24 Comments

I like the optimism but I wanted to inquire about a few things.

First, and this is really nitpicky, but I have always posted everything with the assumption that it will be uncovered in the future. It's just prudence to post as if you are never truly safe, as even telegram or signal are not above being surveyed by intelligence if necessary.

Second, being well read extends far beyond the publications like heritage and cato. Now I know I post a lot about classic literature, but I don't think that's all one should read. An interest in the controversial is beneficial if not but for the fact that it forces you to open your mind and make your own decisions. Read heritage, but read it's opponents. Not just on the left but also on the right.

Finally, infiltration is pretty subversive which is a characteristic of amoral or even immoral people. The problem that stops most members of the dissident right (although to be sure not all because many are atheist) is that the agreeability forces one to go against a moral compass that is much stronger than that of those on the left. It's a rough balancing act that can lead to a vicious circle and ultimately compromise the entire message of the right if not utilized correctly.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for the insightful comment. I’ll address it in order:

1. That really depends on the job you are applying for. If you want to be the head of the NSA, definitely assume everything you post will be uncovered. If you just want to be a career SES for something like the Department of Education, it’s much less likely something you wrote will be uncovered. I am working on a full article on this, so keep an eye out for it.

2. You are completely right. I limited myself to lists of three for rhetorical purposes, and specifically chose ones I was recently reading. I am working on getting more well read in general. Short term, I’ll start reading more broadly on Substack. Mid-term, I am planning on reading more books and posting reviews on Substack as a way to encourage me to read more, and help others. I subscribed to you to see your recommendations of classical literature and anything else you recommend, because I think my current amount of reading is insufficient.

3. The choice of the word infiltration in the title was quite frankly clickbait. It was a rhetorical flourish that greatly increased the chance that others would click. I don’t believe I even used the word infiltrate in the article. Thinking about how you phrased it, it might have been a poor word choice for the actual reader I wanted to attract. I joined the Feds well before the Deep State was popularized, and never considered it an infiltration. I was quiet about my political opinions because that is the culture of most GS employees. As my tag line suggests, I did it because I wanted to serve the public, not subvert its will. I think my years of government service has made me much more cynical than I used to be, and I should probably tailor my future message to people as optimistic as I used to be rather than those as cynical as I have become. They will almost certainly be higher in agreeableness. Redeeming the Deep State is closer to my true goal.

Expand full comment

Your overall tone makes it seem pretty likely that you're serious about this.

Which is odd, because the nature of your suggestions makes the whole thing seem woefully naive.

Yes, we absolutely need more public servants from the Right. But the Regime has been winnowing out those people for decades now. Not just for political appointees, either. That the deliberate discrimination against anyone not completely aligned with the Regime is implicit rather than explicit doesn't make it any less effective.

Yes, federal hiring is supposed to be neutral and impersonal. But there are two obvious reasons it doesn't work that way.

1. Resume entries aren't just biographic and professional details. They're also signals. It's easy to filter out anyone who, say, attended an educational institution (or was otherwise affiliated with an organization) with an even vaguely religious-sounding name. Or worked for right-aligned organizations. Or, hell, comes from a conservative area. Etc. Anyone in a position to make hiring decisions can do things like that as a matter of practice without making it a matter of policy.

2. Security clearances. Nominally, these are supposed to weed out genuine "security" risks, i.e., people with criminal backgrounds, dodgy financial dealings, verbal incontinence, multiple DUIs, substance abuse problems, etc. In practice? Spooks comb your digital presence looking to ascertain your likely ideological commitments. But there's nothing to stop the spooks running your "clearance" from deciding that regular church attendance is a red flag. They don't have to tell you--or anyone else--what they've looked at, or the basis for a rejection. Remember all those memos or press releases about "domestic extremism"? That's not just abusive targeting of intelligence and law enforcement apparatuses. That's the Deep State inadvertently disclosing some of its criteria for people who will never make it through a security clearance.

The reason we don't have more public servants on the right is that the Deep State won't allow it.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you for the feedback. You are right, I am dead serious. If I sound naive, it was because this article was more focused on the positives to persuade others. But I hope this article did not make it sound easy. This is an extremely difficult task that only a few are suited for.

Your two points are really helpful. I am currently writing a follow up article on security clearances, and yes, that is a doozy. It is one of the biggest obstacles for people that want certain government positions. The resume signals is not something I considered, and will look at it very closely in the future. I personally never thought of it, because my resume has the right signals. I actually have more signals that are left coded than right coded on it.

I’m writing these articles partly to convince others to join me, but mostly they are for myself. I have every intention of becoming a member of the SES or a political appointee, and am looking for any potential pitfalls. Maybe I am naive, but I’m also dedicated enough to put in the work. I just hope I am not the only person trying to do this. We need more help.

Expand full comment
May 24Liked by Aristides

Anecdote time: I interviewed for a federal position a while back. A decidedly and publicly conservative political appointee was hiring another SES-level legal researcher. One of my law school classmates was already working for said appointee. I had the background, the connections, demonstrated interest in the subject matter. My interview went well. I really hit it off with the appointee.

I was passed over for someone who already had a security clearance in place. Apparently, the prospect of getting someone through that process successfully was so daunting that it wasn't even worth the effort. Even if I had been approved with no problems (which given the things that made me an attractive hire for this appointee was very much an open question), it could easily have taken up to six months for that clearance to come through.

I cannot believe that I am the only person to whom something like this has happened.

Expand full comment
author

That really sucks. I know someone that didn’t get their security clearance proper processed for 3 years. Fortunately he was lucky, and they let him onboard without it, but that’s a rarity. The security clearance needs massive reform. There are a lot of contractor positions you can’t even apply for without a security clearance, because it’s too time intensive and expensive.

Trump moved Security Clearance process to DoD and I heard that helped a little, but not a lot.

Expand full comment

Im also suspicious that there was a sort of mass culling of these jobs of a lot of RW or at least dissident types after the Covid shot fiasco. Using novel national emergency reasoning probably expedited a lot of careers out the window that would have otherwise been too cumbersome for the Feds to bother with.

Expand full comment
author

There was a vaccine mandate not to mention the ubiquitous mask mandate. But I also think that only removed low IQ disagreeable Rightists, for two reasons. First, because I think that the vaccine and masking were good ideas, though not something that needed to be mandated the way it was. I suspect most high IQ and Agreeable people agreed with me.

Second, because it was trivially easy to work around if you were high IQ or Agreeable. There was a religious accommodation process for the vaccine that was extremely easy to game. The union did a great job letting any employee who would listen know exactly how to file the exemption request. At my work site, not a single person was fired for violating the vaccine mandate or the mask mandate, though many quit either for as a protest or because they assumed they would be fired if they didn’t.

Expand full comment

That is what I mean by the culling. It was a genius way for soft power cleansing as opposed to the hard power of actually firing people.

I got the jab for work. But I remember going and seeing everyone else there was getting it because of their jobs in government was requiring them. Where I started to wonder how many didn’t do that and found themselves on the shit list to Quitting.

Expand full comment

My agreeableness is too low, while I appreciate this effort, even if it would take decades to bear any fruit.

I am curious though; I get a sense that there was a kind of American Yankee ethnic demographic that dominated the Federal bureaucracy, but this group has gradually both been replaced and been compromised. Is this true?

Expand full comment
author

By Yankee do you mean New Englanders in the NE? You might be right. It used to be that few people wanted to move to DC unless they lived in the acela Corridor, and to some extent that is still true. But at this point a lot of Southerners have moved to DC recently, considering it one of the best ways to prosperity that’s still nearby. The Feds are also disproportionately Black and White.

https://usafacts.org/articles/three-charts-on-diversity-in-the-federal-governments-workforce/

Expand full comment
author

Oh, and there is also an increase in remote work which would naturally increase regional diversity.

Expand full comment

I honestly don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing that there was a Yankee demographic that dominated it. But more that they are shifting out would imply a changing of the guard.

While an interesting fact sheet here, I am curious how that demographic breakdown over the years is.

Expand full comment

No, I don't see a career for myself in public services. And neither do a vast majority of right-wing people. We are productive people with integrity, and we are quite incompatible with the day-to-day of these bureaucracies. We do not value left-wing notions of status; we want to build and see results and get paid for it.

It is not some grand conspiracy that fills bureaucracies with left-wing people. It is their natural affinity.

Expand full comment
author

I agree with your last paragraph completely. People that are productive, have integrity, and want to build something would be the best public servants. If you are building something for yourself, like a business or an estate, I have no objection to you. The larger problem are conservatives that are building something for a faceless corporation. Sure, you’re getting paid, but often you are just helping the elites get richer. If you are selling your labor anyways, you might as well try to actually change things.

I think you’re making the point that the government tends to reward status seekers over builders. But why is that happening? Because the people that are hiring and promoting people are often choosing based on status rather than results. Why are those people doing that? Because they are status seekers themselves. It is a horrible incentive structure, but the only way it gets better is a competent President makes it a priority and has people he can appoint that will actually enforce his orders. I hope I am not going to be the only one willing to actually male the government build things for us. Or even better, actually shrink.

Expand full comment

Completely agree with the premise behind this. However, it seems like high agreeableness + high conscientiousness people are overwhelmingly pro-regime whatever that regime may be. Assuming that's the case, what other traits must a high A + C person have to even be sympathetic to anti-establishment beliefs? I suppose it comes down to being well-read and informed + having a critical mind which certainly isn't mutually exclusive from agreeableness and conscientiousness. But I would venture to say it is not as natural of a trait for such people. And, regardless, our current society does an excellent job of stunting critical thought and censoring real truth. That said, it's awesome that you're an outlier to this as far as my perception goes, so I could believe that I'm underestimating this demographic of personalities on the right and dissident right in particular.

Expand full comment
author

Now that you mention it, I used to be very pro-establishment, and my opinions only changed because I have high openness and did exactly what you said. Finding someone in the top 25 percentile in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, is pretty hard. Assuming they are not correlated, which is a bad assumption, that means there are only 1.5% of the population with all 3 of those traits. This sounds right based on personal experience. That might not be many, but the Senior Executive Service is only 0.5% of government employees, that’s where we really need them.

That said, I still think it would be good to have more pro-regime people with high agreeableness and conscientiousness that lean rightward. Right now, the big problem is that there is a significant minority of people with disproportionate power that are anti regime when a republican is in power and pro regime when a democrat is in power. If we replace those people with pro regime people no matter who is in power, we will be much better off. This group can supplement the SES and make the majority of the GS employees that administer the orders of the SES.

Expand full comment

Really interesting - on the subject of security clearance and anonymity, do you know how retrievable deleted stuff is? Like if one was to apply to a high clearance position, would they be safe if they deleted everything? Also, is there a time lag between a spicy comment and applying for a high clearance job?

Expand full comment
author

I will do a deep dive on this some time, since it’s a really common question, but for now here are my educated guesses for a top secret clearance. (Note there are clearances above top secret, but I won’t even guess what the CIA is looking into).

Deleted stuff should not show up unless someone else saved it and posted it public somewhere else. So Walt for example is way too high profile to delete everything and pretend it never happened.

Define spicy. Security clearance is mostly looking at 3 things. Did you ever advocate to violently overthrow the government, did you ever belong to an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government, can you be blackmailed. Violently overthrowing the government will always prevent you from getting a security clearance, as it should. Blackmail lets you argue that your spicy comment was so old, I can’t be blackmailed for it anymore. Plenty of people with normal spicy comments can get security clearances.

Expand full comment

Thanks - a deep dive would be really useful.

Yeah, I'd expect any violent/revolutionary/illegal stuff is a big no no. I was thinking more, people who make "you're going back" jokes, or using rude language/slurs. Also discussing more sensitive topics; you rightly acknowledged that even though some conversation is not officially blacklisted, in practice people aren't going to hire someone whose timeline is full of stuff about Jews or Freemasons. If one of our guys was getting too into the weeds about black on black crime, or IQ posting for example, would they be able to walk that off if they'd since deleted and it had been a few years? I think your advice to confirm you believe in fair treatment etc now and then is a good one.

Expand full comment

FWIW I don't like those kinds of views and try to be as clear as I can about that stuff when it crops up, but a lot of people in the dissident sphere have engaged in that kind of behaviour and it'd be interesting to see what is seen as 'irredeemable.' For example, the establishment don't seem to regard being an actual member of a communist party, or a former islamist as grounds for blacklisting, if enough time has passed - is it the same for people on the right or does the usual double standard hold?

Expand full comment

for example; this comment is sincere, but on reflection, it'd be good to know if it could be cited as a defence in an interview if other stuff came up; "Lots of people followed today - I just want to say thank you to all and I’m very flattered. However, you should know that I’m not a dissident rightist, I believe in parliamentarianism, non violence and the British establishment (monarchy, gentry, etc). Although I’m hawkishly anti immigration, I have no ill feeling towards foreigners and minorities. I also think conspiracy theories are stupid and that mainstream politics is the way to go. I hope you all stay, but if you have a problem with any of that, you should unfollow."

Expand full comment
author

Great example, and I am not sure. Since this is particularly relevant to me as well, I’ll make the deep dive into what you are allowed to say before and while working for the government my next article. I’ll even include a bonus section for UK readers on what I can gather from public sources.

Expand full comment

Great idea 50 years ago

Expand full comment