Taking Public Service Seriously
By 
Tim Noah has a nice longread on “the Swamp” and how unhelpful it is to relentless describe government workers as corrupt and incompetent:
Broadly speaking, the Asknots are heirs to the wonky New Deal liberals who flocked to the city during the 1930s. Like them, the Asknots came to Washington wanting to make the country and the world a better place. They aren’t ascetics; they live comfortably, most of them, and, if they wanted, many could likely quit their jobs and join the ranks of America’s one percenters. Most don’t want to.
The Asknots have been described variously as “the New Class,” as “permanent Washington,” and, more ominously, as the “Deep State,” though not all of them draw paychecks from the government. The more fanatical among the MAGA faithful—the sort who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021—judge the Asknots their enemy insofar as they tried not to let Donald Trump and his legions trample over existing structures of democratic governance. The insurrectionists aren’t wrong. It was the Asknots who held the government together, during four long years under Trump, with chewing gum and baling wire. In many ways, they saved the Republic. The Asknots are why I can never understand all those people out there in the Real America who look at me pityingly when I say I’m from Washington and tell me what a trial it must be to live among all those awful people in that dreadful swamp.
Quite a few of the graduates of my school each year end up in “the Swamp,” which is to say they end up working in some capacity as public servants whose jobs are to make the government run as effectively and efficiently as possible. Noah does a fine job of describing how many of the “Asknots” work to make outcomes happen that we regard as absolutely essential to the performance of good governance, and also how conservatives from Irving Kristol to Donald Trump have made a religion of denouncing the “bureaucrats” who make government function. I myself immensely enjoy Washington D.C., as you can find someone who works on something interesting and important and who’s deeply knowledgeable about their subject matter in pretty much every bar and on every street corner.