Radical Rush

The first days of the second Trump administration are a monsoon of madness. How does one stand athwart of that?

I’ll leave it to the historians to judge, but it seems to me that the second Trump term is surely off to the most radical start of any Presidency of my lifetime. The rhetoric of the inaugural speech, the tidal wave of Executive Orders, the extremist nominees, the rapid erasure of government web resources, and much more that we will learn of later, constitute a full-fledged assault on the federal executive branch as it has been, and an attempt to rebirth it as something new.

The scope and radicalness of it all is surely intended to overwhelm all opposition, coming as if a swarm of ravenous insects at a crop. Swatting at one seems a hapless gesture. Democrats and their activist allies swing at one outrage streaking past, and two more slip by. Remember abortion? Pretty big issue for the party? Washington Democrats are pretty certain that information and rules are being permanently changed across various federal agencies that could have long-term effects, but who has time to focus on that right now?

Outside activist groups are similarly beset, although single-mindedness there often helps. Law suits to head off anticipated moves were assembled and ready to go, on birthright citizenship for example. But what about the shutdown of the CBP One app—not just the end of the app, but the cancellation of thousands and thousands of pending appointments made with the app? Sure, the American Civil Liberties Union and others quickly filed for a judge’s attention to the matter, but there are sobbing women on the other side of the border right now, whose properly submitted claims are back to square one, and who might be forced back to the vicious places they fled without even getting a chance to make their case to enter the United States.

The news media is faring little better. There’s too much, too important, too radical, too soon. The blanket pardon of virtually all January 6 insurrection defendants has given them something to sink their teeth into; by Tuesday afternoon many local news sites were already posting articles about the worst offenders now freed to return to the area. Washington reporters were trying to keep up with the onslaught of nomination hearings, new policy pronouncements, and startling personnel choices. What was that about tariffs launching February 1? That’s a lifetime away, move on, remind me later.

Here's an example. There is a a young New York Republican, Paul Ingrassia, who I have followed on social media for some time because his idiotic Trump-extoling posts (on Truth Social, the execrable Gateway Pundit, or his own Substack page) are periodically re-Truthed by Trump himself. Ingrassia brands himself “Trump’s favorite writer.” Monday afternoon, Ingrassia circulated a photo of himself being sworn in as White House Liaison at the Department of Justice. Who knew? Given the serious concerns about potential White House meddling with that department, you would think that I would take considerable interest in this one-note truckler assigned to this role. But in the flood of reaction-provoking news, I completely forgot to even comment on it until now. I’m sure I’ll kick myself someday, when Ingrassia is being called to give sworn testimony.

Republicans and outside conservatives might have used this week’s wealth of radical excess as an opportunity to pick and choose an occasional action to criticize. After all, the sheer volume would allow them to maintain their MAGA chops by agreeing with 40 outrages for every one they dissociated themselves from—say, the pardoning of cop-beaters, or the elimination of all transgender and non-binary recognition. Perhaps even the shutdown of health information to the public, or the planned withdrawal from the World Health Organization. There’s plenty to choose from.

But of course they have not taken that route. Objections—even acknowledgements—of Trump administration actions from elected Republicans or media-based conservatives have been rare sightings indeed. Even, it’s worth saying, from those who previously said that such actions would be wrong; there is no shortage on the right of well-known voices who have insisted that Trump would never do such an awful thing as pardon the most violent J6 offenders, or declare birthright citizenship no longer operable, or nullify the duly enacted Tik Tok law so that he could personally broker a sale of the company. Yet these same folks shrank from such opinions, or pled ignorance of the news, when approached by inquiring media.

Nor has there been much acknowledgement by those same influential conservatives that the new administration had immediately hired a slew of Heritage Foundation folks who had worked on the supposedly irrelevant Project 2025, and that the onslaught of well-prepared policy steps were largely taken from that plan for the administration’s immediate onslaught of policy steps.

Frankly, I suspect that some of that onslaught is deliberate obfuscation and busywork. You might recall that the early Trump I administration got stymied by the large-scale negative reaction to its ham-fisted attempt to ban Muslims from entering this country. The lesson, I believe, was not to shy from radical, ham-fisted policies, but to obscure them among a huge quantity of even more objectionable efforts. I honestly doubt that Trump believes he can actually prevent babies born in the U.S. from obtaining guaranteed citizenship. By claiming to, he gets credit with deep MAGA for trying, and diverts attention from all the other things he’s doing to entry policies.

He is also, I would argue, getting the benefit of left-wing outrage exhaustion. The unexpected Trump victory of November 2016 unleashed a storm of energy that could be seen and felt everywhere from mid-size city airports to the Real Housewives of New York. One media tracker claimed there was a reported public protest every single day of the first year of Trump I. I won’t try to analyze the current liberal or even center-left psyche in this column, but I will say that it could use some analyzing. It ain’t a good headspace.