I know it’s overwhelming to see Trump waging war on civil servants and replacing with loyalists, but remember we’ve seen this before. It was called the “Spoils System” when Presidents in the 1800s rewarded “their people” with jobs. Guess what happened…corruption exploded. THREAD - ThreadSky

andykimnj.bsky.social • 17 days ago

I know it’s overwhelming to see Trump waging war on civil servants and replacing with loyalists, but remember we’ve seen this before. It was called the “Spoils System” when Presidents in the 1800s rewarded “their people” with jobs. Guess what happened…corruption exploded. THREAD

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jmckennajd.bsky.social•17 days ago

That's a big reason civil service was started. Now trump wants to undo it. Andy, stop voting for trump nominees. Don't give them cover of bipartisanship. Make them own it because when it falls apart they will point to D votes and you will get pantsed.

xantar.bsky.social•17 days ago

All this rings hollow when you're just confirming his nominees anyway

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

Like Trump, Andrew Jackson came into the White House and charged his predecessor’s bureaucracy with fraud. Jackson “initiated sweeping removals among high ranking government officials…and claimed to be purging the corruption, laxity, and arrogance that came with long tenure.” 2/17

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

Jackson’s purge became known as the Spoils System. “Under the guise of reform, many offices were doled out as rewards for political services.” This all sounds so familiar. “To the victor go the spoils,” said an ally of Jackson. 3/17

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

History repeats itself. When we see what Trump’s pushing now, we know where it leads as we’ve been through this before. For decades, corruption and nepotism ran rampant throughout our government due to the Spoils System. 4/17

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

So what was the answer to the corruption of the Spoils System? It was the creation of the professional Civil Service in 1883, the same Civil Service that Trump is trying to dismantle. 5/17

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

So it doesn’t surprise me that Trump is lashing out. He’ll call them bureaucrats, but they’re civil servants. They work for the people. They’re hired on merit. Their oath is to the Constitution not an individual President, and that scares Trump. 6/17

andykimnj.bsky.social•17 days ago

Trump wants to get rid of the civil service because it’s what standing in his way of the people who paid for his election to take power. Elon Musk spent more than a quarter billion dollars to elect Trump. 7/17

theanxiousactivist.bsky.social•17 days ago

People like Trump have historically tried to get rid of civil servants who follow professional standards because those standards would require them to oppose the power grabs and illegal orders of budding authoritarian dictators. Timothy Snyder warned of this in his book On Tyranny.

by-mhrudolph.bsky.social•15 days ago

Where is my Teddy Roosevelt?

blue-adept.bsky.social•17 days ago

Thank you for posting this here. I saw you kept trying to post it on Twitter and having it deleted. Either they are censoring you or Twitter is having technical problems with all their tech folks invading the Treasury dept.

kevinklad.bsky.social•17 days ago

I learned about patronage in high school history. I now seems condemned to repeat that history.

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