About a month after Election Day 2024, it became clear that Donald Trump’s team had embraced a problematic approach to new employee screenings. The New York Times, for example, reportedly spoke to several people involved in the hiring process for high-ranking positions who were asked whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen.

The Wall Street Journal reported soon after that the Republican operation was imposing “loyalty tests” on job applicants, even asking candidates about their views on NATO and tariffs for jobs that had nothing to do with international affairs or economic policymaking. Two weeks after Inauguration Day, The Washington Post reported on similar tests being applied to candidates for top national security positions, including questions about whether the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was secretly “an inside job.”

Against this backdrop Politico reported this week:

As President Donald Trump moves to slash the size of the federal workforce, his administration unveiled a plan to ensure that any new hires are ‘patriotic Americans’ who vow to advance the president’s policy priorities. The White House and the agency that serves as the government’s human resources arm Thursday released directives for departments to use when recruiting employees in a memo that represents a dramatic shift in federal hiring procedures.

At first blush, a story like this might seem dry and bureaucratic. The Office of Personnel Management last week issued a memo outlining the administration’s detailed “merit hiring plan,” and I can appreciate why this could come across as boring.

It’s not. Under the new policy, everyone seeking a job at the GS-5 pay-grade or above — a group that would include everyone from firefighters to food inspectors to air traffic controllers — will have to submit four essays as part of the application process. The essays are supposed to provide answers to specific questions:

1. “How has your commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States inspired you to pursue this role within the Federal government? Provide a concrete example from professional, academic, or personal experience.”
2. “In this role, how would you use your skills and experience to improve government efficiency and effectiveness? Provide specific examples where you improved processes, reduced costs, or improved outcomes.”
3. “How would you help advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”
4. “How has a strong work ethic contributed to your professional, academic or personal achievements? Provide one or two specific examples, and explain how those qualities would enable you to serve effectively in this position.”

Imagine people who are applying to be rangers at a national park being asked to write essays about how they’d “advance” Trump’s executive orders. Then imagine the president himself trying to write an essay about his “commitment to the Constitution” — a document he’s talked about “terminating” in response to one of his election conspiracy theories.

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The goal, according to the memo, is to recruit “patriotic Americans” with a “commitment to American ideals,” which also sets a bar that the incumbent president would likely struggle to clear.

In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and Catherine Fisk, a professor of labor law at the same school, explained, “The government can and should ensure that federal employees, from administrative assistants to air traffic controllers, have the skills and aptitude to do their jobs. But their views on the administration’s policy priorities are irrelevant, as is their patriotism — however that is defined. Allowing someone in the government to screen applicants for patriotism is reminiscent of the loyalty oaths of the McCarthy era, which were arbitrarily applied to unfairly deny employment to many.”

Chemerinsky and Fisk added, “No modern presidential administration has undertaken such an effort to staff the entire government with political loyalists. It is plainly inconsistent with good government, with federal law and with the Constitution.”

There was a time in the recent past that “patriotism tests” for federal employees would’ve generated a significant controversy and an intense backlash. But in 2025, against a backdrop of countless other White House outrages, the OPM memo doesn’t appear to have made much of a splash.