State capture | The Week

State capture comes in many flavors. When Donald Trump won the election on a promise to punish his enemies, I expected him to follow the Hungarian model. MAGA Republicans have spoken admiringly of dissident-turned-strongman Viktor Orban, after all, and some of the elements of his transformation of Hungary into an “illiberal democracy” are already in motion here: politicize the courts, quiet the press, reward favored oligarchs.

But just days after the vote came word that Trump planned to actually follow through on the most radical measures in Project 2025. He will attempt by executive order to fire en masse “rogue bureaucrats” — aka the thousands of experts at federal agencies who keep our food unsullied and our transactions trustworthy. Worse, he will create a “warrior board” of retired officers to identify “woke generals” for sacking. That’s far beyond what Hungary ever did; now we’re in the realm of Turkey, where in 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the pretext of a small, easily overpowered coup attempt to launch a mass purge. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs: everyone from teachers and lawyers to newspaper and TV reporters to generals and admirals. Those left in government must be slavishly obedient to Erdogan’s every whim, whether legal or not.