It seems to us there’s a certain personality type that seeks out government work — a personality type that is at once risk-averse and power-hungry. In other words, a Democrat. And Democrats dominate the federal bureaucracy and thereby control our lives to a greater extent than ever before.

The numbers bear it out — in some cases by a nearly four-to-one margin. No wonder conservative principles can’t get a fair shake in The Swamp.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem as bad as all that. Washington’s system of permanent patronage has been packed by Democrats, yes, but “only” 63% of those who actually run things in the Beltway — the senior executives, the highest-ranking members of the federal bureaucracy — are Democrats.

That must mean the remaining one-third or so are Republicans, right? Wrong. The percentage of Republican membership in this elite class of decision-makers is in the low 20s. Others might call themselves “independent,” but we suspect the gap between Democrats and Republicans is even higher, as savvy players tend to keep their political affiliation under wraps so as to remain promotable when the opposing party sweeps into office.

Is it any wonder that Donald Trump was consistently sabotaged by a “Deep State” resistance that bragged about its presence during his administration?

In successful organizations, people are promoted based on their performance. But in our nation’s capital, people are promoted based on either their leftist bona fides or their membership in an aggrieved group. As FrontPage Magazine’s Daniel Greenfield writes, “After fighting to eliminate merit in college admissions, the military, and federal contracts, they want us to believe that they not only believe in merit, but want to protect it in the civil service.”

And so, what was once reviled as a “spoils system” in which government jobs were doled out as rewards to those loyal to the party newly in power at the White House has instead become something even worse: a system of permanent patronage favoring the Democrats.

Greenfield calls this “a slow-motion coup,” and it’s hard to argue with that assessment.

As a recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates, “The most heavily Democratic departments are the EPA, Department of Education, and the State Department, where about 70% of employees are registered to the party, while the most conservative departments are Agriculture and Transportation.” No shockers there.

How did we get here? How did we get to a place where the federal workforce has exploded from a pre-Civil War size of 5,837 to today’s behemoth of nearly three million employees — a number that balloons to nearly 10 million when contract employees, grant employees, active-duty military, and postal employees are included? To a place where the leadership of once-highly esteemed institutions such as the American Armed Forces and the FBI have become both corrupt and cowardly and can no longer be trusted to pursue their missions? As Greenfield writes:

The liberal promises of Wilson, FDR and JFK required a symbiotic growth in government. The government programs never delivered a better life, except by providing government jobs for Democrats. The spoils system was corrupt, but permanent patronage has not only rewarded members of one party with jobs, especially senior roles, to the tune of billions, but it also shifted power away from the voters and elected officials, and to partisan bureaucrats. …

The most fundamental virtue of our constitutional government is that the public has supreme power over the government. The civil service system has effectively eliminated that power.

Firing federal employees is a long difficult process. The Merit Systems Protection Board has repeatedly intervened to protect even the worst abuses by workers including outright criminal behavior. Americans can lose their jobs, but they can’t do anything about the bureaucrats who control their lives. Politicians come and go, but the Democrat administrative state abides.

Is it any wonder that Joe Biden, the standard-bearer of the party in power, is polling at record-low levels, and that the Democrat brand has been so thoroughly tarnished?

Worse yet, is it any wonder that hardly anyone trusts the government anymore? As Greenfield sums it up: “The one thing most of the country, across political and racial lines, can agree on is not trusting the government. Currently only about 29% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans trust the government. How much more trust is there to lose?”

On second thought, maybe it’s a good thing that no one trusts the government. All the better to reform it and begin shrinking its size.

Hey, we can dream, can’t we?