John McEntee Is the Most Dangerous “Nobody” in America

He fires your guardrails before you notice they’re gone.

John McEntee Is the Most Dangerous “Nobody” in America

He fires your guardrails before you notice they’re gone.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #569: Monday, September 29th, 2025.

You know the famous faces. But the most explosive force inside Trump-world is a smiling…low-profile personnel knife named John McEntee…the loyalty cop who turns grievance into pink slips and pink slips into power.

If you care about whether America runs on laws or on fealty…learn this name and what he’s building…because “personnel is policy,” and McEntee is personnel with a switchblade.

Act I-The Man Behind the Curtain

Every strongman story has a stage manager. Not the guy who shouts on TV. The one who picks the cast…locks the doors…and hands out scripts that say:

Say your lines or you’re gone. In Trump’s world…that’s John McEntee.

You’ve seen the headlines about cabinet secretaries…generals…and attorneys. But the most important job in an authoritarian playbook is gatekeeper…the person who decides who gets a badge and who loses one.

That was McEntee’s remit as director of the Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) in 2020–21…and again as Trump’s key personnel power broker today.

He’s the one who turns vibes into vetoes…of careers…of guardrails…of dissent itself.

If you think that’s abstract…ask former Defense Secretary Mark Esper. A McEntee PPO memo made the case for firing him in late 2020…bullet points that read like a loyalty indictment (“barred the Confederate flag,” “opposed using troops on protesters”). Days after the election…Esper was out. That’s not bureaucracy; that’s the blade.

Act II-The Origin Story (How a “Body Man” Learned the Kill Switch)

McEntee wasn’t born into a smoke-filled back room.

He started as Trump’s body man…the aide who is always there…always listening…always learning what the boss hates.

Then, in 2018…he was abruptly escorted out of the White House over security-clearance issues tied to online gambling/tax concerns…an exit that would have ended anyone else.

It didn’t end McEntee.

It taught him what mattered most: loyalty. Within hours…the 2020 Trump campaign rehired him. That’s the apprenticeship. That’s the signal.

Two years later…Trump brought him back and handed him the PPO…the staffing nerve center that oversees roughly 4,000 political appointees.

McEntee replaced veterans with twenty-somethings and built a machine to purge “insufficiently loyal” officials…monitor social media…and interview appointees for fealty.

This wasn’t rumor; it was reported in real time…documented by oversight letters…and observed by agency heads who suddenly discovered that personnel decisions could be made over their heads.

Translation:

“You work for the president…but really you work for me.”

Then came the questionnaire…questions for would-be appointees that probed not just competence but devotion to Trump’s 2016 message. Personnel is policy; devotion is design spec.

Act III-The Doctrine: Loyalty First, Law Later

Let’s be blunt: organizations become what they hire…fire…and tolerate. McEntee’s genius (or menace, depending on your viewpoint) is converting Trumpism into hiring criteria and termination logic:

• Step 1: Define “loyalty.” Not to mission. To the man.

• Step 2: Test for it on the way in. If you hesitate, no badge.

• Step 3: Police it on the way through. One “wrong” statement…one refusal to carry water…and you’re a security risk.

• Step 4: Purge at scale. Make examples. The rest get the message.

This isn’t theoretical.

Axios reported the “loyalty-cop” clashes in 2020; GovExec documented the White House “combing through” agencies for disloyal staff; WaPo captured the post-election purge atmosphere where workers were warned not to cooperate with the transition or even look for another job.

That’s not a staffing philosophy. That’s a compliance regime.

And once you accept the premise…loyalty > law…you start thinking like an autocrat about the next lever: change the rules of the workforce so you can fire the non-compliant faster.

Enter Schedule F…a late-2020 executive order to strip civil service protections from wide swaths of federal experts.

It was rescinded by Biden…but the legal scholarship and 2025 chatter say the plan is back on the table. Pair McEntee’s model with Schedule F’s teeth and you don’t just scare people…you reshape the state.

Act IV-Project 2025: The Factory for Fealty

When Trump left office, McEntee didn’t retire to the beach.

He signed on as a senior adviser to Project 2025…the Heritage-led coalition to pre-vet personnel and hand the next conservative president an off-the-shelf government…policy playbooks + a massive resume database.

Heritage’s own release announced McEntee’s role.

Brookings summarized the project’s critics in plain language: a “blueprint for autocratic takeover.” You don’t need to love Brookings to see the fit: McEntee is the plug; Project 2025 is the socket.

What does that mean in practice? Think industrial staffing:

Thousands of ideologically vetted loyalists slotted into legal…communications… regulatory…and enforcement roles on Day One…plus a standing doctrine that if you break ranks…PPO will break you. Personnel isn’t policy. Personnel becomes prosecution.

Act V: 2025: From Theory to Threat

If this all felt hypothetical in 2023…it doesn’t now.

The new administration’s workforce threats in the current shutdown standoff…directing agencies to draft reduction-in-force plans….and prepare mass firings…sound exactly like the Schedule F worldview applied to a budget cliff.

Whether you call it negotiating leverage or intimidation…it’s the same pressure architecture McEntee perfected:

We can fire you; we will fire you; we are drafting the paperwork now.

Zoom out. This month’s Comey indictment and DOJ turbulence tell you something else: when retribution becomes a governing mode…the personnel czar isn’t just a clerk. He’s a quartermaster…moving people into positions that will carry out the will.

That’s the danger to democracy:

Swap neutral competence for personal loyalty and the lights stay on…but the law quietly turns into custom…and custom answers to one man. (If you think that’s overstated…re-read the Esper memo and ask what stops that logic from running through the DOJ, DHS, IRS, FCC, FEC.)

Why McEntee Is More Dangerous Than the Shouter

Follow the money: where are the decisions made that pay off in power?

• Cabinet fights are noisy; hiring fights are quiet.

• Laws take votes; firings take forms.

• Purges don’t trend; they comply.

McEntee operates in the quiet where paper beats principle. He doesn’t need a TV hit. He needs a spreadsheet…a stack of resumes…and authority to change the nameplate on your door.

He knows something every dictator learned a century ago:

You don’t need to rewrite the constitution if you can rewrite the org chart.

The Boring, Effective Mechanics (How the System Slips)

Let’s walk the mechanics: offer…response…delivery…as it relates to power:

1. Offer: “Give me the PPO and I’ll give you a government that never crosses you.”

2. Response: The boss, burned by “disloyalty,” says sold.

3. Fulfillment: Loyalty questionnaires…social-media checks…dismissals…reassignments…and burrowing into agencies to lock the gains.

4. (Remember the reports of OPM leadership resigning under PPO pressure in 2020? That’s the fulfillment model: make it miserable to resist.)

Now bolt on Project 2025’s database and Schedule F’s threat…and the time-to-capture drops from years to months.

Every vacancy becomes a chance to install; every rule becomes optional if the right person “interprets” it. You don’t need tanks in the streets when your desk officers do the work.

Who Is This Guy, Really?

The biographical trivia gets attention…former college quarterback…social-media savvy…founder of a Peter Thiel-backed conservative dating app (The Right Stuff), TikTok micro-celebrity.

Fine. But the relevant line on the resume is simpler:

Trump’s apprentice in proximity who learned what the boss rewards and built an HR machine to deliver it. Heritage stamped it; the movement cheered. The rest of Washington underestimated him because they confuse youth with weakness and style with substance. They do so at their peril.

What This Means for You (and What to Do)

We’ve seen it time and time again; the market pays for what works.

If the market rewards loyalty over law…you will get more loyalty and less law. If the market punishes independent judgment…you will get fewer independents and more enforcers. That’s the play.

So here’s the offer I’m making to you:

1) Name the Mechanism

Out loud. In writing. John McEntee isn’t gossip; he’s governance.

When you see a purge…a demotion…a memo, a new “liaison” landing at an agency, ask: Is this a McEntee move? If yes…report it and resist it at the level you can.

2) Condition Your Officials

You don’t need to scream on cable. You need to become annoyingly reliable to your own representatives and local officials:

• “I want you on record opposing any Schedule F–style conversion and any program that conditions public service on personal loyalty to a politician rather than the Constitution.”

• “I want written safeguards for election workers…press access…and polling-place safety…no armed presence beyond assigned officers…posted hotlines…and monthly public reports.”

Make the ask weekly until you get pages…not platitudes. Staff tally calls; paper is pressure. (If you’re 65+, your voice has weight; offices listen.)

3) Harden the Merit Spine Where You Live

City councils…school boards…libraries…post the rules of access and intimidation penalties. Require that hiring/discipline decisions include a legal standard, not a loyalty test. If you sit on a board, insist on public criteria and public votes.

4) Follow the Org Charts

Journalists and watchdogs:

Track who is placed where. Run before/after org charts. Note when seasoned counsel is replaced by a political appointee with disciplinary authority. That’s where policy becomes practice.

5) Teach the Pattern

Neighbors and friends don’t need a seminar. They need one sentence:

“You don’t need a new law to break a republic; you need a new HR policy.”
Once they see it, they can’t unsee it.

The Promise: You’re Not Helpless-You Are the Leverage

The promise is this:

A small number of relentless citizens can make personnel capture expensive.

Proof? Offices hate persistent paper trails…public records requests…and letters to the editor that attract local press.

Clerks respond. AGs announce hotlines. Secretaries of State publish plans. Senators put positions in writing. You don’t need to be loud to bend systems. You need to be reliable…the adult in the room who calls every week and asks for the document…not the spin.

If You Work in Government (This Part’s for You)

If you’re career staff reading this with a knot in your stomach…hear me: you are not alone…and you are not powerless.

• Know your rights under civil service law. Keep records.

• Refuse unlawful orders; escalate internally; call counsel.

• Document loyalty tests in hiring/discipline.

• Network horizontally…across agencies and with journalists who understand the process. The story isn’t your name; it’s the method.

The people who think they can run everything with loyalty tests are counting on one thing: your silence. Don’t give it to them.

The Bottom Line

John McEntee is not a meme. He is method.

The smiling face on a ruthless theory of government: make every job conditional on devotion to one man; turn the civil service into a campaign staff; reward the faithful; ruin the rest.

He learned it at the boss’s elbow…proved it with the PPO…carried it into Project 2025… and now…in a government that is openly threatening mass firings…he has the wind at his back.

If you value a republic where law outruns loyalty…keep your eye not only on the speeches…but on the staffing. That’s where democracies either hold or hollow.

Receipts (for the skeptics & the curious)

• Firing → rehiring: escorted out of WH in 2018 over clearance/gambling/tax issues; immediately rehired by the 2020 campaign.

• PPO purge & loyalty tests: McEntee’s aggressive moves at PPO, social-media monitoring and “disloyal” purges; agency heads bypassed.

• Loyalty questionnaire: screen for devotion to Trump’s message.

• Esper memo & post-election knife work: PPO memo making the case to fire SecDef for “disloyalty”; atmosphere warning workers not to cooperate with transition.

• Project 2025 role: Heritage announces McEntee as senior adviser; critics warn of autocratic blueprint.

• 2025 workforce threats: OMB instructions to prepare RIF/mass firings amid shutdown standoff.

Pick Up the Phone

Power rewards what you repeat.

If we repeat silence…we will get McEntee-style government: quiet…effective…and merciless to dissent.

If we repeat citizen reliability…calls…letters…records requests…local resolutions…we will raise the price of capture high enough that even the most loyal apparatchik thinks twice.

Today’s two actions (10 minutes):

1. Leave one voicemail for your House rep and both Senators: “No Schedule F. No loyalty tests. Put it in writing.”

2. Email your county clerk: “Post curbside voting numbers, ADA access, and ‘intimidation is a crime’ signage—by date certain.”

Tomorrow, repeat.

Officials bend to repetition. Democracies survive on boring courage.

Remember the line: You don’t need a new law to break a republic; you need a new HR policy. John McEntee knows it. Now you do, too. The question is what you’ll do with that knowledge…today.

As always, we have work to do. I’m okay with that. I would rather be here, right now…in September of 2025…than any other period of time in history; the only time and place where actions can make a difference.

Let’s keep hammering…forward.

-Jack