The biggest problem with the “fire the Deep State” narrative is that it often treats the entire professional civil service as politically illegitimate simply because unelected experts and career employees continue functioning across administrations. In reality, most federal workers are not partisan operatives. They are scientists, engineers, analysts, inspectors, auditors, emergency managers, air traffic specialists, cybersecurity experts, park rangers, investigators, and administrators who keep the government operational regardless of which party wins elections.

It is reasonable to debate whether certain agencies are too large, inefficient, outdated, or should even exist at all. Governments absolutely should evaluate redundancy, waste, and mission creep. But mass political purges of career staff can create serious unintended consequences: loss of institutional knowledge, weakened oversight, slower disaster response, reduced regulatory consistency, and increased corruption risk if loyalty becomes more important than competence.

Historically, systems that replaced professional civil servants with politically loyal appointees often became less stable and more corrupt over time. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 was created specifically to move the United States away from the old “spoils system,” where government jobs were handed out based on political loyalty rather than qualifications. Before those reforms, turnover after elections was massive, inefficiency was rampant, and corruption became deeply entrenched.

A healthy democracy should absolutely reform inefficient agencies and hold bureaucracies accountable. But the goal should be improving government effectiveness and transparency — not weakening institutional independence in ways that make the state more vulnerable to political retaliation, favoritism, or ideological loyalty tests.