This is a quick post to share some easy-to-read explainers about what different agency heads and civil servants do, how the civil service works, and Trump’s early and antagonistic actions towards our civil service system. Sometimes the government can seem like a black box. My view is that as you hear about early actions of the Trump administration, a good understanding of the federal government will help you understand and assess those actions.

The first resource comes from The Conversation (and cross-posted to GovExec). It’s a series on what various agency heads do and why it matters. I wrote one essay on OMB with Martha Coven (Princeton), Prof. Jennifer Selin (Arizona State) wrote one on the Attorney General, and there are also articles on leaders at CIA, State, Homeland Security, Energy, Defense, EPA, and so on. As Trump tries to get his political appointees confirmed, these articles are a nice refresher on the stakes of these important jobs.

The second resource comes from The Washington Post in its Who is Government series, which takes vivid and deep dives into the careers of a handful of federal workers. This series really helps you picture who works in our civil service and what they do for us.

A third resource is a couple of great posts by Prof. Nick Bednar (Minnesota) at Lawfare on the civil service. The first, written before Trump’s second inauguration, explains our civil service system and how various potential Trump personnel policies could play out. The second takes stock of Trump’s Day 1 personnel policies on Inauguration Day. Both are excellent resources to help understand what is going on. Hopefully Prof. Bednar will add to this series in the future.

There will be much more to say about agency heads and our civil service as we get deeper into Trump’s second term. These actions, and others that have already followed, involving firing of DOJ executives, DEI professionals in government, and inspectors general, show us that it’s an important time to get smart about the federal government and how it works. To that end, I hope these resources are useful to you.