The RAGE doctrine — short for Retire All Government Employees — argues that a permanent civil service is incompatible with democratic accountability and that any new chief executive should be empowered to dismiss career staff and replace them with personally loyal appointees. Proponents treat the merit-based bureaucracy as an unelected obstacle to the elected executive's will, rather than as a check on partisan abuse of state power.
Curtis Yarvin coined the term in a 2012 talk at the BIL Conference, framing it as the operational mechanism of his broader anti-democratic project. The framing reappeared in Donald Trump's 2020 Schedule F executive order and in proposals from Project 2025, which would reclassify tens of thousands of policy-influencing federal workers as at-will employees.
In practice, removing merit protections collides with the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, which Congress passed specifically to end the spoils system that produced the Garfield assassination. Critics argue mass-firing scientists, lawyers, and inspectors degrades expertise; defenders argue democratic legitimacy requires a politically responsive bureaucracy.
Civil-service protections decide whether the federal workforce serves law and expertise or serves whoever wins the last election; ending them concentrates personnel power in a single elected office, with effects on regulatory enforcement, scientific integrity, and oversight investigations.
People often think this is just about removing "deep state" partisans. In practice, RAGE-style reclassification reaches inspectors, scientists, attorneys, and program managers whose work has no partisan content, and it removes the procedural protections that let those employees refuse unlawful orders.
Civil-service protections decide whether the federal workforce serves law and expertise or serves whoever wins the last election; ending them concentrates personnel power in a single elected office, with effects on regulatory enforcement, scientific integrity, and oversight investigations.
People often think this is just about removing "deep state" partisans. In practice, RAGE-style reclassification reaches inspectors, scientists, attorneys, and program managers whose work has no partisan content, and it removes the procedural protections that let those employees refuse unlawful orders.