I’d argue that simply saying “don’t fire the deep state” ignores how large and entrenched the federal bureaucracy actually is

The federal government employs over 2 million civilian workers and nearly 3 million total employees across hundreds of agencies, making it one of the largest workforces in the country . With that scale, even small levels of inefficiency or resistance to elected leadership can have massive nationwide impact. We’ve already seen that personnel changes matter, recent data shows the federal workforce shrank by about 10% (roughly 238,000 workers) in a single year, proving that real change can happen when you address staffing directly . On top of that, nearly half of federal employees have been in government for over a decade, meaning the culture is deeply embedded and doesn’t just disappear with agency reform . From this perspective, if you only restructure agencies but leave the same long-term bureaucrats in place, nothing fundamentally changes. That’s why I believe accountability has to include personnel—otherwise you’re just moving around a system that stays the same underneath.