How Trump's plans could bring back the spoils system

Plus: more context on the campus protests |

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By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman Donald Trump has promised that if voters return him to the White House, he’ll take his war against the “deep state” to the next level. But as Michael Wolraich argues in Made by History, any effort to scrap the protections that guard American civil servants would ignore the lessons of the past. Wolraich explains that federal bureaucrats are protected from the whims of presidents because of the disastrous impact of the 19th century “spoils” system. Beginning in the 1820s with Andrew Jackson, federal appointments — as well as plum jobs at the city and state level — went to supporters of winning candidates. That meant not only that bureaucrats often lacked the basic skills necessary to do their jobs competently, but also that party bosses and political machines, which doled out these positions, held all the power in the political system. That fueled massive corruption at every level of government, as the bosses enriched themselves and their friends. Wolraich warns that if Trump shatters the civil service protections that insulate federal workers from the whims of Presidents, the U.S. could quickly find itself faced with a return of the massive corruption of the 19th century.

HISTORY ON TIME.COM The Protests That Anticipated Today’s Gaza Solidarity Encampments By Adam Tomasi / Made by History With the Dow sit-ins of the 1960s, students drew attention to links between the campus, war, and imperialism. Read More » Modern Far-Right Terrorism Is a Repeat of Reconstruction-Era Themes By Jacob Ware Racist terrorism has never been uniquely Southern—or new, writes Jacob Ware. Read More » The Civil War Electoral Strategy That Could Help the Biden Campaign By Bennett Parten / Made by History In 1864, Lincoln ran under the National Union banner with great success. It could work again in 2024. Read More » The Vietnamese Computer Scientist Who Made Toy Story Possible By Theodore Kim, Yoehan Oh, and Jacinda S. Tran / Made by History Without the Vietnam War, we might not have 'Toy Story.' Read More » The Solemn History Behind Nakba Day By Juwayriah Wright On the anniversary of the Nakba, Palestinians remember the profound loss and ongoing struggle for justice. Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1950: Coca-Cola BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF The May 15, 1950, cover of TIME “Coke's peaceful near-conquest of the world is one of the remarkable phenomena of the age. It has put itself (in the phrase of a Coca-Cola executive with a literary bent) ‘always within an arm's length of desire.’ And where there is no desire for it, Coke creates desire. Its advertising, which garnishes the world from the edge of the Arctic to the Cape of Good Hope, has created more new appetites and thirsts in more people than an army of dancing girls bearing jugs of wine. It has brought refrigeration to sweltering one-ox towns without plumbing, and it has transformed men one generation removed from jungle barter into American salesmen with an irresistibly sincere approach. It has successfully defied the concerted attacks of all Communist mouthpieces which denounce it as a drink vile, imperialistic and poisonous. Its makers suspect that it is the biggest thing since America provided oil to light the lamps of China and celluloid fables to feed the dreams of the world.” Read More » This week in 1970: Campus protests Michael Abramson The May 18, 1970, cover of TIME “Washington was only the temporary focus of an uprising that touched every part of the U.S., from Bowdoin College in Maine to the University of Miami, from the now familiar volatility of such campuses as Harvard and Berkeley, to more conservative enclaves. At the University of Nebraska in the heart of ‘Nixon country,’ students occupied the ROTC headquarters. The University of Arizona, like many other U.S. campuses, had its first taste ever of student activism. Manhattan's Finch College, Tricia Nixon's alma mater, went on strike. At California's Whittier College, 30% of the student body angrily protested the policies of Richard Nixon, its most famous graduate. At the Duke University Law School, Alumnus Nixon's portrait was removed from the wall of the moot courtroom and stored away…At a Columbia University rally, Kent State Student Fred Kirsch was loudly applauded when he told a crowd of 3,000: ‘Look, I read Jerry Rubin's book. I talked about violent overthrow myself. But when those rifle bullets cracked past my head, I suddenly realized you can't fight pigs with bricks. Whatever we do, it's got to be peaceful.’” Read More » This week in 2009: The state of the Republican party Cover Credit: INSETS, FROM LEFT: CHINAFOTOPRESS/ZUMA PRESS; BRIGITTE LACOMBE FOR TIME The May 18, 2009, cover of TIME “So are the Republicans going extinct?...That's the problem. The party's ideas--about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else--are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it's not a majority agenda. The party's new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem to fit the national mood, and it's shamelessly hypocritical, given the party's recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times, not to mention its continuing support for deficit-exploding tax cuts in bad times.” Read More »

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