When a government, or for that matter a corner grocery store, fires one employee for incompetence, that is good management. When that government fires thousands of employees, without cause across many departments and agencies, that is bad government. And it might be a sign of worse things waiting down the road.

America has had its share of bad government. We’ve seen incompetence, corruption, and sometimes leaders who just weren’t up to the job. We’ve gone through periods when, because of the times we lived in, we as a nation behaved badly, and that was regrettable but was at least excusable.

So, the question becomes, as is always the case when dealing with bad: How bad can it get?

Alexis de Tocqueville answered the question in his analysis of the French Revolution. The monarchy of Louis XVI was clearly bad, and the citizens were obviously mad, but the eventual outcome could not have been sadder. The beheading of the king was not the reform France needed. Changing the calendar by making 1792 “Year One” also was not helpful, although it may have pleased many in the short term.

The new governments, there were several, were created by well-intentioned revolutionaries aware of what had taken place just a few years earlier in America. But there were more. There were radicals, activists, intellectuals as well as common criminals, the usual power brokers, and always a mob lurking in the background.

Clearly, the government replacing the bad government was itself a bad government.

Tocqueville answered the question “How bad can it get?” this way: “The most dangerous time for a bad government is usually when it begins to reform.”

Trying to do too much and trying to change things too fast is difficult in any situation, but for a bad government, the results can be disastrous.

In just his first weeks, and in some cases first days, President Donald Trump has set out to reform what has taken us over 200 years to accomplish.

Was it perfect? No.

Was it working? Yes.

Trump has set out to reform: the military — by deciding who can and cannot serve and who should lead those who serve; the Justice Department — by pardoning convicted criminals who attempted a coup and who threaten to do so again, while at the same time attacking prosecutors who prosecuted him for the crimes he committed; the Treasury — by firing IRS workers because he doesn’t like to pay taxes; the Commerce Department — by enacting senseless tariffs because it makes him look tough; the Department of Health and Human Services — by replacing scientists and health specialists with non-medical partisan idealogues. He’s cut off aid to needy countries, cozied up to foreign dictators while attacking our allies, ran roughshod over the media and attacked the freedom of the press, plus a lot of just plain stupid stuff like changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and suggesting we make Canada our 51st state.

More is going on behind the scenes.

These are clearly the workings of a bad government trying to enact reform badly. Even worse, much of it seems to be done for publicity purposes to appeal to Trump’s base. Maybe Tocqueville was right and the worst thing a bad government can do is make too many reforms too quickly.

The administration’s approach to the Ukraine war is a good indication of what the next four years are going to look like.

After blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion and calling Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy a dictator, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance behaved shamefully in the Oval Office last month as they laid into Zelenskyy with a barrage of insults.

This wasn’t U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson dressing down Russia at the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This wasn’t President Ronald Reagan in Berlin saying, “Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

This was just a bad president and vice president throwing an ally under the bus to please a Russian dictator thousands of miles away.

We’re likely in for many more dangerous moments like what we witnessed in the Oval Office. This is what happens when we elect bad people who go on to form bad governments and expect them to do good things.

Tocqueville warned us, but that was 200 years ago. Who pays attention to history?

Phil Terrana lives in Virginia and is the author of “Trump Dismantles Washington.”