This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Federal employees across the nation are facing uncertainty during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump's administration as he seeks to refashion the federal government.
Financial markets reeled on Monday and then restabilized as the president laid out his plans for international trade.
Our Dakota Political Junkies offer their analysis.
Lisa Hager, Ph.D., is an associate professor of political science, and David Wiltse, Ph.D., is a professor of political science. Both are at South Dakota State University.
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Lori Walsh:
The headlines come very quickly here, and that's difficult for a lot of federal employees. They're getting social media messages in the morning and then memos in the evening with potential changes. Some have been sent home. Some have been locked out of their office.
David Wiltse, let's start with you. This was part of Donald Trump's campaign promise to shake up federal government. It was expected, however, it is also causing a certain amount of expected chaos.
Is that the point?
David Wiltse:
In the private sector, there are people who kind of thrive on chaos. I think chaos can be a constructive and productive atmosphere in which innovation can kind of articulate up.
But, unfortunately, in government that usually is not the case. I mean, we really look for stability in government and continuity in policy and in personnel. This is what happens when you start throwing hand grenades around.
You just have just kind of a seizure, an atrophy within the bureaucracy, and people have no idea how to react. We don't know if these things are legal. We don't know if they're going to hold in court. All sorts of actions that are being taken here.
It is just so filled with uncertainty, and it's kind of what we expected. It's kind of what we voted for.
Lori Walsh:
Well, 48% of the country did not vote for this. So it's not a 100% mandate by any means, which is, of course, causing some consternation across the nation as well.
David Wiltse:
No mandate at all, but that's how elections work.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Dr. Hager help us understand what the bureaucracy is and is for. Why is it supposed to be stable and somewhat slow moving?
Lisa Hager:
Right, so our bureaucracy is there to implement legislation and policies. And so in order to do that effectively, they need to put regulations in place to really tell us how things are going to be working at any given point in time.
And so it's also to create some stability, which obviously right now we have quite a bit of instability with what's going on, and that can be very disruptive.
And at really any given time, you turn on the news or you open social media depending on what you're following, I suppose, or what you're watching. If you're looking at anything relating to government, you are going to see how there's a lot of instability occurring and there's a lot of questions and, like you were bringing up, there's a lot of people who feel as if they did not vote for this.
And so they have questions about what will happen moving forward to a variety of different agencies and departments.
Lori Walsh:
Let's talk about trust and a bureaucracy that's self-sustaining in some ways. It keeps itself functioning by not responding to the political whims of a new administration, although the current president is really trying to shake that up.
We don't want, Professor Wiltse, to question a report, for example, from the U.S. Surgeon General or from the Department of Health and Human Services. We want to trust that that has a certain stability and is not influenced by the political tides.
Does a shake-up act like this risk throwing more of our institutions into the category of we don't know who to believe anymore?
David Wiltse:
Right. And we are at a point where our trust in institutions has just been eroded and eroded over the last 15, 20 years to a point where people just don't know who to trust.
Some of this is very deliberate. Particularly, like you said, with statistics and other information that we rely upon from the government to the degree that people just don't trust the statistics coming out on the economy, say, from the Biden administration or any number of things.
In the good old days, this was something that we could really rely upon. It was kind of an accepted truth that people could operate upon because we knew that there was a clear separation between the political demands and the political needs of the administration and the professionals in the bureaucracy who are out there gathering that information and implementing policy.
And what we're seeing is a real desire on Trump's part to return to a politicized bureaucracy and to a patronage system. To one where he is putting himself in a position where he's kind of the nexus between government and the private sector.
And that is really disturbing for a lot of folks, and it's inherently destabilizing, especially when it comes to our relationships with other countries and our trade policies.
Lori Walsh:
What's patronage system? What is that? Help us understand what that means.
David Wiltse:
Well, the patronage system was basically a fusion between the bureaucracy and the political party where you had a very responsive bureaucracy that was out there to implement party policy and party needs within government.
In many respects, it was kind of a pay-to-play environment where you would get favor by giving favor to politicians, and politicians would reward those who supported them along the way.
Lori Walsh:
Professor Hager, Elon Musk is a private citizen. He's not elected but is given a certain amount of power right now.
What are we seeing in these early weeks about just how much power and access he has?
Lisa Hager:
I think we're seeing that he has quite a bit of access and influence given what the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is attempting to accomplish and actually being able to accomplish.
Even recently, we're seeing questions about what types of things should be funded and funding getting taken away based on what the Department of Government Efficiency is identifying.
And then you see a lot of folks reaching out to members of Congress and really trying to get some sort of answer with respect to what can really be done about what Musk and others are doing.
That's really the difficult thing with the fact that that's not a position where we have presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. And so there's not really a lot just right off the top that Congress can necessarily do to try to curb what's initially going on.
Lori Walsh:
Lisa, if Congress has appropriated money, can the president just stop that? It's been appropriated. Can he put the brakes on something?
What does the administrative process for Congress to say, "No, that money was appropriated, and we wanted it to go to this foreign aid," for example?
Lisa Hager:
Yeah, so there's definitely been instances where we've seen presidents try to circumvent those processes in the past, so that basically gets into impoundment politics. So that's rather complicated.
But I think, realistically speaking, what we're going to see is that getting litigated in the courts because this is going to be an issue between what's going on with those two branches and essentially a question of implementation at that point.
It's sometimes a little bit dicey to see where the courts will come in on this. They have a way of getting out of the political thicket by calling this a political question and really making it an issue between Congress and the President and saying they should ultimately work it out.
So sometimes we don't really actually get a real resolution like we'd like to see.
David Wiltse:
And that's the big fear in this particular situation is that the Supreme Court will just kick it to the side and call it a political question, so it will be up to the administration, really, in the end. That's our fear that this court just is not going to be any kind of effective constitutional or legal break, even though in many instances they're probably violating the law, the letter and intent of the law on this, particularly with empowerment.
This nonsense that's going on with USAID right now is just very damaging to our relationships around the world.
Lisa Hager:
Yeah. You call it a political question. They're basically allowing the status quo to be what's the answer in the situation, so it would side with the Trump administration.
Lori Walsh:
All right, before the campaign, I talked with U.S. Senator Mike Rounds, for example, and Congressman Dusty Johnson. I asked them about specific policies that they were hearing in the Trump campaign. Again and again, I heard, "Well, don't just pay attention to what he says. Look at what he does."
"You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose," I think was what Congressman Johnson said with the idea of he's a negotiator, he's going to start out with something big and then it's going to settle into something that's more reasonable.
With tariffs, Professor Wiltse, we saw this declaration that these tariffs would be implemented, the markets go down substantially and quickly, and then all of a sudden there's a 30-day pause. Is this a negotiation?
And, once again, business, private sector, negotiation, statesmanship, where are the intersections and where do those things sort of diverge?
There's a lot that I just said there, but pull something out that you think is really relevant for our conversations today, if you would please.
David Wiltse:
Yeah. If it's negotiation, it's terrible negotiation. Not only in just tactic, but what we're getting out of it.
I mean, look at what has changed between last week and this week in terms of our relationship with Canada. There's not been one iota of a change in terms of policy. The big difference is now the national anthem is getting booed at Canadian hockey games. It is just fundamentally damaging to one of our closest, most important allies and trading partners.
And it's all for this performance that Trump loves to play. He'll create an issue, in this case, pumps up this issue with fentanyl and illegal immigration, even though hardly any fentanyl is coming over the border. The problem with immigration is not people coming from Canada in the United States. He makes it the center of a crisis, does his little bluster online, does his performance, and then in the end says, "Well, I got this concession from them. They're going to be doing X, Y and Z." In this case, the fentanyl czar or something like that.
And in the end, we get nothing. Nothing has changed other than it's just stressing the relationship and it's all for a performance. It's kind of his MO.
I think one of the reasons the markets didn't go absolutely bonkers either on Friday or on Monday is because most players are figuring out that this is just what he does, and in the end, the damage is not going to be nearly as catastrophic had those tariffs actually gone into place, and hopefully people in industry and in Congress have been in his ear saying, "Look, here's what's at stake. This would be catastrophic."
So it's just this performative governance that is pointless in the end. It's all about self-aggrandizement and feeding red meat to his supporters, and they gobble it up.
Lori Walsh:
Let's talk about immigration. Former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, is now Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. We've been seeing how she's going to behave in these first two weeks or so of her appointment.
Again, I was harked back, Lisa, to the Freedom Works Here campaign where she is dressed as a dental hygienist or she's dressed as an electrician and she's doing this work.
Only now, she's on social media and she is in a vest and she's in New York City and near some ICE agents and perhaps doing a raid there. Or she's on the southern border. Only this time she's on a horse or she's on television in a cowboy hat and the Coast Guard in an orange vest.
And so there seems to be a changing of a location and a costume, but the message is the same. And we're looking at, again, a performance, but not necessarily a policy. What I'm hearing her say again and again is, "We're here to let these people do their jobs. I'm here to support them doing their jobs."
What are you seeing in how she's governing or leading at this point in her appointment?
Lisa Hager:
Definitely that she's just trying to draw attention to what is currently taking place so that supporters of these policies and what Trump's platform was on these policies can see that there has been some action with respect to what's going on. Rather than there may being some questions about, Trump's been in office, what are we actually doing with respect to illegal immigration and what's happening at the border?
I think it essentially turns into a publicity stunt when she's dressing up and being present at these different locations, but it's effective so.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, how do we measure then the governing beyond the performance. People who admire her are going to admire certain things about the performance, if we're going to call it that, and people who are inclined to dislike her are going to ridicule or hold that up for criticism.
How are we to measure what she's actually accomplishing as secretary of this department? Dave?
David Wiltse:
I don't think we can. When it comes right down to it, this really is what politics is about for a good portion of the population now, and they are so deep into this performance that I don't even know how they can extricate themselves out of it.
I mean, look at people like Dusty Johnson, someone who takes policy very seriously, somebody who really likes to get into the weeds. He has a terrible time navigating this. You can see his discomfort with it, and you can see that on both sides of the aisle, the people who prefer this kind of performance aspect of the job and those who really care about policy.
And you can see that frustration. It's just an order of magnitude or more right now within the administration, and it really says something sad about government these days.
Lori Walsh:
Lisa, one of the big questions I hear again and again is are we going to find out that some of these agencies needed to be cut back and they don't really impact our lives? Or are we going to start seeing massive impacts in people's lives and will that cause some kind of an outcry and a demand for a different kind of action?
In other words, crystal ball, what happens next? How does this continue to spool out?
Lisa Hager:
Right. Yeah. I don't know if I have a great crystal ball for anybody. I'll give my best effort here.
But I do think when folks are concerned about some of what they're seeing, we have to wait for there to be some of these instances to pop up. I think we're starting to see them where people are saying, "Uh, I'm not sure that's exactly what I was thinking when it came to trying to ensure that government was efficient."
So with the recent cuts associated with Lutheran Social Services, I think there were some people who were going, okay, some of these things that seem outlandish, which is nothing new.
I mean, Jeff Flake had the Wastebook, for instance, when he was in the Senate. There's always been senators who've kind of taken up this issue of wasteful government spending.
But I think when you hear some of the things that get talked about, like safe barbecue grilling techniques, and we're giving away barbecue grilling tools or something. People go, "Okay, maybe that is wasteful," versus, "Okay, there are some of these different nonprofits that are actually providing key government services to folks."
I think that's where we're going to start to see some things changing because people will say that there's a line here and we're crossing it with respect to what we're wanting our tax dollars to go to or not go to.
Lori Walsh:
Dr. Wiltse, any final thoughts here today?
David Wiltse:
Just get used to this. I mean, this is the chaos that we're going to be seeing for the next four years. I hope we're not going to destroy our relationships around the world in the process, but I am not looking forward to this. This is stressful, especially if you care about policy, if you care about economics, security. We're in for a wild ride.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, it is not consequence-free.
David Wiltse:
No. And there's all these unintended consequences that pop up. I mean, even if something as kind of esoteric as this NSF freeze that we saw last week. Obviously at a research university, this is really profound for us, but this does reach down into the communities. This reaches down to jobs that people have that all of a sudden they're like, "Wait, we're supposed to get paid Friday. Is that going to happen?"
So there are a lot of unintended consequences here. And to use the meme, that face-eating leopard is out there and a lot of people are going to get bit who didn't think that was going to happen to them.
Lori Walsh:
Lisa, if this is some kind of new normal when it comes to governing, your candidate might not win the next election and there could be a complete reversal.
We are at risk of becoming a nation that where half of us are grieving the loss of an agency or a program or a policy or an ideal or an identity and the other half is celebrating wildly in seeing how fast they can come in and change things.
Maybe there's a country that does that very effectively, and I'm not aware of it. How do you want to wrap us up today?
Lisa Hager:
No, I think when we find ourselves in those situations, obviously we can talk about political polarization until we're blue in the face.
But I think that's where we're starting to get what the framers of the Constitution were trying to avoid, which is this tyranny of the majority because that's what we're going to be seeing.
And so, my hope is that hopefully people will see, okay, we've seen what it can be like when we have the Trump supporters, like Trump in power and how he is empowered by folks on the far right. We've seen the Biden administration where other folks were saying, "This is more the left."
Hopefully kind of seeing those more extremes to a certain extent, we'll bring some folks into the middle and say, we really need to go back to politics as usual. Where we're willing to negotiate across the aisle and hopefully find some candidates who are a little bit more moderate and aren't always trying to also accommodate the extremes in their parties. That's probably asking a lot, but I think that might be what we end up getting after seeing what's been going on with these large pendulum swings.
Lori Walsh:
Sure.
David Wiltse:
Well, the terms of politics have changed a lot over the past couple decades. Identity is so much more important than it was before, and identity is something that people just aren't willing to compromise on.
When politics was more about redistribution, when politics was more on material terms, that was something that both parties could come to some accommodation on.
So just the tone and the terms of politics doesn't lend themselves to compromise productivity today in the way that they did 30, 40 years ago.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Well, we will leave it there for today, but we have much more to talk about in the future.
Dr. Dave Wiltse and Dr. Lisa Hager, both political scientists from South Dakota State University in Brookings. I thank you both for being here.
David Wiltse:
Thank you.
Lisa Hager:
Thanks for having us.
