides the fact that they drink water, because there is no norm that says drinking water is socially unacceptable.
And even though we all know that folks make a living selling illegal drugs, there is still a big difference between drug dealers doing business in a vacant lot at 2am, vs drug dealers doing business openly in front of a school on a busy street at 9am. If they don't feel the need to hide, that says a lot about the surrounding society.
In the recent past, people did hide their most egregious acts of political nepotism and corruption. Why? Because they violated social norms. Trump doesn't feel the need to, and yes, that is a significant change.
Now the surrounding society needs to decide whether to tolerate it, thereby creating a new norm, or enforce the existing norm.
Right, which is a big fucking problem. You're basically saying that the author was just naiive and that this is how it's worked all along. Which is true, and even more cause for concern.
I left the government in 2015 because I recognized the same and didn't want to be part of it. The history of actually affecting change from the inside is dismal. In fact the government, in practice and enshrined by the constitution is REACTIONARY. It reacts based on what the people decide - either through voting (rarely impactful) or through money/influence (usually the case). As you said, how it's always been.
So if you want to influence the government, any government, then you get power outside of the system and leverage it against the government.
For many years I've observed an out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach by the citizenry towards the darker side of politics (beyond partisan horse racing and gotchas). No real demand for investigatory journalism, because who wants to pay for that? As long as "appearances were kept up" citizens seemed to dismiss the dirty stuff in favor of the shallow Gotcha Debates. Very frustrating to see corruption and/or neglect being ignored by the voter base in favor of Bread and Circus politics.
The fact that Trump is just making this more obvious has a lot of people stirring about how this is a new phenomenon, when what's happening is that the machinations are being exposed more willingly by the current regime. It's difficult to shake up a world view when appearances suddenly don't matter (in a traditional sense).
Wake up please! Still have some sunlight left.
How the hell does the interviewer (or anyone) know who you voted for? What's the point of calling it a secret ballot if it's legal to get the answer out of you in an interview.
Nothing described in this blog post with respect to 18F is exceptional or abnormal. The heads of major agencies and their sub components have always been political appointees. Government agencies reorganize internally constantly. 18F started out life being run by a political appointee and has previously been reorganized from the EOP to the GSA. The only difference now is that the OP doesn't care for the politics of the current administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0oekP6OGbo
The GSA is a living, breathing oxymoron. They try to simplify government purchasing by making 999 rules and hoops to jump through, burning through cash and taking a percentage of every contract put through the organization. It's a giant cancerous scam that was allowed to grow so big it can't be killed or stopped, like the IRS/Fed.
The fallout of Watergate, especially the fact that the executive no longer routinely records conversations, mean that we'll never have a good idea of normal/not-normal in this context ever again the way that we have it for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. So I can't say whether subsequent presidents have made similar decisions, but the "personal loyalty" thing is very definitely not a new thing.
Note that this isolation from reality had large-scale disastrous consequences at that time, so this is not to say that we should become complacent about it. But in itself, I'm finding the "not normal" critique to be a bit shallow; a sort of tu quoque that substitutes for actually criticizing the concrete actions of the administration.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HW7834 -- written by H. R. McMaster, our current National Security Adviser, who I sincerely hope will hold to the standards that he advocates in that volume.
Just because the past wasn't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't stop striving for perfection. Watergate having happened doesn't give the administration a blank check to carry out Watergate-level actions in public and treat them as if they were normal and as if they were right.
Watergate was a criminal act. The acts of Kennedy and Johnson were not criminal, just irresponsible. In particular, cronyism and requiring personal loyalty are not "not normal" as alleged, and the "not normal" argument in general wears a bit thin and lacks any historical perspective.
"We were subsequently told that the new Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service would [...] immediately become a political position, with a person appointed directly by the White House."
(The rest is standard anti-Trump rhetoric.)
Everybody's saying it so it must be unimportant! It's not new so who cares!