Podcast Summary: Autocracy in America – "Dismantling Public Service"

Podcast: Autocracy in America
Host: The Atlantic – Anne Applebaum
Episode Air Date: January 30, 2026
Guests: Kathleen Walters (Former IRS Executive), Professor Don Moynihan (University of Michigan, Public Policy)
Theme: The episode investigates the ongoing dismantling of the U.S. civil service during President Trump's second term, exploring the replacement of career professionals with loyalists, personal accounts of resistance, historical context, and the wider implications for American democracy.

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode unpacks the transformation and deep politicization of the U.S. civil service under the second Trump administration. It reveals how professionals are being replaced by loyalists, details direct attempts to access sensitive citizen data, chronicles personal stories of ethical boundaries, and places these actions in global and historical context. The ultimate focus is the threat this situation poses to functional governance, public service delivery, and American democracy itself.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Account: Resignation from the IRS

• Kathleen Walters recounts her 20-year career at the IRS, culminating in her resignation over an illegal request to share immigrant tax data with DHS (01:27–04:42).
  • Executive Orders & Unlawful Demands: On the first day of Trump's second term, Walters describes a "flurry of executive orders" and a DHS request to share highly sensitive IRS data on up to seven million immigrants.
  • Legal and Ethical Stand: After IRS lawyers determined compliance would be illegal, Walters promptly resigned 23 days before qualifying for early retirement — a moment of personal, professional, and financial sacrifice.
  • Family Consequence: Walters tells her daughter about their likely financial hardship. Her daughter’s response:

    "Mom, even if we have to live in a tent in someone's yard, you made the right decision." — Kathleen Walters (03:44)

  • Integrity Over Everything:

    "If you lose a job, you can get another job. But if you lose your integrity, it is very hard to get it back." — Kathleen Walters (04:26)

2. The Systematic Dismantling of Civil Service

• Professor Don Moynihan provides analysis (04:42 and throughout).
  • Escalation from First Term: The Trump second term features “breaking laws with seeming impunity” and deliberate replacement of career professionals with compliant loyalists (05:33–06:30).
  • Weaponization of Legal Staff:

    "One of his big lessons from his first term was that there are a lot of lawyers in government who are telling me, no, I can't do things. I need lawyers who will tell me, yes, you can." — Don Moynihan (05:39)

  • Consequences: Principled officials are placed on leave, forced out, or fired if resisting unlawful orders.

3. Historical Context: The Spoils System and Civil Service Reform

• Pendleton Act & Merit System: The show traces how merit-based hiring replaced the "spoils system" of hand-picking loyalists, a reform designed to fight corruption and inefficiency (06:30–08:11).
  • Direct Comparison: Moynihan describes the current moment as the most severe threat to the civil service system since its creation (08:15):

    "It feels that there is an element of the spoil system that is returning, but also there is … a much more direct attack on democracy." — Don Moynihan (08:22)

4. Why Politicized Civil Service Fails the Public

• Research Findings:
  • More politicization = Less competence, fewer talented employees, leaders less likely to receive honest information (08:51–10:20).
  • Evidence: Federal program evaluations [Bush administration] found those led by career civil servants generally outperform those led by political appointees.
  • Historical Example: After patronage ended in the post office, accuracy and speed of mail services improved.

5. International Parallels and Warnings

• Comparisons to Soviet Union, Hungary, Turkey: Other countries—when merit was replaced with loyalty—descended into systemic corruption, inefficiency, and even authoritarianism (10:51–11:14).

6. Multi-pronged Attack: Hiring, Firing, and Creating Fear

• Hiring as Loyalty Test: Trump administration's hiring process asks applicants to write essays about their favorite Trump executive order (11:45–12:49).
  • Quote:

    "The idea that job candidates will be asked ... how are you going to serve this particular president, even though the job is you're supposed to serve every president, not just this individual president." — Don Moynihan (12:13)

• Culture of Fear: Deliberate creation of anxiety through threats, harassment, doxxing (especially by external actors like Elon Musk or conservative media), and targeted FOIAs to expose and punish civil servants (12:49–15:02).
• Mass Firings: Legal and illegal maneuvers are used to force out career staff, bypassing legal protections through technicalities and reorganizations (15:32–18:14).
  • Agencies are eliminated outright (e.g., USAID), with courts sometimes ruling the actions illegal only after irreparable harm is done.

7. Impact on Public Service and the Broader Public

• Loss of Expertise & Continuity:
  • Morale and Retention:

    "They don't appreciate the lack of stability ... or being demonized. And so a lot of those people will exit or they will never join the public sector in the first place." — Don Moynihan (19:28)

  • Service Degradation: Declining performance at the IRS, Social Security, and FEMA is already visible (especially during emergencies), foreshadowing broader service failures (19:11–22:05).
• Connecting the Dots: Public must recognize erosion in service as tied directly to attacks on civil service capacity (22:24–23:21).

8. Democracy at Stake: Politicization as a Path to Authoritarianism

• Election Manipulation: Control of federal agencies (DOJ, IRS) could allow the incumbent to harass opponents, manipulate data, or undermine election processes (23:26–26:24).
  • Loss of Institutional Independence: Removal of checks like the Merit Systems Protection Board makes it impossible to challenge political firings.
  • Potential for Election Interference: Deployment of federal forces at polling sites or harassment of state election officials, even if unconstitutional, now looms as a real threat.
• Societal Response:
  • Public Vigilance Needed:

    "Visible demonstrations by members of the public, if they can start to realize that there are real threats here, will become, I think, useful in reminding society as a whole that these elections do not run themselves." — Don Moynihan (27:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Integrity in Public Service:

  "If you lose a job, you can get another job. But if you lose your integrity, it is very hard to get it back."
  — Kathleen Walters (04:26)

• On Hyper-Politicized Hiring:

  "...job candidates will be asked to name how are you going to serve this particular president, even though the job is you're supposed to serve every president, not just this individual president."
  — Don Moynihan (12:13)

• On Creating a Culture of Fear:

  "The architect ... Russell Vogt ... has said, we want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. We want to put them in trauma."
  — Anne Applebaum (12:58)

• On Professional Exodus and Consequences:

  "They don't appreciate the lack of stability. They don't appreciate the toxic work environment or being demonized."
  — Don Moynihan (19:28)

• On Authoritarian Risks:

  "We need nonpartisan institutions to ... create trust in government."
  — Don Moynihan (24:03)

Important Timestamps

• 00:00-01:27: Kathleen Walters introduces her career and reasons for leaving IRS
• 04:42-06:30: Professor Don Moynihan contextualizes mass civil servant resignations and firings
• 06:30-08:11: Historical background on the U.S. civil service system
• 11:14-12:49: New hiring practices and politicization under Trump II
• 12:49-15:02: Creation of a deliberate culture of fear among civil servants
• 15:32-18:14: Legal maneuvers and mass firings; destruction of agencies
• 19:11-22:05: Practical impacts on quality of public services and morale
• 23:21-26:24: Systemic risk to democracy and elections
• 27:34: Call for public attention and action to protect electoral integrity

Tone and Language

The episode’s tone is urgent, analytic, and often somber, mixing first-person testimony and expert political/historical analysis. Anne Applebaum and her guests maintain a clear-eyed realism about the stakes, repeatedly returning to the question of democratic norms and the individual costs of ethical resistance.

Summary Statement

“Dismantling Public Service” dissects the Trump administration’s destruction of the civil service and the existential implications for American democracy. Through personal narrative, expert commentary, and historical comparison, it paints a chilling picture both of declining public service and the rising risk of permanent autocratic rule—a scenario that will have very real effects on every American’s daily life, the outcome of elections, and the nation’s underlying norms.