Status Updates From Democracy Awakening: Notes ...

Appointing unqualified figures is a key tactic of authoritarians, who turn to staffers who are fiercely loyal because they are not qualified or talented enough to rise to power in a nonpartisan system. They recognize that without the leader who elevated them, they will never again be in power—and sometimes will be in prison—so they will cleave to him to the end.

Trump put fierce loyalist John McEntee in charge of the White House office of personnel, urging him to ferret out anyone insufficiently loyal and to make sure the White House hired only true believers. McEntee had no experience in personnel or significant government work, but he and Trump set out to get rid of the fifty thousand nonpartisan civil servants who are hired for their skills, rather than their politics.

Even before the Senate acquitted him, Republicans in Washington told reporters that Trump was planning revenge against those who crossed him in the impeachment trial. “It’s payback time,” one Republican said. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day."