I spoke with Bloomberg View‘s Frank Wilkinson about the emerging policy and political void as the blank slate of the campaign trail gives way to the legislative and bureaucratic Thunderdome.
Power doesn’t so much concentrate in the White House as shrink there.
“The same problem extends to the broader administration where you can’t fill out a government because many who are qualified aren’t interested, most who are interested aren’t qualified, and among the few who are both you’re seeing people disqualified based on perceived loyalty issues,” Donovan said.
The Trump team, continued Donovan, seems to believe “they can shrink government and/or limit internal sabotage by simply not filling many of these positions — the problem with this approach is that you’re just dividing the same amount of power fewer ways, ceding a ton of it to career bureaucrats by default, for better or worse.”
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“Politically,” said Donovan, “I’d argue it’s less of a vacuum and more of an eclipse. Trump blocks out the political sun for any and all Republicans, much to the delight of the opposition.”
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