Under all-too-familiar “flood the zone” tactics, President Trump is seemingly everywhere. He’s confidently announced his intention to end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. His Gaza vision involves removing Palestinians from their homes, most reduced to rubble by Israeli bombing, to … somewhere else. The United States would take over and built beach resorts grander than anything Citizen Trump managed to accomplish.

As for Ukraine, he first demanded half its mineral resources. Rebuffed, he sent a team to Saudi Arabia to parlay with the Russians, who started the war with an unprovoked assault in February 2022. The Ukrainians weren’t invited, despite being our de facto ally.

Suffice it to say neither war will be ended on these terms.

Yet that’s the problem with Trump, the focus of countless news stories daily, crowding out all other actors. Better to focus on a single set of actions concerning the federal workforce.

First, all political appointments — a few thousand — are subject to presidential control. Removing U.S. attorneys and Senate-confirmed appointees is within his purview. That’s not true for hundreds of thousands of employees in Cabinet departments and independent agencies. Trump has already “fired” thousands from an ever-growing list of agencies.

While the media keeps saying the firings “may” be illegal, or “could” unconstitutionally infringe on congressional responsibilities, it’s quite simple. Every single firing is illegal, and collectively they represent an unconstitutional power grab. The president may be commander in chief, but Congress, under the Constitution, has sole “power of the purse,” setting budgets and making appropriations carried out by the Executive Branch.

It took nearly a century to establish the Civil Service in modern form, so it’s worth recalling why it was done, and how the nation benefits from departments whose employees can be discharged only “for cause,” not on a whim.

The “spoils system” that preceded the Civil Service is usually dated from the administration of Andrew Jackson (1829-37), the first president not descended from the Founders, who were the closest we’ve had to an “aristocracy of talent.”

Jackson gradually turned out most federal employees and replaced them with Democratic Party loyalists. And so it went with each change of administration.

After the Civil War, the corruption and incompetence produced by solely political appointments became too great to ignore. As the powers of the federal government and employee counts continued to grow, Congress debated reforms.

Still, it took the assassination of Republican President James Garfield in 1881 by a disappointed office-seeker to galvanize Congress to action.

The Pendleton Act establishing the Civil Service covered a small proportion of the workforce, but was substantially enlarged by Democrat Grover Cleveland and the Republican McKinley and Roosevelt administrations.

By the 20th century, hiring was governed by the Civil Service exam, demonstrating competence and ability to do the job without reference to party affiliation.

Today, Americans rely on the integrity of career employees who process our Social Security checks, pay most of our health care bills and do a thousand other things that should always be strictly nonpartisan.

President Trump wants to change all that, making the test personal loyalty to him, and not even to the political party he nominally heads. The question is whether he can actually accomplish this. History says no.

True, the Republican Party is utterly prostrate before the president, on its way to confirming all his Cabinet appointees, even those utterly unqualified or holding views antithetical to the missions of their agencies. It may take the courts, grinding slowly through a long series of briefs, orders, decisions and appeals, likely ending with the Supreme Court.

The law is clear. President Richard Nixon, frustrated by congressional spending on programs like the then-new Clean Water Act, refused to release funding. As Nixon was nearing resignation in disgrace from the Watergate scandal in 1974, Congress enacted the Budget and Impoundment Control Act. It was upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the president has no power over congressional appropriations and must carry them out.

If Congress does not have this authority then there is no separation of powers, and the president can do whatever he likes. Even a Supreme Court that was willing, pre-election, to give Trump a sweeping grant of extraconstitutional immunity from prosecution may balk at this latest arrogation of power.

Justice would mean full employee reinstatement with back pay — and a mandatory apology from the president.

There are difficult months ahead for those who work for the federal government, and those who depend on its programs. But we will eventually find out whether this country still abides by the rule of law, and not the will of one man.