> Not a popular election where people vote to put new people in charge, which necessarily means removing the old people in charge.

More than a year after they took office and in the middle of a war?

I think they're talking about https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-ousts-army-chief-of-sta...

> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, sources familiar with the decision told CBS News...

> Two other Army officers were removed from their roles, according to three sources familiar with the matter: Gen. David Hodne, who led the Army's Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, who headed the Army's Chaplain Corps...

> Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge

I am not from the US, so I don't really care about how it does its things.

I definitely don't expect political purges on bureaucracy in my country of residence after elections, and I would consider it an extremely bad sign.

Typically the new party replaces the top levels; this is expected. Director of something, secretary of this and that, minister of something else, etc.

The actual bureacrats doing day to day work typically are not political agents. Getting rid of them for political reasons indicate loss of know-how, tacit knowledge, and competence, in the name of blind loyalty.