Oh, the irony. As President Joe Biden’s national security team scrambles for the exits, it seems like the ultimate plot twist in Washington’s long-running soap opera.
According to Politico, the bureaucratic exodus is in full swing, with State Department officials, Pentagon staffers, and other agency appointees dusting off their résumés faster than you can say “Trump’s second term.” It’s a scene straight out of a workplace comedy, except the stakes are real—and for Biden’s team, the laughs are at their expense.
You can almost hear the collective groan in the offices of those seasoned career bureaucrats, many of whom apparently endured Trump’s first term and are now staring down the barrel of a sequel. One Biden appointee at the State Department summed up the sentiment perfectly: “Can I really go through that again?” The answer, for many, is a resounding “Nope.” Hence the sudden surge of applications flooding think tanks, defense contractors, and consulting firms. Even Capitol Hill is being overwhelmed with job seekers, despite the lower paychecks and titles that don’t exactly scream “prestige.”
The desperation is palpable. One official lamented the lack of “glamorous” opportunities, complaining that unless you’re eager to lobby for unsavory foreign governments, your options are pretty limited. Apparently, the allure of lobbying for autocrats who “jail journalists and kill dissidents” isn’t quite strong enough to tempt them. Go figure.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, there’s no such existential dread—just a healthy dose of optimism and a competitive scramble for spots in Trump’s incoming administration. With heavyweights like Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser, and Pete Hegseth leading the Department of Defense, the GOP lineup is looking sharp. And then there’s Tulsi Gabbard at the helm of the DNI and John Ratcliffe returning to the CIA. Kash Patel taking over the FBI? That’s got to be giving some of these fleeing bureaucrats nightmares.
It’s hard to feel too sorry for Biden’s team, though. After all, many of them rode in on a wave of “competency” promises and spent the last four years defending policies that often felt more like ideological experiments than actual governance. Now, with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) poised to take a scalpel to the bloated administrative state, it’s no wonder the rats are jumping ship. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading the charge to cut waste and fraud, and it’s clear the Beltway gravy train is about to derail. For some, the writing’s on the wall: fewer jobs, less bureaucracy, and—gasp—actual accountability.
One can’t help but chuckle at the scene described in Politico. Biden staffers battling “depression” while updating their résumés? Senior officials cozying up to defense contractors while lower-level staffers grovel for entry-level positions? It’s almost poetic. This is the same group that smugly celebrated Trump’s exit in 2020, convinced that the “adults” were back in charge. Fast forward four years, and the same “adults” are trading prestige for survival.
“Both sides are racing for jobs here, the big difference being that our side is just battling depression while we update our resumes,” a Biden White House official told Politico.
NEW: Vivek Ramaswamy says entire government agencies will be axed under DOGE, says cuts will be achieved through executive action.
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“Over half a trillion dollars that’s spent every year right now was not even authorized by Congress in the first place.”
“The Pentagon has… pic.twitter.com/TooxaiRXaS
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 17, 2024
Ultimately, this scramble says less about Trump’s return and more about how fragile the bureaucratic empire has become. Trump and his team aren’t playing by the old rules of D.C., and it’s throwing the entire system into chaos. For Biden’s appointees, the reality is setting in: the era of unchecked bureaucracy may be over. For the rest of us, it’s hard not to enjoy the spectacle.
