Government Works Weekly #10
Jobs, Events, and Republican Plans for Government
Welcome to your weekly roundup of opportunities, events, and information about how government works—and how government can work better—to improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.
APPLY YOURSELF – jobs, internships, and other ways to get involved
[NEW] Director, State and Local Government Affairs (and more), Center for American Progress [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Inclusive Democracy Manager (and more), Virginia Civic Engagement Table [Virginia or D.C.-based / Remote / deadline 18 Aug.]
[NEW] Associate, Communications, Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Associate, Programs, Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Temporary Project Assistant-Elections (and more), National Democratic Institute [Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Research and Operations Assistant, Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress [Washington, D.C.]
[NEW] Consultants for Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Researcher Pool, Open Government Partnership [Various]
[NEW] Director of “Free Them All: The Fred Hiatt Program To Free Political Prisoners” (and more), Freedom House [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
President & Chief Executive Officer, Partners In Democracy [Massachusetts / deadline 1 Aug.]
Policy and Research Analyst (and more), New York City Office of Technology & Innovation [NYC]
Deputy Director, Strategy & Design (and more), Democracy International [Bethesda, MD]
Global Digital Democracy Advisor (and more), International Foundation for Electoral Systems [Arlington, VA]
Counsel, Democracy Program (and more), Brennan Center for Justice [Washington, D.C.]
EGAP New Member Application 2024, Evidence in Governance and Politics [deadline 30 Sep.]
Congressional Innovation Fellowship, TechCongress [deadline 5 Aug.]
Director, Global Programmes (and more), International IDEA [Sweden / Belgium / deadline 31 July]
Senior Associate, Research & Policy, Managing Fiscal Risks (and more), Pew Charitable Trusts [Washington, D.C.]
Director of Democratic Institutions (and more), Roosevelt Institute [Remote]
Director of Government Affairs and Senior Strategist (and more), Groundwork Collaborative [Washington, D.C.]
Research Data Analyst (and a bunch of Civic Designer roles), Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation [Hybrid]
Vice President for State Network Strategy (and more), Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Director of Curriculum and Design, Public Service Leadership Institute (and more), Partnership for Public Service [Washington, D.C.]
Associate Director, Special Projects, Elections & Voting (and more), Democracy Fund [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Program Assistant, International Forum for Democratic Studies (and more), National Endowment for Democracy [Hybrid / Washington, D.C.]
Senior Program Associate, Democracy Program (and more), The Carter Center [Hybrid / Atlanta]
Program Analyst, Democracy, Rights, and Governance Initiative, Packard Foundation [Berkeley, California]
UPCOMING EVENTS – webinars, conferences, and other human things
23 JULY: Autocracy in America – A Warning and Response [State Democracy Defenders Action]
24 JULY: Building High-Performance Teams in the Public Sector [Apolitical]
24 JULY: What Is the State For? [Boston Review and Haymarket Books]
24 JULY: The changing landscape of economic opportunity by race and class in America: New data and policy implications [Brookings]
24 JULY: 2024 Service to America Medals® People’s Choice Award Winner Announcement [Partnership for Public Service]
30 JULY: Human Learning Systems - Introductory Webinar [Centre for Public Impact]
30 JULY: Nonpartisan Voter Engagement “How To” for Nonprofits [National Council of Nonprofits and Nonprofit VOTE]
31 JULY: Statehouse Futures Summit [Run For Something Action Fund, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and Democracy Policy Network]
EYES & EARS – reading, podcasts, and other good stuff
In honor of this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, I would like to hand this section over to highlighting the ideas of the party that wants to deconstruct the administrative state. Here is some recent coverage of Project 2025 and the new addition to the Republican ticket, JD Vance. Enjoy.
Trump’s Will They / Won’t They With Project 2025 (Hint: They Will)
Big fan of the recent bout of attention on Project 2025, which is a major threat to a functional government. Almost enough to make me want to check out The TikTok, where I hear it is making the rounds with The Youths. Even the creaky Biden campaign is getting creative, setting up a dedicated website and buying advertising to highlight the plans: https://joebiden.com/project2025/
Would love to see the drumbeat continue. So here are some good explainers for those in your circle who may not be familiar:
Andrew Prokop, “Project 2025: The myths and the facts,” Vox, 13 July 2024.
Democracy Forward, “The People’s Guide to Project 2025,” June 2024.
And like with most things this election season, you should look for additional perspective from Rick Perlstein’s invaluable “The Infernal Triangle” column at The American Prospect. Perlstein has devoted his last two entries to Project 2025, finding that it is both terrifying and not really new.
Rick Perlstein, “Project 2025 … and 1921, and 1973, and 1981: Terrifying blueprints for the next Republican presidency are a quadrennial tradition,” 10 July 2024.
Rick Perlstein, “Needles in Project 2025’s Haystack: Both the details and the broad strokes are terrifying,” 17 July 2024.
Sign up for “The Infernal Triangle” here, it is one of the best things going for these crazy times.
Finally, as a reminder, no matter how much Trump denies it, he is inextricably tied to these plans.
Source: Steve Contorno, “Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved,” CNN, 11 July 2024.
Introducing JD Vance
And to help him implement these plans, Trump has chosen JD Vance, the greenhorn politician who ascended to the Ohio senate seat less than two years ago.
Source: https://joebiden.com/project2025/
If you, like many, don’t know who Vance is, here are some of the best pieces I have seen recently on where he is coming from. First, Don Moynihan on how Vance is defining and discovering himself.
Vance is still a relatively young man, young enough to adapt himself, and then rationalize those changes. He is an adult convert to Catholicism. Some of the coverage of Vance’s change of heart about Trump has used religious language: Vance is a “MAGA convert” and “born-again Trumpist”
[...]
The idea that Vance is merely an opportunist posturing at populism is, frankly, a more comforting thought than the alternative: he is not just a true believer, he comes to his positions with the zeal of a convert. We may never know the real Vance until he is in a position to exercise power. Only then will we learn if he is a hypocrite or a radical.
Next, John Ganz on Vance’s despair and ambition:
Trump’s GOP was never about a coherent policy regime or even ideology; it’s a structure of feeling and Vance embodies that: Anger, wounded pride, resentment, contempt, and ultimately, hatred and despair. More than anyone else on offer perhaps he is the New Republican Man. This is why he was picked.
[...]
Vance’s form of despair is that, for all his worldly success, he can’t transcend a fundamental grievance, a sense of always being lesser. He didn’t escape the despair of poverty through gumption and intelligence: he carries it with him always. It fuels his ambition. To people like Vance, the system of domination that governs our society made itself painfully apparent. But he despairs of overcoming it: instead, the brutality must be embraced. He can win the game. Come out on top. Show them all. Just you wait.
Finally, Paul Waldman on Vance’s blood and soil nationalism:
That Donald Trump is a genuine bigot passed beyond argument long ago; his contempt for those who are unlike him in race, religion, and nationality is too obvious to deny. While I can’t say for sure, I doubt that J.D. Vance’s innermost feelings on the subject are quite so powerfully rancid. Nevertheless, Vance has been working hard, in his advocacy for dramatically reduced immigration, to offer a justification for the re-whitening of America that is more subtle than Trump’s grisly tales of rape and murder, but just as dangerous.
In his acceptance speech, Vance repeated something he has said in other speeches; he recently did it at the far-right National Conservatism conference. In a move unusual for a politician, he explicitly rejects the oft-repeated notion that America is a nation founded on ideals. No, he says, America is about blood and soil, the land and the people who have been here for generations.
The fact that his wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants is a little inconvenient, so he says briefly that his in-laws are the good kind of immigrants (without elaborating on what makes them so), while emphasizing that “when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms.”
