You're going to miss the deep state when it's gone

But Trump’s real issue with career professionals and even many of the senior officials he himself appointed was not that they “reported to no one,” but that instead they actually understood to whom they did report: the American people. They took their oaths of office seriously, which on a regular basis during the Trump years meant that they foiled some of Trump’s craziest or most dangerous plans by pointing out they were unconstitutional, illegal or gravely damaging to U.S. national interests…

Indeed, while many of these people could and should have drawn more attention to Trump’s contemplated crimes and horrifically misguided policy impulses, the arguments made by many of them that they had to stay in place to keep things from going off track is certainly understandable. After all, that is what some of them were called upon to do every day.

Further, as Trump and those closest to him grew increasingly frustrated with such officials, they set in motion efforts to replace them with lackeys—stooges who placed Trump ahead of the Constitution, the American people, the institutions they served and, often, common sense.