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The #Resistance is real and ready for action, according to a newly released poll conducted in December by Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan Institute. While Republican federal employees will “overwhelmingly” support the incoming Trump administration, most Democratic federal employees say they would oppose it.

“If President[-elect Donald] Trump gave them a legal order which they thought was bad policy, nearly two-thirds (64%)” of “Federal Government Managers” who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris “would ignore the order and do what they thought was best,” according to the poll. Only 17% of career bureaucrats who voted for Harris would obey the lawful order by their legitimately elected boss.

The survey defines the category of “Federal Government Managers” as “federal employees living in the National Capitol Region and earning at least $75,000 annually.”

According to the highly standardised pay scale for federal employees, this definition is designed to include mid- to senior-level management positions. According to the 2024 Salary Table for the D.C.-Baltimore area, it would include all federal employees at Grade 10 or higher (out of a possible 15), Grade 9 employees at Step 4 or higher (out of a possible 10), and Grade 8 employees at Step 8 or higher. (Grades 8 through 12 are for “mostly mid-level technical and first-level supervisory positions”; employees with a master’s degree can generally start at Grade 9 and progress one step every 1-3 years with satisfactory job performance.)

Thus, Napolitan’s category of “Federal Government Managers” is designed to capture educated and experienced federal employees, including virtually all those in a managerial position. Effectively, this category represents federal employees with a say in making policy decisions, versus those in merely administrative roles. Among these highly influential bureaucrats, those with progressive leanings are overwhelmingly willing to defy a lawful order — potentially putting their own careers on the line — to block the very Trump agenda for which Americans voted.

Heads Should Roll

In the real world, of course, such willful insubordination gets people fired. In fact, the Napolitan survey found that a majority of both “Main Street voters” (54% to 30%) and the “Elite 1%” (52% to 32%) agreed that government leaders who refuse to follow a president’s lawful order should be fired. (The survey defined the Elite 1% as people with postgraduate degrees and salaries above $150,000 in densely populated areas and Main Street voters as the 70%-75% of Americans with none of those things.) But, among “Federal Government Managers,” the answer to that question was divided along party lines; 74% of Republicans agreed, but only 23% of Democrats agreed.

On another question, “Federal Government Managers” showed an even stronger partisan divide. When asked how they would spend their political energies over the next four years, 89% of Republicans in this group planned to support the Trump administration, while 73% of Democrats in this group planned to oppose him. Political energies would include voting, campaigning, and political donations; it would likely also include lobbying efforts and attending protests.

For comparison, 56% of voters nationwide said they will primarily support the Trump administration — more than the percentage who voted for him! — while only 29% will focus on opposing it.

The Napolitan Institute also noted the high “intensity gap” between these groups of partisans, based on the number planning to engage in a strong course of political action. Whereas 52% of Republican managers planned to strongly support Trump, 40% of Democratic managers planned to strongly oppose him.

Disconnect

Perhaps the most profound measure of the disconnect between senior federal employees and ordinary Americans came when the Napolitan Institute asked respondents to rate the respective job performances of Trump and Biden during this transition of power. More Main Street voters approved of Trump’s conduct (58%) than of Biden’s (40%) — not surprising given the president’s senility — a net positive for Trump of 18%.

Yet, among all Federal Government Managers — not divided by party this time — Biden received a 68% approval rating to Trump’s 46%, a net positive for Biden of 22%, and a total swing of 40%.

It’s difficult to see what wins Biden high marks from the bureaucracy, unless one views positively his efforts to “Trump-proof” the federal government against the incoming president.

If this is true, it would suggest that a large proportion of the federal workforce prefers a largely absent executor-in-chief, who allows unelected bureaucrats to run the country however they see fit. Such an anti-democratic (with a small “d”) outlook is also what grounds their resolve to resist the Trump administration from within by defying lawful orders.