How it happens here - part one

Packing the government with henchmen

Amanda Carpenter

Since Donald Trump was voted out of office in 2020, he and his allies have spent their time out of power carefully planning what they would do in a second term. Long story short: They’ve coalesced around ideas to consolidate and expand executive power and to gut our checks and balances to enact an authoritarian “retribution” agenda against their perceived enemies and further entrench themselves in office.

These are more than threats; they’re promises.

And, yes, these plans could succeed.?

Donald Trump has made six explicit promises that, if enacted, would radically transform our government from democracy to autocracy. It can happen here. Don’t assume that mechanisms meant to restrain the president — Congress, the courts, the non-partisan civil service, and our ability to vote in free and fair elections — will hold the second time around.?

This series will explore what would happen in practice if The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 were implemented.?

This week, Step 1: How the president could pack the federal government with vindictive henchmen. Next, Step 2: How those henchmen could silence critics, spread fear, and coerce Americans to submit to their political agenda. Then, Step 3: How they could further entrench themselves in power, specifically by subverting elections.?

Packing the government with henchmen

“Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat… replace them with our people.”

That was Trump’s vice presidential pick, JD Vance, speaking on a podcast in 2021, voicing a key objective for those hoping to staff a second Trump Administration.

Vance was likely referring to Schedule F , Trump’s plan to purge the civil service that he attempted in October 2020 and plans to try again if he wins a second term.?

The plan did not go through the first time because Trump lost the 2020 election, and President Biden rescinded the Schedule F executive order when he took office. But, if resurrected as one of Trump’s Day One promises, Schedule F could jumpstart the replacement of 50,000 or more nonpartisan federal employees with Trump loyalists — and make it clear to any remaining civil servants that their jobs are on the line if they don’t exhibit a similar degree of loyalty to Trump as his appointees.

Read more on Schedule F here .

Beyond Schedule F, Trump plans to install his henchmen across the federal government to perform critical functions, many of which have long been understood to require insulation from political interference. Some illustrative examples:

• During his first term, Trump asserted an “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department ” and sought “loyalty” from high-ranking officials. Going forward, veterans from his first administration have developed specific plans to intervene and direct prosecutorial decisions.?
• Trump has said he should “have a say” on Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, an escalation from previous threats he made to fire or demote Fed Chairman Jerome Powell as U.S. markets suffered over the COVID-19 pandemic. (Read more here .)?
• As reported by The New York Times , Trump also seeks direct control over the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, which would allow him to heavily influence our major media and trade markets.

Adding to these concerns is the fact that Trump has promised to continue and expand upon his first-term abuses of the pardon powe r by granting pardons to January 6 rioters , which sends the signal that those who break the law to advance his goals — whether in the course of their jobs or by committing political violence — will be protected.

Read on for how they get away with it, and what it would look like >>