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Anonymous 'Senior Trump Official': Shutdown Will 'Smoke Out' the Resistance

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An anonymous Op-Ed that The Daily Caller says came from a “senior official in the Trump administration” calls for a scorched-earth approach to the partial federal government shutdown on the grounds that most of the federal bureaucracy does nothing except get in the way.

The Daily Caller said the writer is “a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose career would be jeopardized by its disclosure.” The site said it is publishing the column anonymously “to deliver an important perspective to our readers.”

Its headline: “I’m a Senior Trump Official, And I Hope a Long Shutdown Smokes Out the Resistance.”

In publishing the anonymous piece, the site followed the path of The New York Times, which last fall published an anonymous Op-Ed it said was from a Trump administration insider.

The Washington Post on Monday noted that administration officials such as acting Chief of Staff Mark Mulvaney and acting Budget Director Russell Vought are among conservatives who see the shutdown as a way to right-size a bloated federal government.

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The writer of The Daily Caller piece argued Trump’s approach to “shuttered government agencies” should be to “lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.”

The writer said this shutdown is “more than a battle over a wall. It is an opportunity to strip wasteful government agencies for good.”

Do you believe government is as bad as this writer says it is?

The column offers the hope that the shutdown “lasts a very long time, till the government is changed and can never return to its previous form.”

Much of the column is devoted to attacking the commitment and work ethic of most federal employees.

“They do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value. That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands — administering, refining, following and collaborating on process. ‘Process is your friend’ is what delusional civil servants tell themselves. Even senior officials must gain approval from every rank across their department, other agencies and work units for basic administrative chores,” the writer argued.

The column zings what it called “career managers,” who “distort or block policy counsel for the president.”

“Saboteurs peddling opinion as research, tasking their staff on pet projects or pitching wasteful grants to their friends. Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president’s agenda. This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president’s agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them. Until the shutdown,” the column said.

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The column excoriates a culture that the writer says is pervasive, in which achieving results is frowned upon.

“President Trump can end this abuse. Senior officials can reprioritize during an extended shutdown, focus on valuable results and weed out the saboteurs. We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them,” the writer said, noting that during the shutdown, “we are finally working on the president’s agenda.”

The writer said there needs to be real change in spending.

“Billions upon billions of hard-earned tax dollars are still being dumped into foreign aid programs every year that do nothing for America’s interest or national security. The president does not need congressional funding to deconstruct abusive agencies who work against his agenda,” the writer said.

The writer said the shutdown must end with “better security, particularly at the southern border.”

However, the writer said any resolution of the shutdown should “pay the essential employees only, if they are truly working on national security. Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid.”

Shutdown must also end with “savings for taxpayers,” the writer said.

“The president’s instincts are right. Most Americans will not miss non-essential government functions. A referendum to end government plunder must happen. Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever,” the column concluded.

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Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack can be reached at jackwritings1@gmail.com.
Location
New York City
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics, Foreign Policy, Military & Defense Issues




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