Professors: Axing bureaucrats, eliminating agencies means Trump is ‘aspiring strongman’

‘Well-functioning bureaucracies: an important part of democracy that constrain executive behavior’

The usual suspects have picked up where they left off in 2016-2021, spewing ridiculous comparisons and hyperbole to describe Donald Trump which, if anything, just proves there’s a protective bubble in which academia exists.

The University of Rochester’s Jeffrey McCune, for example, couldn’t believe Americans chose a “Hitler-brandishing, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion criminal” over the “joyful, articulate, well-experienced” Kamala Harris.

NYU’s Ruth Ben-Ghiat used the first Trump assassination attempt to worry Trump would use it to further his “authoritarian” goals.

And apparently in hibernation the last four years, Pitt’s Paul Johnson is concerned how the media will be “censored” in Trump’s second term.

This past week, a pair of political science professors and a “distinguished practitioner of grand strategy” — “researchers on authoritarian politics” all — essentially rehashed a piece from a year ago that whines Trump’s moves in downsizing the executive branch are indicative of a “leader bent on expanding his own power.”

Trump has been busy the last 30 days doling out pink slips to unnecessary federal bureaucrats and working to consolidate and dismantle various agencies.

Erica Frantz (Michigan State U., pictured), Joe Wright (Penn State), and Andrea Kendall-Taylor (Yale) write in The Conversation the “seemingly bizarre series of events” initiated by Trump since Jan. 20 “are highly consistent with other countries where democracy has been dismantled.”

Erica Frantz A “well-functioning bureaucracy […] of highly qualified civil servants who follow established rules prevent abuses of power,” the professors contend. “Bureaucracies, in this way, are an important part of democracy that constrain executive behavior.”

Like invocations of Hitler, Stalin, et. al., Frantz and company compare Trump to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro — because they both “purged” civil servants deemed to be disloyal.

MORE: Trump finds nearly $1 billion in Education Department waste

And remember, Chávez also was democratically elected “but went on to undermine democracy.”

As for Maduro, the profs note he “was able to overturn an election he lost and jail his opponents, knowing full well the judges and generals would follow his orders.”

Trump also emulates to one degree or another Turkish President Reccep Erdoğan, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Benin’s Patrice Talon, and Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), all of whom fired bureaucrats and restructured governmental agencies, according to the trio.

Make note of the profs’ couching of the language — such as the “seemingly bizarre series of events” Trump has started. “Seemingly” to … whom?

Not to mention, a “well-functioning bureaucracy”? “Highly qualified civil servants who follow established rules” that are targeted by “aspiring autocrats” and then “replaced by unqualified loyalists who would never be hired for the position based on merit”? Really?

Like … these guys?

(Michigan State’s Frantz also wrote “Why Trump’s control of the Republican Party is bad for democracy” for The Conversation, and was interviewed for “What’s behind Trump’s flurry of executive action: 4 essential reads on autocrats and authoritarianism,” both within the last month.)

The reality, as noted by Hans von Spakovsky and Seth Lucas, is that “bureaucrats and beneficiaries of wasteful government largesse” are acting the “like spoiled children finally told ‘no’ by their parents.”

Trump’s actions hardly are unprecedented in the U.S.; look at President Eisenhower who in early 1953 “moved swiftly to clean out the then-scandal-ridden IRS and Justice Department,” “sought to roll back federal interference in matters that could be easily handled by the states,” and used “civilian business practices as models for improving administrative processes.”

To put it even more succinctly, here’s Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller:

Want to see a murder?

Libs in the White House press corps screamed at Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller that Elon Musk is “unelected!”

What happens next is a fatality.

I promise you – this is the single best video on the internet today:pic.twitter.com/Nxcw0qTtj1

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 20, 2025