Re: POTUS 45:52: Not Founded On Anything
I don't disagree; however, the problem is the political careerists, the career ideologues.
You've conflating terms. There are two types of people in the bureacracy: the careers who do everything and the politicals who are appointed by the President and who take all the credit.
The careers are worker bees. Like everywhere else, there are good ones and bad ones. The good ones are as good as anywhere in the private sector. They do all the work. The make everything run. They fix everything when it breaks.
The politicals are... well, they're political. Sometimes you get somebody who was career and is willing to go political but usually they are the BMOC dullard type who waves his arms around and acts like he's knows what he's doing, projects confidence, harrumpfs, and generally postures. At his best he's an advocate for his department during budgeting. Basically, he's a CEO: probably a pinhead but perhaps just barely enough on the ball not to get in the way.
Now enter politicians. They promise everything. They're sales. Then put politicals in place as their overseers to pass their edicts to the careers. And then the careers tell them why what they promised is (1) impossible, (2) dumb, (3) actually counter-productive to what they say their values are. The politicals get harrumpfy rumpfy about this and say things like "'no ' isn't in my dictionary," to which the careers say "yeah, I can believe that, you do seem stupid." The politicians HATE the careers because they hate reality, so they blame all their failures on "that darn red tape," "those job-killing regulations," "the intransigence of bureaucrats," "the swamp." I would have had perpetual motion except for the sabotage.
But that is all bullsh-t, and always has been. What the politicians are saying is "I promised infinite free energy and since I didn't get it somebody conspired against me!" And the voters are dumb and they lap it up.
The idea that the careers are following their own political agenda is tripe. The careers I know (and my god I know a ton of them now) are rule-driven and dedicated. They do their jobs. When pols whinge about them they are whining about the intrusion of reality into their fantasyland.