Trump’s ‘revolution’ could forever change how DC runs

Republicans, as a rule, are fond of tinkering around the edges. Once elected, they stand athwart history yelling “slow down a little.” They prefer to putter around the White House adding window dressing to Democrat-led decline. They fret about norms, civility, and other sweet nothings, while their political enemies ignore these niceties completely. The result? Each time "the pendulum swings back" (as Republican faithful are fond of predicting), it swings less and less to the right — and farther and farther to the left.

Not this time. President Donald Trump’s remaking of the federal government isn’t just softening the palette; it’s a full-blown color revolution in how the federal government operates — and if successful, it will change everything.

Trump’s shock-and-awe reforms are breaking all the rules that have previously kept Republicans confined to controlled-opposition status.

To catch a glimpse of what’s happening, just check out some of the D.C. political publications. Washington's morning newsletters are, as a class, dreadful reads. Filled with lazy groupthink, dumb analysis, Democrat/GOP leadership talking points, and “wonky” personality, they’re the kind of thing I must lash myself through for my daily news-gathering.

Tuesday’s were an exception. They were beautiful.

Tuesday's Playbook began with the president's order to end the massive taxpayer funding of the Democrats’ non-governmental organization universe — a sprawling, ideological, and lawsuit-happy army of nonprofits dedicated to tormenting Republicans and pursuing liberal goals.

There is no reason on earth why Republicans in the House, Senate, or White House should have continued sending billions of dollars to anti-energy green groups, pro-illegal-immigration groups, pro-abortion groups, and other Democrat-aligned activists and lawyers. But year after year, they have. No longer.

After fretting about the wide-ranging impact of the order, Playbook got to how it was executed by the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. That’s because Russ Vought — one of the president’s most experienced and effective nominees — hasn’t even been confirmed to the post yet. In short: Get ready for more to come.

Then, taking “a step back,” the newsletter looked elsewhere in government. The president, it mentions, has fired “more than a dozen” Department of Justice prosecutors behind the department’s four years of lawfare, while their allies quit in frightened desperation. “People are just in a state of shock and devastated,” moaned one sad case who'd thought consequences were for everyone but him.

It’s not surprising this nameless apparatchik was so shocked. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work in Washington, where Democrats play for keeps, Republicans talk big, and around and around we go, with Democrats stacking up gains and no one actually held to account.

Then we got to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a storied font of globalist largesse, charged with funneling Americans’ money to other countries and their liberal projects. The White House paused the faucet over there until the projects can be reviewed and put 60 senior staff on leave.

USAID acting Administrator Jason Gray said the staffers were put on leave for undermining the president. While that might seem standard, it’s important to stress just how rare that kind of quick and decisive action is. For context, recall the first months of 2017, when Trump 45 was plagued with a self-styled “Resistance” inside his own government. What a change.

“And there’s still more,” Playbook writes, including the firing of 17 inspectors general, big changes throughout the floundering Secret Service, and work to increase the federal government’s ability to fire its own employees when needed.

But it’s still not over! Next came coverage of the president’s executive order walking back transgender individuals from serving in the armed forces. It’s strange that it’s so controversial to say no to men suffering from a condition that makes them want to be women (and need surgery to get there) on the front lines or commanding troops in the field, but it is. Fortunately, this White House doesn’t mind courting that controversy.

Then, Trump reinstated those troops who had been discharged not for mental illness, but for refusing the experimental and ineffective COVID vaccine Democrats forced on everyone.

We’re only halfway through one newsletter now, but you get the idea. And that’s just Tuesday morning. Monday opened with the president’s “shocking” public victory over Colombia. After the South American country refused to accept Colombian illegal immigrants whom the United States had flown home, Trump vowed to raise tariffs to 25%, promised to double that in one week’s time, and revoked diplomatic visas. Colombian resistance quickly folded, and the government agreed to accept its own citizens.

On Tuesday night, he told all federal employees who do not want to return to their offices (for the first time in five years) that he’ll offer them pay through September if they retire by next Thursday. He also issued an executive order stating that “it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

It’s tough to overstate how refreshing this is to an American right not used to seeing its leaders wield actual power. The shock to the international community is merely the sad reflection of how the United States has acted for decades. You can just hear the howls from Foggy Bottom, where career diplomats are more concerned with what’s good for foreign states than for their own. Let's hope many of them will follow their friends out the door next.

In the end, it’s about effectively wielding the power of the presidency and thereby exposing the lies that have covered for inaction for years.

For example, in his first term (plus former President Joe Biden’s), Trump proved that border enforcement is a tangible problem that can be addressed. Washington had denied this simple reality for decades. Trump exposed it. Biden proved the point for any who'd been distracted by all the noise of that 45th administration to notice.

In his second term, the now-47th president is set to test the notion that liberalism cannot be rolled back in any meaningful way. His well-planned, swiftly executed shock-and-awe reforms are breaking all the rules that have previously kept Republicans confined to controlled-opposition status.

“But let’s also be clear,” Playbook wrote at the end of its long list of executive actions. Everything the president has done was “spelled out by Trump long in advance.”

Throughout the election campaign, he told America repeatedly that he would reshape the federal government, root out (and even prosecute) his enemies, pardon supporters who were convicted of violent crimes, slash government spending programs en masse and ax huge numbers of federal jobs. And then he won 77 million votes to do exactly that. Those accusing Trump of being anti-democratic might note that this is largely democracy in action.

Indeed it is! The only real surprise here is that voters are finally getting what they asked for.

For decades, Republicans have proven ineffective at rolling back the advances of liberalism. Every successive Democratic-controlled legislature and executive expanded its reach and power. Successive Republican leaders picked away at these advances, but virtually never turned them back. Trump, it seems, might be an exception: a man who spent four years in exile, learning from his mistakes, studying his opponents, and preparing for his return. We’ve never seen anything like it.

Fortunately, courage is contagious. More, you won’t so easily convince the American people again that real action is impossible. They voted for change. Trump is testing what the presidency can deliver.

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