As Mr. Trump brings down candidates for national security adviser to meet with him in Florida this weekend, he presides over a government where the upper echelons remain sparsely populated. Six of the 15 statutory cabinet secretaries are still awaiting Senate confirmation as Democrats nearly uniformly oppose almost all of the president’s choices. Even some of the cabinet secretaries who are in place may feel they are home alone.

It is not just the State Department that has no deputy secretary, much less Trump-appointed under secretaries or assistant secretaries. Neither do the Treasury Department, the Education Department or any of the other cabinet departments. Only three of the 15 have even named a nominee for deputy secretary. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has a deputy only because he kept the one left over from President Barack Obama’s administration.

That does not even begin to cover the rest of the more than 4,000 appointments that a president typically makes. In some cases, the Trump administration is even going in reverse. A senior political appointee at the housing department, who had already started the job, was fired this past week and marched out of the building when someone discovered his previous statements critical of Mr. Trump. The State Department laid off six top career officials in recent days, apparently out of questions about their loyalty to Mr. Trump…

Mr. Trump faces other hurdles, too. With no cadre ready to go from past political service, he has been starting from scratch. His team has been slow to vet candidates, and in some cases his choices have had troubles with their business backgrounds or other matters. And Democrats have mounted a wall of resistance to his nominations, slowing the process down.