Keen On

As Elon Musk continues to plot, with Trumpian glee, against the American Federal government, it is important to remind ourselves of the essential value of this state bureaucracy. As the founding president and CEO of the Washington DC based Partnership for Public Service, Max Stier has spent the last quarter century focused on making American government more efficient and accountable. And Stier’s warning about the incoming administration is critically important. Yes, he acknowledges, some of Musk’s misgivings about the inefficiencies of the Federal bureaucracy are fair, but that isn’t an excuse for a descent into what Stier describes as the patrimonial politics of MAGA in which the interests of Trump and of the American state are treated identically. The American Republic was founded against the 18th century absolutist conceit that L'État, c'est moi. So all Max Stier is doing, at the Partnership for Public Service, is defending the values of the Founders who, wanted to protect the Republic from a patrimonial s