Trump Has Hollowed Out American Bureaucracy. It's an Opportunity for Reinvention.
Donald Trump’s second term has accelerated a dramatic downsizing of the federal government, with mass firings, dismantled agencies, and deep cuts to the civil service reshaping how Washington functions. The effects are already being felt across climate research, housing policy, diplomacy, public health, and disaster preparedness, where decades of institutional knowledge are disappearing in real time.
This week, Max Burns examines the growing debate over what rebuilding should look like after that kind of institutional loss. Former federal officials and policy experts say restoring the old system may no longer be possible, or even desirable. Instead, they argue this moment could force a broader rethink of how government serves the public, responds to modern crises, and rebuilds trust in its institutions.
The Post-Trump Challenge Isn’t Restoration. It’s Reinvention.
Few presidents ever make enough impact to lend their name to an era. Capturing an era takes more than just an ideological shift in American politics and government. It requires a singular personality so strong that society bends and warps around its gravity. Eras reshape the collective DNA of a nation. The society that emerges at the end speaks a different cultural language than the one that came before. Then there is Donald Trump.
From the Reporter’s Notebook 📓
When I began my interviews for this story, I expected to hear a doom-and-gloom story about the collapse of the government under Trump’s mismanagement. While that’s certainly a part of the story, the experts I spoke to also viewed these unprecedented changes as creating a permission structure for the next Democratic president to engage in meaningful reforms that would have been viewed as politically impossible a few years ago.
What struck me was the optimism behind their concern, and the belief that as bad as things are right now, Trump has opened up a real conversation among the American people about what the shape of government should be and how it should serve the people. That’s a conversation Republicans are abusing right now, but in the right hands it offers a huge opportunity to modernize the government in ways that make it more responsive to the public it’s built to serve.
— Max Burns
Next Up in the Series: Trans Rights
The Supreme Court’s pending transgender rights cases could have consequences that extend far beyond athletics. Next week, Alejandra Caraballo examines how a 50-year campaign to reshape the courts led to this moment and why court reform has become a central question for the future of trans rights.
Read More From the Series
The Case for Rebuilding America’s Immigration System
With public anger mounting over aggressive raids and deaths in detention, immigration reform advocates are advancing a broader agenda that may just fix our broken immigration system.
Felipe De La Hoz reports
What It Would Actually Take to Fix Women’s Health Care in America
A functional health system requires autonomy, investment, and a cultural shift that centers women’s lived experiences.
Read the full feature from Lauren Rankin
Can Treating Journalism Like Public Infrastructure Fix Our Broken Media?
State governments are experimenting with public funding models to preserve reporting. Can it be a national blueprint?
Read the full piece from Parker Molloy here.
The Blueprint for a More Affordable America Already Exists
From guaranteed income to universal childcare, solutions to the affordability crisis are already in motion. The challenge now is political will—not policy design.
Rainesford Stauffer reports.
What Would It Take to Actually Fix This Country?
Our new series looks past the churn of daily news to interrogate the systems shaping American life, and offers tangible fixes to the problems we collectively face.
Read the full introduction to the series here.