Step 5: Install Loyalists

Replace competence with obedience and turn government into a machine for the leader

Step 5 is simple and brutal: remove anyone who might refuse an unlawful or unethical order, and fill their jobs with people whose first loyalty is to the authoritarian. Loyalists don’t ask questions. They don’t slow things down. They translate the will of power into policy and action, even when that order violates law, precedent, or basic common sense and expectations. Once you’ve gutted the government, installing loyalists turns institutions that should protect the public into instruments that serve only the whims of the autocrat.

In countries that devolve into authoritarianism, the autocrat systematically replaces career officials with allies who would follow orders without protest. After the 2016 coup attempt, Turkey removed thousands of judges, prosecutors, and civil servants and installed loyalists who reshaped how the judiciary and bureaucracy functioned.

In the U.S. context, we’re already seeing these patterns in action. The Trump administration has enacted sweeping personnel changes and compelled loyalty oaths to bring the federal workforce into political alignment — changes that have replaced public officials with ideological appointees. In tandem, groups tied to this ecosystem have identified and publicly targeted officials they deem hostile, a move that leads to blacklisting and intimidation campaigns that make replacement easier. Republicans in Congress have obediently rubber-stamped inept, malicious appointments; and the Supreme Court has blithely greenlit the carnage with unsigned opinions.

Photo by Richard Cohrs on Unsplash

Nowhere is this assault more visible than at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This is the agency that is supposed to be the nation’s top advocate for advancing science and protecting our well-being. Instead, under the direction of a disreputable snake oil salesman trafficking in pseudo-science, HHS has become a factory for antivaccine advocacy, antiscience decisions, and conspiracy theories meant to appease the President and his circle. The National Institutes of Health have been hollowed out, life-saving research halted and decades of data erased in a matter of months. The speed and ferocity of this assault is having deadly consequences and putting millions of Americans at risk. Deadly measles outbreaks have resurfaced, and medical advice has been supplanted by flawed presidential syllogisms. Cancer research and STD tracking have been summarily terminated. Knowledge itself is being replaced by fabricated studies authored by hallucinating AI models.

On Assembly Required, we recently discussed the immediate and long-term impacts of how Trump and Republicans are dismantling health infrastructure and raising dangerous skepticism of critical vaccines. You can check it out below:

The installation of loyalists across the federal workforce continues unabated and will have real-world consequences for the average American. The firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics means this authoritarian regime can falsify or meddle with economic data, including the consumer price index that sets cost of living adjustments for millions of senior citizens and the disabled. In January, SCOTUS will hear arguments about removing a Federal Reserve governor, all designed to cede political influence over our independent central bank. Watchdogs have been sacked, meaning corruption is now hidden from scrutiny. And Russell Vought and Stephen Miller are salivating over use of the government shutdown to axe thousands of career civil servants and replace them with more unquestioning minions. They are doggedly pursuing a personnel strategy that treats the federal workforce as disposable and American lives as expendable.

That’s why Step 5 is so dangerous: loyalists inside agencies do more than carry out orders. They block internal objections, destroy institutional memory, and normalize illegal or unethical actions. They wreak havoc and do so gladly. A department staffed by loyalists will muffle whistleblowers, distort facts, and treat basic public protections as “political” hindrances to be removed. Over time, democracy loses its internal defenders — the people who once refused to be part of wrongdoing and brought the truth to light. Once those defenders are gone, abuse accelerates and becomes nearly impossible to spot or stop.

So what do we do? The answer is both defensive and proactive. I know every protest seems futile in the face of an ignoble regime. What’s the point of calling out corruption to the perpetrators? Well, they aren’t the audience. Our fellow Americans are. We cannot be allowed to forget the importance of knowing right from wrong. We defend civil-service protections and hiring rules so we remember what good government should look like. We support the refugees from agencies that have been hollowed out by fiat. Groups like the Public Service Alliance are part of how we hold the truth steady in a storm of lies. Also, support unions and legal challenges that call out politicized purges. Fund and protect groups advocating for inspector generals, ethics offices, and whistleblower channels so internal resistance can survive.

Public pressure matters: when people see a purge as an attack on services they rely on — parks, food inspections, disaster response — they mobilize. And for journalists and watchdogs, the task is to follow the personnel roll calls: who’s being fired, who’s being hired, and what power those hires are being given. For those with platforms, track and repost about local harms and who is taking action.

Step 5 is the moment loyalty replaces expertise. It’s how a functioning government becomes a functioning instrument of naked ideological power. The 10 Steps to Autocracyand Authoritarianism shows how each move builds on the last: once the civil service is hollowed out, installing loyalists finishes the job. Stopping it requires the same thing that stops every other step: early recognition, relentless scrutiny, legal defense, public pressure and local mitigation. If we allow the loyalist pipeline to flow unchecked, we won’t simply lose qualified officials who serve the public good. We lose knowledge, protection and access — all held by the last people inside the government willing to say “no.”