Donald Trump loves a construction project. He’s building a ballroom, revamping a reflecting pool, and overseeing the construction of a skyline-altering arch in Washington DC. For his next real estate scheme, may I suggest a giant revolving door in the White House? It would certainly get a lot of use: senior officials are leaving Trump’s second administration at record rates.

According to a new report called Quiet Chaos by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, 27 Senate-confirmed officials have left their positions within cabinet departments to date. That’s nearly 150% higher than the 11 departures in the first 18 months of Trump’s first administration. Per the report, it is also “nearly two and a half times as many as Trump’s first administration (11) and over six times as many as the average between the George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations (4.3)”.

High-profile departures, like that of homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s, have had a lot of media coverage. But as the Partnership for Public Service note in their report, there has been “remarkably little public attention” when it comes to overall departures in Trump 2.0. Indeed, the narrative has largely been that while Trump’s first term was a chaotic mess marked by constant personnel changes, his second presidency has been far more stable.

And that narrative isn’t entirely wrong. In Trump’s first term the rapid turnover was a sign that the reality TV host and real estate nepo baby had no idea what he was doing. In Trump 2.0, however, the departures point to something far more insidious. Rather than signaling incompetence, they are fuelinga power grab by a president who seems to think of himself as a king.

“Turnover on this scale does not just thin the government’s leadership ranks – it concentrates power in the president,” Chris Piper from the Partnership for Public Service writes in a blog post. “Each seat left to an acting official is one the president can fill on his own terms without the Senate’s advice and consent: no vetting, no confirmation hearing, no vote.”

Trump himself has said he likes acting officials because the temporary nature........

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