It has been highly entertaining and heartening to watch the reforms embarked upon by Team Trump this past month, although not for the minority that voted for his opponent who has maintained a steady rage on social and legacy media since things actually started getting done. Team Trump has kept up a relentless momentum, with acts ranging from barring the 51 conspirators associated with the Hunter Biden laptop saga from federal buildings, to granting amnesty to the January 6 protestors, to demanding to see what the US government has actually spent money on over the past 80 years, to telling a few home truths to their European friends and withdrawing from deeply corrupted global institutions (the WHO) and international scams (the Paris Accords). They are shining a light on places, mainly within their own borders, long kept dark for all the wrong reasons.
They have also played their cards cleverly and showed immaculate preparation. They have paced the revelations, strategic insults, big power moves, and promises of more revelations such that they have grabbed the headlines every day and created enthusiasm among their supporters for what is coming next. This enthusiastic support has been crucial in getting Trump’s cabinet picks through the Senate in what otherwise could have been a series of typical swamp-monster-infested, forever-delayed affairs. Facing the prospect of wrath from Trump-positive voters has made it impossible for the Republicans on Capitol Hill to do anything but fall in line, yielding a crucial victory for Team Trump as it shows they can get things done.
Ignoring the many lawfare attempts to prevent Trump from actually doing what a US President is supposed to do – lead the executive – has also projected strength and stoked fear among opponents who have been seen to search the internet frantically for terms like ‘statute of limitations.’ Announcements of more juicy reveals to come, ranging from the release of the Epstein list to revelations about the CIA’s covert operations, promise that the momentum will keep going for a while yet. We are seeing the high point of the power of Trump’s second administration: they can now do things deemed unthinkable for the past 50 years, including threatening to invade Denmark to wrestle Greenland from it, and deleting entire government departments. They have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with.
Yet, in terms of truly cleaning up institutions, it is very early days. The Pentagon, the FBI, and the CIA are still extant and populated by thousands of staffers suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Big Pharma has lost the battle to bar RFK, Jr. from the top government health position, but has not yet seen its products banned or its executives arrested. Better yet for Big Pharma, the announced war on the Mexican drug cartels is a government-sponsored thorn in the side of one of their biggest competitors. Similarly, the US arms manufacturers will have been very happy to see Trump bullying the European allies into spending more on their own defence, which is code for ‘buying more US-supplied armaments.’ Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US Department of Defense has set records for sales of weaponry to the EU, and it is keen to do even more business.
The author goes into specific suggestions for Trump to do what Trump is so good at: shake up the box and see what comes out. She has suggestions for security, health and education that make a lot of sense, but would be difficult to apply without someone like Trump using his wrecking ball. A lot of the suggestions are centered on putting things into the free market and letting the consumers make their decisions to restructure those industries. As Mises said, “The consumers are the owners of the ship, the entrepreneurs are only the captains of the ship.” We, the consumers, can restructure industries and economies to our tastes and desires through the power of our everyday choices.