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Washington, D.C., has been described as the ultimate company town. In the city's case, the "company" is the federal government.
President Donald Trump is not a "company man."
If he didn't understand it previously, Trump certainly has learned his most dangerous political foes are not Democrats in Congress, but the vast federal bureaucracy.
Among the new president's first actions was to order a freeze on hiring in the government, with the exception of the military. Members of his transition team also ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to cease awarding new contracts and grants, except for cleanup projects. And an order went out to some agencies to stop making posts to social media accounts.
There was good reason for that order. Soon after Trump was inaugurated, people at some agencies began using Facebook and Twitter to post information -- and sometimes opinions -- in attempts to undermine the president's policies. The bureaucrats understand winning the propaganda battle is part of winning the war against anyone who dares rein them in.
Atop a story about opposition to Trump from within federal agencies, The Associated Press used this suggested headline: "Government bites back: Civil servants troll Trump, leak info."
They can -- and probably will -- do much worse than that.
Let's make one thing very clear. You already knew it, but you ought to remind yourself of it during the next few months: There are two classes of federal civilian employees. One category is the vast majority of government employees out here in the hinterlands, who try to do their jobs and have nothing to say about policy. Don't look at your mail carrier as a bureaucrat. She or he isn't.
Then there are the real bureaucrats, based in Washington and regional centers.
There are approximately 2.7 million civilian federal employees. More than half a million of them live in Washington, D.C., or nearby Virginia or Maryland. It's those folks Trump -- and we -- need to worry about.
Why should we just assume they don't like the new chief executive? Take a look at numbers from the election last fall.
In the District of Columbia and the four Virginia and Maryland counties adjacent to it, Hillary Clinton received 79.7 percent of the vote. Trump got just 18 percent (Gary Johnson and Jill Stein picked up the remainder).
Inside Washington, D.C., itself, the numbers are even more startling. There, Clinton got 94.2 percent of the vote, to Trump's 4.2 percent.
So no, the Donald doesn't have many friends inside the bureacracy.
How might they demonstrate their displeasure with him? Unfortunately, there are lots of ways.
Look for some "blue flu" among federal employees. Expect paper (or, rather, email) shuffling to take much longer than normal. And think about how some bureaucrats made their allegiances clear while Barack Obama was president.
Remember the last "government shutdown?" Several agencies suspended operations that served the public even though they didn't have to do so. The most notorious example was the National Park Service order to shut down a veterans' memorial in downtown Washington. Fortunately, the guards there refused to tell men who'd served in World War II that they couldn't come in.
And, as I've suggested previously, there's another trick up the bureaucracy's sleeve. Some agencies, notably the EPA, operate under laws that give them wide latitude in setting their own policies. Told by Trump to stop pursuing a certain program, the bureaucrats may well refuse -- claiming it's illegal for them to obey the president. Demonstrably incompetent and/or crooked officials may cite civil service laws in telling Trump he can't fire them.
We'll see. But here's the thing: This is a showdown long overdue, between government of the people, by the people, for the people -- and the bureaucracy. We, not Trump but we, need to win this one.
Mike Myer can be reached at mmyer@theintelligencer.net.