Wait for it

We are sitting down.  Smack dab in the middle of wait-for-it.

I think that the best part about all of this is the fantasies that people project on the ongoing American project. These seem to fall into two camps, the beginning of a bright new future or the start of the apocalypse.

Neither of those things are currently occurring.  We are waiting around to watch the dance of a group of novice outsiders and newbies attempt to come to grips with the largest and best funded bureaucracy in the history of the planet.  It might turn out to be an epic battle.  It also might turn out to be a damp squib.

The executive branch of government is an odd thing.  Every election we put someone up to act as its titular leader, but the truth is, these "leaders" usually know jack shit about the process.   So they put up a group of cronies as "Secretaries", who then in turn put in place a bunch of their cronies.

These cronies presumably will run the departments of the government.

Lets look at my squatting ground, the good old VASpa.  The total political appointees are twelve.

The workforce of the VA is around 312K as of 2013.  The political appointees of the last administration are burrowing into the system now, trying to convert their appointed power into a permanent presence.  The 312K has a pretty darn big number of senior executives who will gleefully monkey wrench any attempt to slice away their power and privilege.

And the truth is, these high level political appointees and their minions really don't have complete control of the system, they push higher level thought and deflect damage, but they are as much a captive of the system as the system is a captive to them.

What we will see in the none-to-distant future is a subtle, congressional-mediated, bureaucracy-hindered attempt by a small handful of political players to change the course and livelihoods of an entrenched bureaucracy.

Anyone who thinks that "You're Fired" will work in these conditions might want to consider hedging your bets.