President Biden says the “Make America Great Again” movement does not share the “basic beliefs in our democracy”. Photo: File.
United States President Joe Biden has warned that Republican plans to turn more Public Service jobs into political appointments are part of a dangerous movement in America.
Speaking in Arizona during an event to honour the late Republican Senator and Presidential nominee John McCain, Mr Biden warned that the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement inspired by former President, Donald Trump “does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy”.
“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, adhere to the MAGA extremist ideology, but there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists,” Mr Biden said.
“Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”
He highlighted actions under Mr Trump to politicise the appointment of more Public Service jobs, which Mr Biden reversed, but Mr Trump and fellow Republican Presidential nominees have pledged to reinstate.
Mr Trump’s Executive Order in October 2020 sought to move Federal workers in policy-orientated roles from the government’s main Federal pay scale (known as the General Schedule) to ‘Schedule F’, a new category under which the usual Public Service protections would not apply.
This was intended to allow the President and his officials to more easily remove Federal employees at a time when Mr Trump was describing the permanent Federal Public Service as part of the “deep state”.
Mr Biden warned that this would effectively force Public Servants to pledge loyalty to the President, rather than the US Constitution.
“They would have no protections, and the President would be able to wholesale fire them if he wanted,” Mr Biden said.
– Washington, 8 October 2023
