Trump administration to prioritize 'patriotic Americans' for federal jobs

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Politico

05/30/2025 05:20 PM EDT


As President Donald Trump moves to slash the size of the federal workforce, his administration unveiled a plan to ensure that any new hires are “patriotic Americans” who vow to advance the president’s policy priorities.

The White House and the agency that serves as the government’s human resources arm Thursday released directives for departments to use when recruiting employees in a memo that represents a dramatic shift in federal hiring procedures.

The administration’s “merit hiring plan” comes after Trump ordered a revamp to the federal hiring process on his first day in office. The resulting plan issued this week says it aims to ensure that “only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans” are hired by the government.

The “overly complex Federal hiring system overemphasized discriminatory ‘equity’ quotas and too often resulted in the hiring of unfit, unskilled bureaucrats,” says the memo authored by Vince Haley, assistant to the president for domestic policy, and Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/30/trump-administration-patriotic-americans-federal-workforce-00376752

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There are LAWS (several Civil Service Acts) in effect that guide this. They can't make shit up, although they have been doing that from day one.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Only white male Trump ass kissers need apply.

[underpants]

29. England, Iraq how'd that turn out?

Article V Clause three “no religious test” was because you had to be a member of the Church to hold certain positions for the Crown in the Colonies.

In Iraq, only members of the Baath party could have government jobs. W&Co fired everyone in the Baath party which meant everyone regardless of their level of actual membership and devotion. Hilarity ensued.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-6/clause-3/

[Irish_Dem]

35. Yes it will give us a very corrupt and incompetent federal workforce.

Literally a disaster in the making.

[SunSeeker]

2. I hope there's a lawsuit over this. It's totally lawless!

You can't make civil servants "vow to advance the president’s policy priorities." Their vow is to the CONSTITUTION!!

Can you imagine if Biden or Obama had tried to make civil servants take such a "vow"?

[Deminpenn]

4. Truman made federal employees sign a loyalty oath

during his adminstration when the anti-communist hysteria was at its height.

When did OPM get an acting director? Wasn't that Vought's job?

[SunSeeker]

5. Was it a loyalty oath to him (his "policies") like what Trump is doing?

OPM, the government’s HR agency — which Trump tried to dismantle during his first administration — has been led by Charles Ezell on an acting basis since 1/21/25. Ezell was OPM's branch chief for data and analytics, per his LinkedIn. https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/01/opms-new-cio-replaced-second-day-trump-administration/402380/

Russell Vought is Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He will be continuing Musk’s DOGE efforts.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/16/russ-vought-trump-project-2025-musk

[Wiz Imp]

16. Truman's Loyalty Program has its origins in World War II, particularly in the Hatch Act (1939), which forbade anyone who

“advocated the overthrow of our constitutional form of government in the United States” to work in government agencies. After the war, tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union grew, as did suspicion of workers in every government department. Several advisors, including Attorney General Tom Clark, urged Truman to form a loyalty program to safeguard against communist infiltration in the government. Initially, Truman was reluctant to form such a program, fearing it could threaten civil liberties of government workers. However, several factors shaped his decision to institute such a policy. Fear of communism was growing rapidly at home, and in the 1946 midterm election, Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time since 1931. To examine the issue, in November 1946 Truman created the Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty, which stated, “there are many conditions called to the Committee’s attention that cannot be remedied by mere changes in techniques… Adequate protective measures must be adopted to see that persons of questioned loyalty are not permitted to enter into the federal service.” In March 1947, Truman signed Executive Order 9835, “prescribing procedures for the administration of an employees loyalty program in the executive branch of the government.”

The Loyalty Program has been criticized as a weapon of hysteria attacking law-abiding citizens. The Attorney General’s office compiled lists of “subversive” organizations, and prior involvement in protests or labor strikes could be grounds for investigation. As the Cold War intensified, investigations grew more frequent and far-reaching. As noted in Civil Liberties and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman, edited by Richard S. Kirkendall, “During the loyalty-security program’s peak years from 1947 to 1956, over five million federal workers underwent screening, resulting in an estimated 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations… the program exerted its chilling effect on a far larger number of employees than those who were dismissed”

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/trumans-loyalty-program


The loyalty oath itself was terrible policy and a huge mistake by Truman, but unlike Trump, the loyalty oath was simply to the US Government and NOT the President or his administrations agenda. That not to say it wasn't occasionally enforced politically.

Against his better judgment, Truman acceded to political pressure from a Congress, fixated with subversives, that appeared ready to require perhaps even more intrusive investigations into the personal lives of government employees. To demonstrate the nonpartisan nature of the program, Truman appointed Seth Richardson, a prominent conservative Republican, to chair the Loyalty Review Board. The program had the salutary political effect of robbing Republican critics of their complaint that the Administration was soft on Communism. Truman nevertheless said in his Memoirs that the program was necessary and that it “did give anyone who was accused as fair an opportunity to have his case adjudicated as was possible under the climate of opinion that then existed." He acknowledged, however, that in operation the program “had a lot of flaws in it." Privately, Truman admitted to friends that the program was a mistake. Years later, in an interview with Merle Miller, Truman insisted that he had always opposed loyalty oaths, which he described as “a bunch of damn nonsense . . . . You canʼt force people to be loyal by making them sign a piece of paper, and it was the experience of my people . . . my family that made me be against loyalty oaths. And I have always been, was when I was President and before and am now."

https://www.historyinink.com/1102101_Truman_TLS_1-4-1947.htm

“During the loyalty-security program’s peak years from 1947 to 1956, over five million federal workers underwent screening, resulting in an estimated 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations… the program exerted its chilling effect on a far larger number of employees than those who were dismissed”

https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/trumans-loyalty-program

The oaths were repeatedly challenged on grounds that they violated the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of association. The United States Supreme Court avoided addressing these problems during the McCarthy Era. During the 1960s, it began striking down such oaths on the basis of vagueness and undue breadth.

The last major loyalty oath case heard by the court was decided in 1972, when it upheld a requirement that State of Massachusetts employees swear to uphold and defend the Constitution and to "oppose the overthrow of the [government] by force, violence, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method".

During a case in 1972, Cole v. Richardson, the court declared four requirements needed for an oath to clear First Amendment muster:

1. It cannot go against the First or Fourteenth Amendment rights.
2. The oath cannot keep an employee from participating in protected public speaking.
3. Freedom of association cannot be used in oath as protected by the Constitution.
4. The oath should be direct and clear, so no question comes to what is meant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_oath#:~:text=On%20March%2021%2C%201947%2C%20concerned,known%20as%20the%20%22Loyalty%20Order.

[Hekate]

31. I read what I signed, approx 1980 -- 2000, and iirc I swore to uphold the US Constitution and Calif State Constitution

I thought the bit about California was weird, but signed. Swearing to uphold the US Constitution gave me no trouble at all, and I signed. Working at UC and the County were good jobs for secretaries: the pay wasn’t so great, but the family benefits were outstanding.

I knew full well these oaths were relics of both WWII and the Red Scare — but I also knew there were people who could be excused from signing on personal religious or ethical grounds, and that there was legal precedence for that. Quakers, for instance, have been allowed to “affirm” their truthfulness in courts of law since before the nation was founded — and that applied to employment as well.

What trump is doing, however, is straight out of the Dictator’s Handbook: gut the Civil Service, make the remainder swear fealty to him , and make all new-hires nepotism and patronage jobs.

[Deminpenn]

24. Thanks. Don't know why I thought Vought was at OPM

nt

[Karasu]

3. Every time you think the fascism can't get any more fucking blatant, it does.

[kkmarie]

6. Project 2025 and Schedule F

One small change to the rules classifying federal employees could significantly advance the US toward authoritarianism. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan to staff the government with far-right movement activists, hinges on an executive order that could be implemented with surprising ease. While much attention has been paid to the initiative’s extremist policy agenda, a rules change called Schedule F would massively expand presidential power and fundamentally change the character of the federal government. Understanding the Schedule F threat is critical to stopping it.

https://kettering.org/the-schedule-f-threat-to-democracy-a-project-2025-explainer/

I've been saying all along that Krasnov will get rid of Congress. He will rule by executive orders. The courts can't stop him, withe the SCOTUS mostly in his pocket.

I am glad this all appears to be on a fast track. I want this to be a step on a rake moment for the magas and the non voters

[tanyev]

7. It's their Devotees, Extremists and Ideologues hiring program.

[underpants]

28. Given that this is a cult, it sounds like a religious test

Article VI Supreme Law

Clause 3 Oaths of Office
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-6/clause-3/

[Timeflyer]

8. Dictator-talk for "personally loyal to me, the Great Leader, not country or Constitution."

[tulipsandroses]

9. It gives me hope that he keeps losing in court. The sad part is that Congress has rolled over and is playing dead

We must retake it next year to put a check on this wannabe dictator. Maybe just maybe, if we control the house along with him losing in court we can survive the next 3.5 years.

[Mysterian]

10. An oath of loyalty to the fuhrer?

This is what the deranged cultists desire.

[hildegaard28]

11. You have to

Be highly qualified to even be brought in an interview for federal employment. A master's degree is usually the minimum qualifying credential along with at least a few years experience in whatever you're applying for. Federal employment was already merit based. Now it's going to be based on who is able to stomach kissing Trump's ass.

[Deminpenn]

25. You don't need a masters to get a federal government job

A regular old college degree usually suffices. Not every job is a GS position either.

[Kid Berwyn]

12. First NAZI

Don’t bother to ask for permission.

[JohnnyRingo]

13. This brings to mind a "patriotic" sign I see in some local stores here

It means white people:

[Solly Mack]

14. As it has always been, white supremacy and misogyny are both identity politics.

[Paladin]

15. Helpful translation:

"Patriotic Americans": Whole lotta white guys...

[Martin68]

17. MAGA version of DEI: give jobs to incompetent slobs who voted for Trump.

[moniss]

18. Here comes the

"Are you now or have you ever....." test.

[Turbineguy]

19. Unfit is trumps middle name.

[patphil]

38. Actually his name is Donald J Triump. The "J" stands for Jackass.

But, as a Jackass, he is definitely Unfit for office.
In fact, an actual Jackass would probably be and improvement, since they aren't inherently evil like Trump is.

[William Seger]

20. That's the same policy RUMP used to fill his cabinet

... and the ignorance and incompetence of that cabinet is a national embarrassment.

[sakabatou]

21. He means ass-kissers

[live love laugh]

22. Tell me you're hiring J6'ers without telling me you're hiring J6'ers...

[Gymbo]

23. I fought and bled for this country

I dare someone to reject me as unpatriotic.

[Demovictory9]

26. "will require short essay responses to questions about their commitment to the Constitution, how they plan to improve go

"will require short essay responses to questions about their commitment to the Constitution, how they plan to improve government efficiency, how they plan to advance Trump’s executive orders and policy priorities, and about their work ethic"

[underpants]

27. ....and, oh yeah, their work ethic. Anything about qualifications or ability?

[Brainfodder]

30. Does that translate to bring a thick white envelope to your interview?

The transactional blackhole has arrived!?!

[Norrrm]

32. Civil Service exam

[AllaN01Bear]

33. knew this was coming. hem

[cstanleytech]

34. In other words Trump loyalist and lackeys.

[PedroXimenez]

36. anti-govt militia members go to the top of the list to work for the federal govt

who's more patriotic than them?

[slightlv]

37. And no one can buy or sell

Without the mark of the Beast.