Cry harder

Trump has power. He is using it wisely this time.

Paul Rosenzweig at The Atlantic is stunned by the president’s shock and awe beginning of his second term. Barack Hussein Obama was able to tie Donald John Trump in knots when he took office eight years ago. Not this time, pal.

Rosenzweig wrote, “The first 10 days of Donald Trump’s presidency have seen such an onslaught of executive orders and implementing actions that Steve Bannon’s strategy to flood the zone with shit seems apt. But that characterization is incomplete, and it obscures a more frightening truth: The Trump administration’s actions have been not just voluminous but efficient and effective. Though Trump himself may not appreciate the depth of detail that has gone into these early days, his allies do appear to understand what they are doing, and they seem to have his unquestioning consent to do whatever they like.

“And what they want is very clear: to take full control of the federal government. Not in the way that typifies every change of administration but in a more extreme way designed to eradicate opposition, disempower federal authority, and cause federal bureaucrats to cower. It is an assault on basic governance.”

In short, it’s what we voted for.

President Trump’s run this train before. He knows where the levers are and how to use them. Obama bragged about his pen and phone? Trump has a squadron of stenographers, his own PBX and for good measure, his own social media company.

Rosenzweig wrote, “Consider, as a first example, the order that reassigned 20 senior career lawyers within the U.S. Department of Justice. Because of their career status, they could not be unilaterally fired, but Trump’s team did the next best thing by reassigning them to a newly created Sanctuary Cities task force. With one administrative act, the senior leaders of public-integrity investigations, counter-intelligence investigations, and crypto-currency investigations—individuals with immense experience in criminal law—were taken off the board and assigned to a body that is, apparently, tasked with taking legal actions against cities that do not assist in Trump’s immigration crackdown. Their former offices were effectively neutered.”

Trump’s the boss. He’s the leader. He’s the chief of the executive branch of government. These guys do his bidding. Their immense experience in criminal law—as Rosenzweig puts it—can now be used to rid the nation of millions of invaders.

If they are as good as advertised, they can be very useful in protecting the public. If not, there’s the door. They can collect eight months’ severance pay if they leave now.

But we know what this really is about: The irresistible force (Trump) versus the immovable object (the bureaucracy).

Rosenzweig let it slip that liberals expect the career employees to stymie Trump again: “This maneuver has a further effect: to disable opposition. Career employees with this degree of expertise and experience are exactly the type who would embody institutional norms and, thus, exactly the sort who could be expected, in their own way, to form a bulwark of institutional resistance to Trumpian excess.”

Institutional resistance? It is insubordination. Career employees work for the people, not themselves. The careerists are not independent of the president or the Constitution.

The careerists by and large want to continue carrying out FJB’s policies. That is the opposite of what we voted for. Trump is delivering, one executive order at a time.

Rosenzweig wrote, “The same playbook was also used last week to hamstring environmental enforcement, by reassigning four senior environmental lawyers at the DOJ to immigration matters. The leaders of these four litigating sections are four of the most experienced environmental lawyers in the nation. Additionally, the Trump administration has frozen action on all cases handled by the Justice Department’s Environmental Enforcement Section, with substantial practical disruption. Once again, expertise has been lost and the functionality of government institutions has been significantly impaired, with the inevitable result that companies subject to environmental regulation (including Trump’s big corporate supporters) will be less policed.”

We don’t need experts in peevish overregulation of parts per trillionth of some chemical that may or may not cause cancer (suspected carcinogenic). Right now, we need experts in deporting gangbangers, killers, rapists and looters.

The column ended on a happy note. Not for the writer, of course, but for the rest of us as he said, “Were it not so dangerous to democratic norms, the efficiency of these early days would almost be admirable, in the same way that one might admire a well-run play by an opposing football team. But politics is not a game, and this nation’s basic security and functioning are at risk. Those who oppose Trump’s actions do not have an incompetent opponent; Trump’s team is savvy and has been planning for this for years. They came ready.”

The norms failed us in 2020 when it allowed FJB to waltz into office. The norms can go take a hike.

Jonathan Lemire in another Atlantic piece wrote, “The flood of executive orders and news was designed to disorient the Democrat resistance. It might be working.”

He said, “But this time around, Trump’s ubiquity is also a deliberate strategy, several of his aides and allies told me. Part of the point is to send a message to the American people that their self-declared favorite president is getting things done. The person at the Palm Beach meeting and another Trump adviser, who also requested anonymity to describe private conversations, told me that the White House’s flood of orders and news is also designed to disorient already despairing Democrat foes, leaving them so battered that they won’t be able to mount a cohesive opposition.”

Democrats aren’t the only ones in gloom. The president of Colombia tried to play Mister Tough Guy by refusing to allow the USA to land and dump deportees on his country. Trump said fine. Enjoy the 25% tariff that will go up to 50% in another week. El presidente sent his personal to fetch his illegals.

Other countries also see the light.

Fox reported, “Incoming UK ambassador walks back comments on ‘danger’ of Trump: ‘Ill-judged and wrong’

“Lord Peter Mandelson says Trump could be one of the ‘most consequential American presidents’ of his lifetime.”

The Independent reported, “Lord Peter Mandelson will be the next British ambassador to the United States after Donald Trump agreed to accept his credentials.”

Disney settled a defamation suit against ABC by giving Trump $15 million and his lawyers $1 million. Disney better be careful because that’s consider hush money in the once great state of New York.

Facebook, too, paid $25 million to Trump to drop a lawsuit over its decision to arbitrarily cancel his account.

John Hinderaker wrote that Trump previously was an untouchable for law firms that usually fight for presidential clients: “Represent terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, or a convicted murderer slated for the death penalty? Sure. Many large firms have done it, proudly. Represent Donald Trump? Not on your life.”

That’s changed. He’s lined up a top-notch law firm to represent him in the hush money case.

Hinderaker wrote, “Trump will be represented by the co-chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, assisted by no fewer than four former U.S. Supreme Court clerks. The New York hush money case was a bad joke, legally defective for multiple reasons. It wasn’t a legitimate legal prosecution, it was a nakedly political persecution. Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, i.e. one allegedly incorrect bookkeeping entry, will be reversed.”

The World Economic Forum is in limbo. WHO is laying people off. NATO allies are upping their military budgets. Canada finally is dumping Castreau, although taxes and liberal excess have much more to do with it. Still, he went to Mar-a-Lago, came home and resigned.

President Trump has experience this time and he knows how to wield presidential power, but there is more to this. The world has learned a very powerful lesson.

Everyone knows Trump was cheated out of the 2020 presidential election. There is no way FJB stayed in his basement counting his bribes and defeated him.

And everyone saw what happened. The USA collapsed. That was a disaster for the world because we’re the last best hope, as Lincoln said.

The world also saw Trump take a bullet for the team—Team America. Even atheists know a miracle from God when they see one.

He is a historic president now not because he is the first orange president or any of that quaint Obama stuff. He’s historic because of what he will do. God saved him for a reason. We do not fully know that reason but the politicians and the lawyers do not want to be on the wrong side of God.

Trump has them crying. He flipped over the tables and chased them around with a whip of cords like it was a Benny Hill skit. Trump really enjoys this and he should. Winning is fun and after all this nation has been through—impeachments, imprisonments, witch hunts, witch trials and an assassin’s bullet—we deserve some fun.

I don’t ask for much. I have one little request, though, of liberals.

Cry harder.