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Over four years, federal workers were ignored, subjected to retaliation, and fired for articulating politically inconvenient truths or standing in the way of President Donald Trump’s attacks against the public. By all accounts, that is set to change under President-elect Joe Biden. But while new attacks may not be forthcoming, the fissures from old ones will remain, threatening the federal government’s structural integrity unless the next administration and Congress take action. For all that we know about Trump’s assaults on the federal workforce, there is likely more that remains hidden. Up to this point, Democratic leadership has failed to make combating or uncovering these incursions a priority. For the sake of the Biden administration’s success, that will need to change.

The vast majority of Americans believe that the monopoly power of tech companies is a major problem for the economy and a corrupting political influence. Biden should heed these concerns and avoiding appointing Big Tech insiders and allies of monopolies to head crucial antitrust regulatory posts at the Department of Justice.

These personnel additions should leave climate activists cautiously optimistic, and many of these individuals are examples of people we would like to see staffed in every department and agency throughout the federal government.

Biden framed his campaign as “Scranton vs. Park Avenue,” promising an end to corporate government. But in order to do that, Biden must seal the revolving door between corporate law firms and the federal government. There is no shortage of brilliant attorneys who have dedicated their careers to serving the public interest and fighting for social justice who are ready to do that work within the new administration.

Over four years, the Trump administration pushed an already fragile government to the breaking point. Budget cuts, record civil service attrition and outright corruption (to name just a few) imperiled the most basic functions of the federal government to near collapse.

Amidst renewed furor to impeach Trump and expel Members of Congress for supporting the right wing Capitol Insurrection, more typical elite corruption goes without comment. IBM announced in January that Gary Cohn, Trump’s former head of the National Economic Council, would be appointed vice-chairman. Despite announcements that some corporations and lobbyists mulled temporarily suspending donations to Republicans inciting riots and IBM’s claim to support black lives, their announcement reveals the lie: Corporate America has no problem bringing high-level Trump appointees back into their elite fold.

From the moment President Trump took office, he has been on a warpath with the civil service. He and his associates have waged an open war (and likely one behind closed doors as well) to seize control over federal employees just out of reach of easy firing. In October, as his presidency appeared rapidly to be approaching its end, he lobbed a bomb at the civil service system.

At the Revolving Door Project, we have frequently emphasized the importance of strengthening the civil service to ensure government works for public service and doesn’t cater to the interest of powerful people and corporations. We warned about how too much reliance on political appointments in the executive branch reduces accountability, citing academic research that political appointees perform worse than career managers. Especially in the Trump era, we have seen numerous examples of political appointees using the government for personal gain. Biden’s selection of William Burns, a career diplomat, as his CIA director should therefore be widely praised by progressives as a step towards restoring the civil service and depoliticizing the American intelligence community.

Gensler’s first order of business at the SEC will be to reverse Trump’s deregulatory agenda and rebuild the agency’s capacity to police American stock-trading. But this should only be a starting point: SEC activity was insufficient even under Obama, and issues linked to the financial system, from climate change to inequality, have worsened in the four intervening years.

Michael Pyle, Vice President Harris’ incoming chief economist, is the latest member of BlackRock’s “shadow government” to be hired by the Biden-Harris administration. His record working for austerity advocate Peter Orzsag and TPP-proponent Lael Brainard should be a major red flag.

If there is one thing that Wednesday’s events made excruciatingly clear, it is that every additional day that Trump is in office is a dangerous one for our country. The risk is such that, even with only 12 days remaining in the President’s term, many are desperately seeking to remove him from office. Sadly, no matter whether Trump leaves the Oval Office tomorrow or on January 20, we know that many of his associates will remain behind (although just how many is a mystery).

As President-elect Joe Biden fills out his Cabinet, progressives have pushed hard on most major positions, save one: Commerce Secretary. Recent reporting on the role frames the Commerce Secretary as a glorified middle-man between C-Suites and the White House.

In fact, the work of the Commerce Department impacts all Americans. Yet for decades, Commerce Secretaries have been chosen not for their policy agenda or experience, but as a reward for their massive campaign contributions and personal loyalty to the President. This practice of selling the Commerce Secretary position to the highest bidder has made it difficult to understand just how valuable a populist Commerce Secretary could be.

The Revolving Door Project’s Eleanor Eagan joined KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio to discuss Democrats’ historic wins in two Georgia Senate races and what unified Democratic control of the legislative and executive branches means for progressives in 2021 and beyond.

Gitenstein’s time as Romanian ambassador earned him a walk-on role in Romanian historian and totalitarianism expert Florin Abraham’s post-World War II history of his country.