To support or to sabotage: Public service and public servants in an American democracy    

The dilemma: To support or to sabotage

Our nation is facing an inflection point, and civil servants, ‘good government’ organizations—like the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the Senior Executives Association (SEA), the Partnership for Public Service (PPS) and others—and the Trump administration all have some strategic choices to make...all in furtherance of what should be our collective goal: To best serve the American public. 

Bottom line up front: These three groups can work together constructively and collaboratively to move the country forward, or they can separately undermine and sabotage those efforts (in some cases deliberately) and continue down what is an ultimately counterproductive path. 

First, stop denigrating public service

In case it’s not obvious, I abhor much of what this administration is doing...not the “what” of it, which I tend to support—but rather, “how” it’s going about it. I’m especially disheartened about the way that it has dismantled and denigrated much of what is good about government. Indeed, it looks like it’s trying to throw ‘the baby out with the bathwater’ and in the process, undermine federal service for years to come. 

One can still cut the waste in government—there’s plenty, whether we’re willing to publicly admit or not—without treating federal employees with ‘throat cutting’ disdain. It’s not their fault. Most came to federal service with a passion to serve, and even if you have to let some of them go, you can preserve that passion. After all, feds are a cheap date...all one has to do is show us some symbolic respect (and maybe some gratitude), and we’ll follow you anywhere. Even if that’s out the door. 

So, being more transparent, giving employees information and due process, providing them with post-employment support and even thanking them for their service, however brief, costs little. But the ROI is off the charts. 

And at the end of the day, if it truly wants to serve the American public, the Trump administration will still have to lead the federal bureaucracy, however small it may eventually be. And you don’t do that by denigrating your employees. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t change government quickly. Bureaucrats can ‘slow roll’ things if they want...even if it means violating their oath, but that’s much more likely when they’re bullied (that’s just human nature), and while bullying may win you some battles, it’s the war that matters. 

But we also need to remember the election

As bad as the Trump administration (or at least some of it) has been, the fact is that a solid majority of Americans voted for all this. And even if it continues to do what it has done to date—and ignores the miniscule cost of a little respect—that’s beside the point. 

What is? The oath every federal employee takes. That oath profoundly shapes how those employees act in our uniquely American democracy, whether they’re respected (or thanked) for it or not! 

Thus, unlike other democracies, U.S. civil servants do not exist independently of politics. Rather, they have emerged since our Founding out of necessity, as our government’s functions have grown more complex. That complexity required expertise, not political loyalty, and it still grounds a politically neutral, merit-based civil service. 

But bureaucrats are not inherently powerful. Their power is derivative, a product of our messy political system. Simply put, the power that federal civil servants have over our citizens is NOT independent of the political decisions that may grant it.

In my view, civil servants, especially those who operate at the interface between the ‘deciding’ and the ‘doing’ of government, have a sworn duty to privately give their best advice to a new appointee, just as that appointee has a duty to listen to them. But at the end of the day, political appointees are not bound by that advice, and if they give a lawful order to a career civil servant, the latter is duty-bound to carry it out...or leave. 

And this has profound practical implications for public servants and the larger ‘good government’ community that may speak for them. Like it or not, they both must salute to the will of “We the People” in doing what they do. But that does NOT mean that public servants must obey whatever Americans vote for, regardless of its consequences. 

However, that’s a real dilemma. 

What are “good government” organizations to do?

That dilemma becomes especially difficult when it comes to representing the interests of federal civil servants. That’s one of the roles that organizations like NAPA, the Partnership, ASPA and others have taken on, and they have emerged as the voice of the public service. 

But they too have some choices to make. 

On the one hand, the civil servants they represent have a mandate to be politically impartial. Yet they must do so with an administration that seems to be doing everything it can to disrespect them. So, what should those organizations that are squarely in the middle of that debate do? 

One option would have them discount or even ignore the results of the 2024 election and take on both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the new administration’s agenda. Or secondly, they could ‘wait and see’ what the courts and the Congress have to say about all this. 

Or they can accept the results of the election and help the new administration succeed, its rhetoric and transgressions (deliberate and otherwise) notwithstanding. Indeed, they can do so without endorsing either. After all, it’s the public that counts here! 

But at the end of the day, “good government” organizations cannot act as if the public servants they represent operate in a vacuum. They do not, not in the U.S. anyway, and if those organizations choose (or default to) Option 1, they risk leading those civil servants astray. Federal employees are not independent. They cannot be insulated or divorced from the politics and the public(s) they serve, and in my view, “good government” organizations cannot actively or even tacitly encourage them to resist or oppose what “We the People” have said.  

Because to do so is to implicitly assert that the election was somehow ‘rigged’ and its results somehow suspect.      

That does NOT mean that the current administration is going about the ‘how’ of this the right way. And therein lies the dilemma. Can organizations like NAPA and ASPA accept the goals of the new administration and still argue that there is a better way to achieve them? 

I say yes! But by the same token, those same organizations cannot say they support the new administration’s agenda and then do things that thwart that agenda. Rather, their constituents are sworn to faithfully implement that agenda, and that means that for better or worse, they are there to support the lawful orders of POTUS.  

But there is a middle ground that allows “good government” organizations to support (or at least accept) the ‘what’ but argue that the ‘how’ can be just as fast but far less opaque and harsh...that is, it can be accomplished without jeopardizing the very public service itself. 

However, in so doing, they need to start acting like generals. Like them, they must accept the goals of a new Commander in Chief, so long as they are lawful, even if that means individual soldiers may need to be sacrificed to achieve them. That doesn’t mean they don’t care. Rather, it means that the objective is paramount. And the same must be true of “good government” organizations. They cannot take the view that every government employee, agency or program must be preserved at all costs (literally and figuratively). 

As I said, that does NOT mean that those organizations must be silent. No, they should not be quiet about the ‘how’ of it. Nor should they be silent about the longer-term implications for America’s public service. Indeed, I think it is their duty to speak for the practice of public administration. And that means that while they may accept what “We the People” have said, they can and should provide their best advice as to how that can be more benignly achieved. 

That is their job, after all. 

And while there are some who will argue that these organizations should take what is a more pronounced and partisan course, I believe that they cannot do so and still stay true to the greater mandate from the American people. Rather, their path must be guided by one bedrock principle: We all operate in a uniquely American democracy, and we must never lose sight of that fact. Thus, when “We the People” speak, we cannot ignore their voices, except at our peril. 

Ron Sanders is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, an elected member of the American Society for Public Administration’s National Council, and a former Board member of the Senior Executives Association. A retired civil servant with almost 50 years of service (more than 20 as a federal senior executive), he served as director of civilian personnel at the Defense Department, chief human resources officer for IRS, associate director for policy at OPM, and CHCO for the US intelligence community, as well as a VP for a big government contractor, director and faculty member of a state university school of public affairs, and a state official. The opinions expressed above are his and his alone.