Like his first term, Trump’s tenure in the presidency will be chaotic. Many projects will go unfulfilled because of these internal conflicts in his administration.
There will be a lot of bureaucratic infighting between president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet members and between those members and his advisory committees.
At the most general level, cabinet secretaries will fight hard to maintain the size and scope of their agencies. Power in a bureaucracy rests on the size of the operation that you manage. Even the most ardent Maga operative will, when it comes to a conflict between maintaining his or her power and reducing their head count, fight to retain power. They will convince their higher-ups, the secretaries, that they must resist the knives wielded by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their plans to reduce dramatically the size of the federal government. This the secretaries will do. Musk and Ramaswamy will have as much impact on government structure and costs as the ill-fated Grace Commission of the Reagan administration (1982-1984).
At the agency level, I think most of the action will be at the Department of Health and Human Services. Despite his unsupported fringe beliefs about the efficacy and safety of vaccines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brings one promising idea to the table: improving the health of Americans through improving their diets. A strong push for this will bring conflict within the department as well as conflict with other agencies and the Musk-Ramaswamy advisory committee on government efficiency – I will not call it a department, because only Congress can create a government department, not the unilateral whim of the president.
Internally, Kennedy will conflict with Mehmet Oz, who will oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Oz, on his television show, is well known for his snake oil sales pitches. He has often suggested to viewers medications or diet supplements that are ineffective or contraindicated for the illnesses that they are supposed to cure. To improve diet, Kennedy will have to regulate the sale of such supplements and ensure that they are appropriate for the consumer’s condition. Dr. Oz will likely object. Of course, there will also be pushback from the manufacturers of these nostrums.
Kennedy will also face resistance from other agencies. To improve the diet of low-income Americans, Kennedy must either increase the value of food stamps or subsidize the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables for the poorest sector of society. This will arouse opposition from the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, which are in the business of restraining costs. That will not be an easy battle for Kennedy to win.
Other strategies available to Kennedy for improving our diets include tougher labeling of foods that lack nutritional value; tougher regulation of food-processing factories; and tougher regulation of meat-packing plants. None of these will sit well with the deregulatory rhetoric of Trump himself, and they will be anathema to the Musk-Ramaswamy committee.
Conflicts will also be possible between the civilian and military leadership within the Department of Defense. Trump is unlikely, in the first instance, to get the generals that he wants. The current military leadership has been brought up to view their oath to the constitution as sacrosanct. It saddens me to see the military beyond the control of the civilians, but that is what Trump will have brought us to.
Like his first term, Trump’s tenure in the presidency will be chaotic. Much harm will be done especially to the immigrant population. But many projects that he wants to undertake will be unfulfilled because of these predicted internal conflicts in his administration.
Martin G. Evans is a writer in Cambridge whose contributions on managerial and political issues have appeared in The Boston Globe, Cambridge Chronicle, MetroWest Daily News, Providence Journal, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail of Toronto, National Post of Toronto and the former Toronto Financial Post. He has taught at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, London Business School, George Mason University, Rutgers University and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Feature image by Ajay Parthasarathy via Unsplash.
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The bureaucracy under Trump will war with itself
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There will be a lot of bureaucratic infighting between president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet members and between those members and his advisory committees.
At the most general level, cabinet secretaries will fight hard to maintain the size and scope of their agencies. Power in a bureaucracy rests on the size of the operation that you manage. Even the most ardent Maga operative will, when it comes to a conflict between maintaining his or her power and reducing their head count, fight to retain power. They will convince their higher-ups, the secretaries, that they must resist the knives wielded by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their plans to reduce dramatically the size of the federal government. This the secretaries will do. Musk and Ramaswamy will have as much impact on government structure and costs as the ill-fated Grace Commission of the Reagan administration (1982-1984).
At the agency level, I think most of the action will be at the Department of Health and Human Services. Despite his unsupported fringe beliefs about the efficacy and safety of vaccines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brings one promising idea to the table: improving the health of Americans through improving their diets. A strong push for this will bring conflict within the department as well as conflict with other agencies and the Musk-Ramaswamy advisory committee on government efficiency – I will not call it a department, because only Congress can create a government department, not the unilateral whim of the president.
Internally, Kennedy will conflict with Mehmet Oz, who will oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Oz, on his television show, is well known for his snake oil sales pitches. He has often suggested to viewers medications or diet supplements that are ineffective or contraindicated for the illnesses that they are supposed to cure. To improve diet, Kennedy will have to regulate the sale of such supplements and ensure that they are appropriate for the consumer’s condition. Dr. Oz will likely object. Of course, there will also be pushback from the manufacturers of these nostrums.
Kennedy will also face resistance from other agencies. To improve the diet of low-income Americans, Kennedy must either increase the value of food stamps or subsidize the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables for the poorest sector of society. This will arouse opposition from the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, which are in the business of restraining costs. That will not be an easy battle for Kennedy to win.
Other strategies available to Kennedy for improving our diets include tougher labeling of foods that lack nutritional value; tougher regulation of food-processing factories; and tougher regulation of meat-packing plants. None of these will sit well with the deregulatory rhetoric of Trump himself, and they will be anathema to the Musk-Ramaswamy committee.
Conflicts will also be possible between the civilian and military leadership within the Department of Defense. Trump is unlikely, in the first instance, to get the generals that he wants. The current military leadership has been brought up to view their oath to the constitution as sacrosanct. It saddens me to see the military beyond the control of the civilians, but that is what Trump will have brought us to.
Like his first term, Trump’s tenure in the presidency will be chaotic. Much harm will be done especially to the immigrant population. But many projects that he wants to undertake will be unfulfilled because of these predicted internal conflicts in his administration.
Martin G. Evans is a writer in Cambridge whose contributions on managerial and political issues have appeared in The Boston Globe, Cambridge Chronicle, MetroWest Daily News, Providence Journal, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail of Toronto, National Post of Toronto and the former Toronto Financial Post. He has taught at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, London Business School, George Mason University, Rutgers University and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Feature image by Ajay Parthasarathy via Unsplash.
Like this:
Related Stories
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.