Inside the federal workforce that fears Trump's war on bureaucracy

The tremors from Donald Trump's decisive electoral victory have hit every corner of Washington. But their maximum intensity is felt by the capital's federal workforce, which comprises tens of thousands of mostly anonymous employees not so fondly referred to by Trump as "the deep state".

Few notions have consumed the once and future president more than the belief that his executive power has been constrained by a cabal of unelected bureaucrats.

In his first rally of the 2024 campaign in Waco, Texas, Trump framed the bureaucracy as a national adversary, declaring: "Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state."

His intention to accomplish the latter is an explicit feature of Trump's official to-do list, known as Agenda 47. From numerous interviews conducted with government officials spread across eight federal agencies, the overwhelming consensus is that Trump and his allies are not bluffing.

That said, exactly how his war on the bureaucracy will be waged, and how government workers will respond to it, remain looming questions.

"There's definitely anxiety, no question," said Mr Thomas Yazdgerdi, president of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents about 17,000 active-duty and retired service members across six federal agencies.