Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to overhaul the federal civil service and erode merit system principles. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s pick for vice president, has said that if Trump wins re-election, he should “…fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” and “replace them with our people.”

At campaign events, Trump has promised to “obliterate the deep state,” what he believes is a network of non-elected government employees working under cover to bypass elected officials and further their own contrary agenda.

I’m sure it sounds straightforward, simple and appealing to Trump’s ideological followers who think career civil servants would work to stymie Trump’s conservative policies if he’s re-elected.

But firing all the federal government’s mid-level bureaucrats and replacing them with political appointees would be a disaster for America.

I know that because I’m a former mid-level federal bureaucrat. I know that much of the work in multiple government agencies by U.S. civil servants is highly specialized, complex, and essential for an efficient government that serves the people. 

Under the U.S. General Service (GS) pay scale, the GS-1 through GS-7 range generally marks entry-level positions, mid-level positions are in the GS-8 to GS-12 range and top-level positions (senior managers, high-level technical specialists, or physicians) are in the GS-13 to GS-15 range.

I served in that mid-level band. As a Foreign Affairs Officer with the National Marine Fisheries Service during part of my professional career, I worked with the Department of State on international fisheries negotiations, principally with Russia, Canada and Asian nations. In preparing for that job, I earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations, a master’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in Marine Affairs. I had also written a proposal for the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and worked for an international marine conservation non-profit in Canada.

Many others on my team had similar backgrounds. During my time in government I worked with a wide range of exceptional people with broad experience and academic backgrounds doing specialized work that advanced American interests. 

“Almost all Western democracies have a professional civil service that does not answer to whatever political party happens to be in power, but is immune from those sorts of partisan wranglings,” says Kenneth Baer, who served as a senior Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official. “They bring… a technical expertise, a sense of long history and perspective to the work that the government needs to do.”

Gutting the civil service and replacing experienced workers with political hacks, as Trump and Vance advocate, would be irresponsible.

Don’t let it happen.