The President, doing his duty, will make thousands of appointments to federal positions. Some, like Foreign Service officers and Senior Warrant Officers, are career appointments into federal or military service. These appointments require the consent of the Senate, but the president’s tenure does not provide a time limit.

Other positions—the ones that this essay primarily addresses—are political appointments of senior-level members of the administration who normally serve only during the tenure of the president making the appointment. The Plum Book, which the Office of Personnel Management maintains, is an interesting read. It lists all appointed positions in the executive branch and the judiciary, and to boards and advisory committees.

Shrunken staff, empty office image by AI

President Trump’s next set of appointees must be fiercely loyal to the Constitution, to We the People, to the administration’s mission, and to President Trump. The first step to ensuring this is for President Trump to accept the resignations of every appointee from the previous administration on his first day in office. Some of these people, like Secretary of State Blinken, will then leave the government. Others will go on to positions within their federal careers, such as non-political appointee ambassadors.

No need to worry about whether the federal government will continue to run smoothly. Every senior position has individuals in subordinate positions who are prepared to step in and serve temporarily as needed.

Vacancies in the federal judiciary slow the wheels of justice. That’s why I hope the Federalist Society has a good list ready to go on Day One.

Why the fierce loyalty? Because it’s easy for new appointees to be ideologically captured by the existing staff and the previous mission of the agencies they are assigned to lead. It’s a universal temptation to want to expand an agency’s mission so that it becomes preeminent among agencies.

Believing that the good being done by an agency should be expanded to more good, for more people (aka mission creep) is entirely normal. However, the federal government is neither Mommy nor Santa Claus, and it’s broke.

One of President Trump’s stated goals is to reduce the size and cost of government. There’s a lot to that, but one of the most painful steps will be getting senior officials to agree to drastically shrink or eliminate the organizations they oversee. In essence, Trump’s senior managers must be completely willing to work themselves out of a job for the sake of their country and the people they serve. Confirming such willingness needs to be done before any appointment process begins.

Our part in making this happen is to elect a conservative 119th Congress that will support the president and confirm his appointees with alacrity.

Godspeed and good luck to President Trump, his senior advisors, and his team as they put together his appointee list of fiercely loyal public servants.

Anony Mee is the nom de blog of a retired public servant who X-tweets at oh_yeahMee.