1) There has been some renewed frothing about Trump not "firing all the jackasses" immediately when he became president, which led to keeping people like Sondland or Comey (Scrotumtoter), and so on

2) Here is some perspective

3) The Federal gubment employs 1.869 MILLION people

4) Of those, approximately 676,000 are military. (NOTE: You can find a dozen different stats on these, but most are in this ballpark).

5) That means that the non-DOD employees of the gubment are about 1.193m.

6) Of those a new president has between 1,200 and 1,400 appointees.

7) We have this thing called the Pendleton Civil Service Act that made most gubment jobs semi-permanent.

8) Years ago, in his "Free to Choose" series, economist Milton Friedman used a 6-foot-long chart to show all the steps one agency went through to fire just ONE employee

8) contd . . . who was consistently late and did not do her job.

9) Of the, say, 1,200 appointed positions, the common practice has been to appoint about 300 of whom the president has some say and some input. The transition team will vet these. Then THOSE department heads . . .

9) contd . . . appoint the remainder and the President just rubber stamps them.

10) Recall that before Civil Service, a President such as Lincoln would have long lines stretching down Pennsylvania Avenue of people with notes from aunts, uncles, or people the President only . . .

10) contd . . . met one time begging for gubment jobs. Recall also that it was a disgruntled job seeker who killed James Garfield.

11) There is a good story that I can't go into right now about how much the Pendleton Act changed American politics for the worse.

12) Anyway, back to the point. So of 1.193m employees, the President has a direct say in about 300 of them. But again, during the transition---getting defense briefings, learning all the senators' names, finding out what department reports to whom---even the fastest study . . .

12) contd. . . can't possibly know who is truly "on their side." A President gets recommendations from state GOP chairmen, political insiders, family, friends, and of course some of the appointees are favors for services rendered in the campaign.

13) Then, on top of all THOSE considerations, a President may be using appointees for diplomacy---as Trump apparently did---seeking an olive branch or telling various groups, "let's work together."

14) In 1865, to get votes, Abraham Lincoln made a DemoKKKrat his veep!

15) I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Bill Clinton named a (RINO) Republican to his cabinet.

16) This is not unusual.

17) More unusual is the practice of NOT allowing department heads to pick their subordinates.

18) This came up in Ronald Reagan's transition.

19) Reagan, like Trump, wanted loyalists, but he also picked people he expected could do the job. Therefore, his staff struggled with whether to override his own secretaries' choices for lower positions. Reagan finally decided he needed to trust his people.

20) Nobody gets it all right. FDR named Joe Kennedy to the ambassadorship to Great Britain---he was an avid anti-Brit, Irish nationalist, and early supporter of Hitler.

21) You remember "Charlie Wilson's War": The Afghan Ambassador thought his job was to not draw attention . . .

21) contd . . . to the mujahadeen's war against the Soviets, not to win. Even after Reagan became president, dozens of his ambassadors were still operating on the old "detente" thinking.

22) Reagan and a handful of CIA guys were the ONLY ones in DC who actually thought . . .

22) contd . . . the USSR could be beaten.

23) But back to Trump. Very, very few presidents (Lincoln, Reagan) come into office with as much entrenched opposition from any and all of the people who have any kind of experience in these positions.

24) Lincoln ended up . . .

24) contd . . . with "A Team of Rivals" as Kearns Goodwin put it. I call it, "A Nest of Vipers." It took Lincoln FOUR YEARS to placate the congress and his Sec of War and State and others to get the general he wanted from the outset running the war (U.S. Grant).

25) Reagan had it a little better. Because of the Heritage Foundation backing him, Reagan's transition team began an early vetting process with the goal of having the top 300 appointees fully vetted and CONFIRMED by March 1981.

Did Reagan know most of these guys? Heck no.

26) But even after a vicious campaign, most of Reagan's opponents resigned themselves to supporting him. Someone like Bill Clinton had virtually NO opposition from within DemoKKKrat ranks. H. W. Bush and W had virtually a "running start."

27) Now, pile on top of that the fact that not only were opponents trying to sabotage Trump, but that the very agencies that should have saluted and done their jobs regardless were engaged in treasonous subversion.

28) Since there was NO historical record of such a thing . . .

28) contd . . . before in American history, even as "divisive" as Trump was, there was no reason to assume that the intel communities would go Full Traitor.

Ya never go Full Traitor.

29) Indeed, honestly, 2017 was the first time in my 40 years of following politics that I . . .

29) contd . . . learned how FBI and CIA agents VOTED! They were always considered---and usually acted---non-partisan.

As best I can tell, only the Secret Service has retained its integrity.

30) So, as to the various "get a job in the Trump admin" web pages and places where ordinary Trumpers could apply, those likely were given to an assistant to a deputy director and disappeared as more work was heaped on the assistant.

31) This would have been completely . . .

31) contd . . . unusual as a means of staffing anyway. Without a high profile name running the "tryouts," of course the "get a job" site was going to disappear. I would have been surprised if it remained.

32) So how does Trump determine who is loyal? Again, he doesn't have . . .

32) contd . . . time to go through every resume---which in itself doesn't tell you a lot. David Stockman came into Reagan's team as a "pure" Reaganite and gung ho guy, was a backstabbing little tubesnorker.

George H. W. Bush was suspect coming in yet proved the most loyal of all

33) Most people who hope to have a job in gubment try to appear "above partisanship" and "well balanced." So it's not like they have "Trumper" or "NeverTrumper" branded on them (unless you're Jeff Flake).

34) Add to that Trump's personal ethic of appointing people and letting them succeed or fail (Mooch, Amarosa), or his habit of using someone for a specific purpose (Bolton for Korea, McMaster for ISIS) then letting them go when the job is done, and you have a lot of turnover.

35) Then you have loyalists like Newt or Rudy who did not get plum jobs for obvious reasons---they both talk too much.

36) You had Bannon, who was a loyalist but who apparently told Trump once too often that he was the one responsible for Trump's victory.

37) So, when Bannon goes, it's automatic that his deputy goes as well.

38) Yes, a lot of blame can be laid at Trump's feet for not starting off stronger. I sent Jeff Sessions and his aide Rick Dearborn a memo in Aug. 2016 advising them of the critical nature of . . .

39) contd . . . getting people lined up early. I outlined Reagan's success in having 100 ready to confirm immediately.

40) But, in October, I did send them a second memo called "WHEN You Win" because I knew Trump would win then.

41) In it I warned that the DemoKKKrats would not take losing lying down & would mount an ongoing campaign to destabilize the Trump Presidency.

42) So who knows? Maybe Sessions & Trump paid more attention to the second memo than the first. Anyway, that's gubment employment 101.