One month after Donald Trump took office, erstwhile presidential consigliere Steve Bannon remarked that an overriding goal of the White House was the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”
From the unprecedented amount of unfilled appointments in federal agencies to the elimination of rafts of regulatory directives, the Trump White House has made significant strides towards achieving this objective. If a Democrat defeats Trump and enters the White House on January 20, 2021, she or he will face an administrative challenge unprecedented for either major political party in recent history.
The deepening crisis of federal bureaucracy is a useful lens to see how policy and administration can more effectively repair the divides that characterize our politics. The United States is no longer a country of merely blue states and red states. It is a mosaic of blue cities and red prairies. Our fractured politics are the result of the geographic inequalities that produce these divisions.
