Earlier this year President Trump dealt another blow to the civil service with an executive order establishing a new “Schedule G” classification expanding the number of political appointments in federal agencies.

The Trump administration argues that these non-career, policy-making appointees will ensure the faithful execution of its agenda. Critics — still reeling from the mass layoffs orchestrated by the Department of Government Efficiency — view it as the latest in the administration’s efforts to erode the merit-based civil service and recast it as an instrument of presidential will.

Critics are right to be alarmed that the replacement of nonpartisan experts with political loyalists threatens democratic government, but they’re wrong to think it’s a problem that starts and ends with Trump. Widespread characterizations of Schedule G as unprecedented fail to recognize that it represents the culmination of a decades-long bipartisan effort to chip away at the norms that once insulated civil servants from political influence.

The ideal of a merit-based, impartial federal service emerged at the end of the 19th century, when the increasing size and complexity of government demanded new models of administration. From the Civil War onward, reformers, frustrated by the low skill level and high........

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