The ‘Deep State’ is our guard against political hacks running the US | R. Bruce Anderson

Woodrow Wilson was a political scientist – legit. One of the very first.

He is famous for his essay on the critical need for a merit system in public administration. He was not at all happy with the political angle of matters in the basic tasks of government, which used a litmus test of political loyalty rather than individual merit.

The patronage system in the U.S. was actually borne of one of the foundational elements of democracy: voting. In the sparkling new Republic, one of the most impressive features of the system was the almost immediate expansion of the franchise. Initially, in many places, only property owners could vote in elections, but this quickly gave way to the extension of voting rights to all white, male citizens.

Though it would take much longer to extend the right to vote to women and African Americans, the turf was ready for a real fight for voters, deposing the old system of oligarchy run by the few.

Andrew Jackson was the first to realize the power of the masses. He heavily recruited voters and ran the first really “nationwide” campaigns, which others quickly emulated. Numbers mattered. Majorities mattered. And, as the nation grew, all those new citizen-immigrants mattered, too.

Boston is the classic example of how this developed a bad twist: After two centuries of domination by protestant blue-noses on Beacon Hill, Boston’s newly immigrated Irish population (mostly Catholic, almost all poor), used their numbers to rise up and grab the machinery of government.

This was not the problem – that’s democracy, and that’s how it works. The central issue was voter turnout: how to get the new citizens to actually show up and vote. Those old pols knew exactly how: promise them jobs.

What grew out of this experience was a political machine that lasted for decades. “Ward heelers” and “block captains” for the local power brokers were in charge of registration and turnout at the very local level, in an organization that reached up to the office of the mayor, who made sure that these “turnout specialists” were hired by the city as garbage workers, as sewer workers, as cops.

Party loyalty — even loyalty to an individual politician — was all that mattered. The system was corrupt at its core, inefficient and lacking any professionalism (no academy or valid training needed). And it was open to bribery, gross nepotism and graft.

Machines like this one became the model for other cities. Run by William Magear “Boss” Tweed, “Tammany Hall” dominated first New York City and eventually all of New York state – and became the by-word for malevolent self-indulgence at the expense of the population.

The Progressives, a largely Republican movement formed in reaction to the party machines, changed all that. The reforms of the early 20^th century created a merit-based system, required legitimate qualification for government jobs, and bled out the toxins of party rule.

Party didn’t matter – passing the civil-service exam did. Qualifications were laid down in formal job descriptions. The bureaucracy was still big, unwieldy and ofttimes wasteful, but its level of competence rose with each generation.

Now, with the investigations into “loyalty” and talk of slashing jobs at agencies that don’t fit the ideology of the moment, this new crew wants to roll all this back.

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What the new administration is yammering about when they talk about the “threat” of the “deep state” is that this merit-based system of professionals cannot be relied upon to blindly act in the interest of some short-lived party hack who happens to occupy the White House.

They are correct.

Any attempts to change this could return us to an era of endless venality from the highest levels all of the way down to the tiny cubicles of the secretariat.

The loyalty of federal workers is to the task at hand, to the nation, and to the laws passed by representatives of the people.  Not to a four-year tenant of the Oval Office.

R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio in Lakeland.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: The origins and advantages of the ‘Deep State’ | R. Bruce Anderson