At a time when Americans worry—for good reason—that the apparatus of the state is used to punish the political enemies of those in charge, a government employee just got caught doing what many people fear has become common practice: politicizing the use of government power. A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official who ordered workers to deny assistance to Trump supporters affected by Hurricane Milton powerfully bolstered the arguments of those of us who want government kept small and out of the way to minimize the danger it represents.
When Officials Only Help Their Political Friends
“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell noted in a November 9 press release. “Recently, one FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump.”
Criswell added, “this employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel.”
Criswell was responding to a story broken by the Daily Wire‘s Leif Le Mahieu that a FEMA supervisor, named as Marn’i Washington, “told workers in a message to ‘avoid homes advertising Trump’ as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid” after Hurricane Milton. The supervisor “relayed this message both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team.”
The Daily Wire story included screen shots of the directives to FEMA employees, though further evidence isn’t necessary after Criswell conceded the point and fired the supervisor. The question now is, if one supervisor issued such orders, how many others did the same without being caught? If you ask the American people, they suspect such political weaponization is common.
Low Public Trust
In February 2024, after years of allegations of misuse of police, regulatory, and prosecutorial powers by government officials, Harvard/CAPS/Harris pollsters asked Americans about the issue. Asked, “Do you think the Democrats today are engaged in lawfare—a campaign using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent?” 58 percent of respondents said “yes.” The “yes” vote drew an unsurprising 81 percent of Republicans, but also 50 percent of independents and even 42 percent of Democrats.
In December 2022, months after the FBI raided former (and now future) President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate over the handling of classified documents, only half of respondents voiced much trust in the FBI, according to a poll by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy/APM Research Lab. Fifty-one percent of Republicans said the FBI is biased against Trump, while 24 percent of Democrats said it’s biased against the left. Belief that FBI “agents are fair” was lowest among the youngest respondents at 31 percent, rising with age until it hit 50 percent among the oldest cohort.
A History of Political Weaponization
The use of government agencies as political weapons isn’t new. Over a decade ago, the Internal Revenue Service faced allegations (confirmed by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) that it targeted “Tea Party” groups for unfair treatment when they applied for tax-exempt status.
“The Obama administration isn’t the first to face criticism of using the Internal Revenue Service as a political hit squad,” The Christian Science Monitor noted in a 2013 story on the matter. “Since the advent of the federal income tax about a century ago, several presidents – or their zealous underlings – have directed the IRS to turn its formidable police powers on political rivals.”
Likewise, “the FBI…has placed more emphasis on domestic dissent than on organized crime and, according to some, let its efforts against foreign spies suffer because of the amount of time spent checking up on American protest groups,” the U.S. Senate’s Church Committee complained in 1976.
Compared to the havoc wreaked by the attention of prosecutors, FBI agents, and tax collectors, politically motivated neglect by a FEMA supervisor seems like small potatoes. But it’s maddening for those forced to pay taxes to support government agencies that then selectively expend those funds on supporters of the powers that be. When one government official is caught denying services to opponents of the current administration, it inevitably raises concerns that the rot goes much deeper. It’s perfectly fair to wonder how many American taxpayers have suffered delays, neglect, or abuse at the hands of petty, politicized bureaucrats whose paychecks are funded by people they despise.
That’s why, in the process of denying aid to Floridians whose politics she abhorred, Marn’i Washington did a service to the American people by politicizing her response to a hurricane. If something so seemingly removed from partisan disputes as disaster relief can be made contingent on espousing the “right” political views, then any government service can be weaponized to assist friends of the powerful and harm those with dissenting viewpoints.
If You Can’t Trust Government, Shrink It
The solution isn’t found in a changing of the bureaucratic guard. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance famously wants to “seize the administrative state for our purposes” and replace existing bureaucrats with “our people,” as he commented in a 2021 interview. That would certainly ensure that Trump supporters get their government services—but only until political power once again changed hands. In the meantime, critics of the new administration, or of government in general, would likely continue to be targeted by tax-funded political operatives, with nothing changed but the identities of those getting the shaft.
It’s too much to ask that government agencies be depoliticized in how they go about their business. Government is, at its core, a political entity. We live in an era when devotees of the dominant political tribes hate each other and seek every opportunity to inflict harm on their enemies. It’s impossible to believe that this country’s political factions are up to the job of administering the vast powers of government in an even-handed way without wielding it against foes when that was beyond the grasp of their predecessors in less-fraught times.
Now, as always, the answer to abusive government is less government. Rather than give the Marn’i Washingtons of the world more power with which to help friends and hurt enemies, they should have less to do. Or they can work for independent organizations that can’t force people they dislike to fund them. Government agencies and officials can’t be trusted, so we should give them less to do.
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