Why Trump and the New Right Declared War on Bureaucrats

Elon Musk may be swapping insults with President Trump after pivoting away from politics and stepping down from the Department of Government Efficiency, but the broader initiative, driven by what he described as a mission to end the “tyranny of the bureaucracy,” will soldier on. Even if its impact on government spending remains limited, DOGE’s aggressive approach has rattled Washington’s political establishment.

The administration’s war against the bureaucracy didn’t emerge from the mind of President Trump or Mr. Musk alone. Nor is it the product of traditional conservative preoccupations with shrinking government and reducing spending. Its roots and motivations are far deeper.

It is the culmination of a once marginalized, now transformative strand of political thought about who really holds power in the modern American system. Namely, that our democracy has been usurped by a permanent ruling class of wholly unaccountable managers and bureaucrats.

Anti-managerialism is back. Well positioned to answer decades of frustration with mainstream conservatives’ failure to deliver results, this old idea has become the central principle of the new right.

In fact, much of what is commonly called “populist” politics can be more accurately described as part of an anti-managerial revolution attempting to roll back the expansion of overbearing bureaucratic control into more and more areas of life.

Though it has so far met with limited success amid stiff resistance, grasping the nature of this anti-managerialism is essential to understanding the Trump administration’s effort to transform America’s institutional landscape, from government to universities and major corporations.