The jockeying for jobs in a Donald J. Trump Administration began before he was elected, but for a long time it amounted to little more than the rustling of failed Republican primary contenders, surrogates hoping for a little Fox time, and ideologues happy to get a place on the stage. Then, last Wednesday, the improbable scrambling was transformed into a serious matter of state. The question of whether Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, who seemed to be just a half step ahead of prosecutors in the Bridgegate case, might be the right man for the office of Attorney General was suddenly more than a tristate-area joke. His rival for that position is former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is also said to be interested in running the Department of Defense. Newt Gingrich and John Bolton were both reported to have a shot at Secretary of State. Ben Carson is up for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior.

The President-elect will have some four thousand appointments to fill. Each person who takes one will have decided to be, in some sense, a Trump man or woman. Résumés are coming in from branches of the Party that had disdained Trump; both Presidents Bush stayed out of the race, but the Trump transition team, now led by Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, is well staffed with their former aides. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, worked hard to elect Trump and is also due to be rewarded. (Priebus is reportedly contending with Steve Bannon, of Breitbart News, for chief of staff.) Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, has argued that Trump is worth backing because he will allow the G.O.P. to cut taxes, gut regulations, including those aimed at combatting climate change, and dismantle the safety net, most prominently by repealing Obamacare. Any illusion that the Republican establishment, or its donor class, would provide a bulwark against Trump’s worst instincts has dissipated.

A small mob of lobbyists is now embedded with the transition team, presumably putting forward names of people who they believe would help their clients. These transactional Trumpists may reassure themselves that they are there only to get a particular rule overturned or to secure a seat on a commission. Most of them likely do not consider themselves bigots or misogynists or cons; they just want favors from a man who is all those things, and in return they are willing to support him and his policies. Ethically speaking, that’s not much better.

The more interesting question is how people in political life approach what they may regard as a duty to serve their country, whoever the President may be, while preserving their dignity and their decency. This includes those with special expertise, as well as members of the foreign service, and other civil servants. Last Thursday, when President Obama sat in the Oval Office with Donald Trump, a man who had called his very identity into question, he spoke to the sense of commitment that many in government have, saying, “We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed then the country succeeds.” Soon after, Josh Earnest, Obama’s spokesman, qualified that statement by adding that what Obama meant by success was “a President who succeeds in helping the American people understand our collective interests.”

That inclination toward civility may not suffice, though, if you are an immigration official trying to figure out what to do when an executive order to refuse admission to Muslims lands on your desk. Another question to ask, for anyone working for a fearmonger and a liar, would be whether you are willing to speak out about abuses even when they are documented only in files marked “Classified.” Indeed, the Obama Administration may have cause to regret the precedent it has set in its relentless pursuit of whistle-blowers and leakers. Such people may provide a lifeline for our democracy over the next four years.

Yet the impulse to avoid these dilemmas by disengaging from politics is an unhealthy one, too. The mechanisms of American influence are too powerful to leave entirely in Trump’s hands. That needn’t mean that you have to sign up for a job on the National Security Council. There are levers to pull at levels of government other than the executive branch as well as in civil society. (The A.C.L.U., in a strong statement issued the day after the election, said of Trump, “We’ll see him in court.”)

Perhaps nowhere is the question of duty to the country and to the Commander-in-Chief more crucial than in the military—which cannot, after all, be expected to disband after every election. During the campaign, when Trump openly advocated torture, Michael Hayden, a former Air Force general who also served as director of the C.I.A., said that officers would disobey illegal orders. But for that to happen there has to be a strong consensus about what qualifies as illegal—for example, waterboarding. Such clarity requires leadership long before a sergeant finds himself in a room with a prisoner and a set of instructions. In the case of Trump, the dangers go further, to the prospect of reckless military strikes. There are avenues of dissent that respect the principle of civilian control of the military. For officers, that might entail a willingness to, as the saying goes, lay one’s stars on the table—to resign, and publicly say why.

Ambitious and talented people tell themselves all sorts of stories along the way. Some already being recited by people ready to enter the incoming Administration revolve around the idea that Trump is just a celebrity buffoon with no ideology, and that it is incumbent upon them to teach him and to guide him, to fill an ideas vacuum. (This appears to be the position of a phalanx of fellows at the Heritage Foundation.) A test of that notion might be to ask what they would be teaching a Muslim child about how America regards her if, when the President tosses out a slur at a public event, they simply stand there and smile. It may not matter, to that child, what kind of clever remarks they make about the boss off the record. Any of them harboring Trump-taming fantasies might examine whether they, as much as he, are the ones who see the White House as the set of a reality show. Who, in that scenario, is the apprentice? ♦