For the last decade, Democrats convinced themselves that their unbridled offensive actions against Donald Trump would not only succeed but also come free of cost. After all, by controlling the country’s major institutions, from media to academia, they were secure in the knowledge that they controlled the narrative. Their belief was reinforced by derailing him in the pandemic-plagued 2020 election. But now, four years later, with the fresh nightmare of a second term for President Trump moving at warp speed, they have suddenly discovered there’s hell to pay for their years of disparagement and demonization of the man.
We all know the extent to which the president, empowered by a decisive mandate from the voters and freed from concern about re-election, is on a singular and mighty mission to make government great again (MGGA if you will). He is treating each day as his last, not content to wait patiently for the wheels of the legislature to move at their typically glacial pace. For all his whiplash-inducing reforms in the executive branch, he has so far signed off on only a single act of Congress, the Laken Riley Act.
The Constitutional Imperative
Congressional action is plodding by design. The framers of the Constitution created a system requiring broad approval of all three branches of government to turn concepts and proposals into durable law – but not with executive orders. As the single elected official in the executive branch, the president has the power to deliver a command and order the many executive departments and agencies under his control to act accordingly. At the same time, since executive orders are not law, they are fluid and reversible from one administration to the next. So, the key to effecting permanent change at the executive level is to order reforms that are both popular and sweeping enough to make reversal by future presidents unlikely, unpopular, or unwise.
Trump is indeed effecting massive, systemic change in the way Washington does business. But just as important is his evident calculation that his initial wave of actions would be particularly popular with the electorate and thus force his intransigent enemies into an impossible position: defending the indefensible.
Democrats have certainly and unwittingly cooperated with Trump’s strategy. Day after day, they have been forced to defend the very thing the voters were intent on overturning: the status quo. With Elon Musk and his DOGE team uncovering tens of billions in flagrantly duplicative, wasteful, and fraudulent spending on unnecessary programs and progressive boondoggles sure to enrage the taxpaying public, the Democrats were faced with a fundamental choice.
They could have simply allowed President Trump, at the height of his popularity, to carry on with reforms demanded by the voters. A New York Times/Siena poll before the election revealed a whopping 69% of voters favored either major change to the national government or tearing the system down entirely. The Dems could have consequently stood back and waited until Trump made a mistake that the voters are likely to find objectionable and then unleash their fury. But it seems they can’t help themselves.
Leftists have detested Trump so thoroughly for so long that they know no other way to oppose him but to scream, swear, and sing. They have fallen directly into his trap. They might have at least limited the damage to themselves by selecting relatively credible members of their party to express their collective opposition to the president. Instead, they have allowed the faces of their resistance to be the likes of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), all hilarious caricatures of everything the electorate rejected in the 2024 election.
It’s almost as if the Democrats have a death wish.
Democrats Defending Darkness
The Dems have put themselves in the position of defending that which is indefensible to virtually everyone except the federal bureaucrats being handed their walking papers. For example, on Presidents Day (Feb. 17), the left organized demonstrations centered around the so-called 50501 Movement, which stands for "50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement." Organizers described the protests as a response to "the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration." But they are at pains to explain exactly which actions they define as undemocratic or illegal. And that is likely for fear it would force them to come to the defense of the rank corruption of an administrative state that has evolved over decades into a fourth branch of government: distant, unelected, and unaccountable to the citizens it is supposed to serve.
You will notice that Democrats are savaging Trump for the processes he has set in motion without defending any specific and illegitimate programs and expenditures uncovered by DOGE. They speak in the most general terms about the “humanitarian and life-saving” work of USAID without answering for the myriad surreptitious expenditures that have nothing to do with the agency’s stated mission. In essence, they are saying we must swallow countless billions of dollars being spent on left-wing projects pushing DEI, transgender, and green propaganda in return for the funding dedicated to the good work of USAID. They have been reduced to calling Trump an oligarch and complaining that Musk is unelected. Then there's the laughable claim that the administration is coming after people’s Social Security. This is not like the protests about the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with much of the public. This is a futile attempt merely to obstruct the expressed will of American citizens.
The voters have, in the words of the great William F. Buckley, stood athwart The Swamp and yelled, “Stop.” Democrats howling into the empty darkness have become rebels without a cause. And until they come to grips with the reality that their popularity is collapsing and their gravy train has finally crashed and burned, their party will serve as little more than an empty vessel for obstruction.
