Bashing bureaucrats is an old American political tradition, and no one took this further than Donald Trump, who actively sought to fire civil servants and find other ways to subvert the bureaucracy. Over the nation’s history, the government has taken on an increasing and successful role in ensuring prosperity, protecting people, and promoting equality, and this success is due in no small part to the contribution of civil servants. Like all institutions, the government fails because its employees let it down, but it also fails because of incompetent political leaders who ignore the advice of knowledgeable and experienced civil servants or reject their advice because it conflicts with an ideological agenda. Andrew Jackson famously thought running the government did not require any special skills, and Donald Trump went even further in thinking that he did not need to know anything about how the government ran or what the civil service advised. The results were disastrous for both presidents and the country. Government needs administration, especially in times of emergency, and government needs public servants like Anthony Fauci to carry out its programs.

Fierce partisan conflict in the United States is not new. Throughout American history, there have been polarizing struggles over fundamental questions relating to the meaning of the Declaration, the Constitution, and the relationship between the two. These struggles over ideals have become all encompassing when joined to battles over what it means to be an American – conflicts that have become more regular and dangerous with the rise of the administrative state. The idea of a “State” cuts more deeply than suggested by Max Weber’s definition of “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Beyond the powers of government, the State represents a centralizing ambition (at least for progressive reformers) to cultivate, or impose, a vision of citizenship. In Randolph Bourne’s words, the State is a “concept of power” that comes alive in defense of or in conflict with an ideal of how such foundational values of Americanism as “free and enlightened” are to be interpreted and enforced. The ideal is symbolized not by the Declaration and the Constitution but rather in rallying emblems such as the flag and Uncle Sam.