A couple weeks of Trump
After 12 days in office, there's just a lot going on.
Sorry about not having this up Wednesday, but this Substack is just one of my side hustles and I had to wrap something up for another one. Anyway…
Talk about hitting the ground running!
But let’s first talk about Presidential transitions for a little bit. My memory is admittedly failing (or I just don’t remember the early ones), but I have lived through the following changes in the Oval Office:
1969: LBJ to Richard Nixon. While the 22nd Amendment would not have affected LBJ and he was eligible to run again, a discouraging result in the New Hampshire primary convinced LBJ to drop out - like the repeat this year, he quickly endorsed Vice President (and eventual Democrat nominee) Hubert Humphrey. On the other hand, Nixon was a political survivor who once told the press they wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore after losing to JFK in 1960 then a bid for governor of California in 1962. (A foreshadowing, perhaps?) Anyway, that was a wartime transition where the big issue was Vietnam and it didn’t go away for Nixon, although the winding down came in his brief second term.
1974: Nixon to Gerald Ford. The accidental President from Michigan, who was only there because we passed the 25th Amendment and onetime Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew resigned after being busted for bribery. Since it was in the midst of Nixon’s term, there really weren’t many changes except for the clobbering the GOP received in the midterms shortly thereafter.
1977: Ford to Jimmy Carter. Carter was perceived to be a breath of fresh air after a scandal-ridden Nixon administration came to an end with Ford at the helm, with the pardon the former VP gave to Nixon a key campaign issue. (Hey, even 12-year-old me bought the hype and voted for Carter in a school mock election.) But “Mr. Peanut” piled on with a blanket pardon for Vietnam draft dodgers and overall was inept at solving America’s issues with a larger government: Carter gave us both the Department of Energy and Department of Education, neither of which ever created energy or educated a child. He also gave us a hostage situation that lasted well over a year.
1981: Carter to Ronald Reagan. It really WAS “morning in America” when Reagan came to town. Unlike his last four GOP predecessors (Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower, Hoover) in the spirit of Calvin Coolidge Ronaldus Maximus was a conservative who ran on shrinking government. (The nine most frightening words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”) Unfortunately, with a Democrat Congress Reagan couldn’t get everything he wanted but he did get a lot, cutting taxes and rebuilding the military for peace through strength.
1989: Reagan to George H.W. Bush (aka Bush 41). More of the same, although we went from bold colors to pale pastels, perhaps because the Soviet Union finally imploded. And we all read Bush’s lips, which is why I voted for Ross Perot - leading to…
1993: Bush 41 to Bill Clinton. After the remembrance of conservatism from Ronald Reagan, after about 18 months of Clinton America remembered why we hated liberal Democrats - hence, the Contract with America and Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. Once Clinton’s liberal tendencies were tempered with the reality of a GOP Congress, though, things really weren’t that bad.
2001: Clinton to George W. Bush (Bush 43). This was the first rancorous transition, with obvious hard feelings over an election that took weeks to resolve. Remember the Ws being removed from the computer keyboards? Bush 43 got a late start and never really got into his stride since 9/11 occurred just eight months into his term. Instead of homeland prosperity, we got Homeland Security and the extension of surveillance nation.
2009: Bush 43 to Barack Obama. Well, we got our “fundamental transformation,” didn’t we? A nation tired of corruption and war switched gears, but it only took Obama a month or so to rile up a TEA Party.
2017: Obama to Donald Trump version 1.0. We just lived through that sandbagging, no need to rehash it here. P-hats and Astroturf protestors aside, Trump did a lot of radical things without a lot of help because he was trying to do so as a political rookie and the veterans who were supposed to assist him preferred the status quo, too.
2021: Trump to Joe Biden. People are still trying to figure out how Joe Biden got 81 million votes from his Delaware home. We had the mostly peaceful protest (aside from a few bad apples who, for all we know, may have been FBI plants or egged on by same - “we must go IN to the Capitol”) of J6 but the real protest should have come from how quickly Joe Biden undid all the good Trump had done with a slew of Day 1 executive orders. Yet it set a template for Trump 2.0.
I guess the good thing about Trump being away for four years is that he knows he has a limited time to finish his job. This time he selected a young, loyal lieutenant in JD Vance as opposed to the political veteran who often failed to show backbone in Mike Pence. He’s also picked out a cabinet of reformers as opposed to diversity hires like Biden had, a list that checked off various subcategories of aggrieved Democrat subgroups as opposed to one with effective leaders.
But the REAL flurry of activity has been several different buckets of executive orders. Some were there to overturn Biden’s EOs and restore what Trump had the first time, but there have also been policy-driven orders to enact the Trump agenda where Congress couldn’t or wouldn’t act. (Right now, they are busy with confirming nominees in the Senate and crafting government reform bills in the House. One “big, beautiful bill” as Trump termed it.)
Yet the biggest difference I’ve noticed (and moreso than any other transition) was that Trump was off and running practically from the day after his election. Just his statements moved things, such as the Gaza hostage deal. We also knew his potential Cabinet pretty early on, beginning with picking a Chief of Staff back in November. If we could have sworn him in on November 6, America would have been willing to do so but instead we had to sweat out the final weeks of Joe “Pardon Me” Biden.
Now I understand the critics who complain the price of eggs hasn’t come down, we’re still at war in the Ukraine, and so forth. They are the ones who take Donald Trump literally but not seriously. On the other hand, people like me who take him seriously and not literally realize it’s going to take time to undo four or more years of bad policy, not to mention foreign wars. And with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, we may see unemployment tick up for awhile since there were times over the last four years when government was doing most of the hiring. I’m sure any who take the proposed buyout would go on the rolls of the unemployed despite the fact they receive eight months’ pay in the offer. (Maybe they can learn to code.)
Simply put, it may be a little bit before the numbers are there like we had before the COVID scamdemic. But the surge of confidence and good feelings we began with November’s election results should remain - hopefully long enough to stave off a negative result at the midterms and perhaps usher in a Vance/DeSantis ticket in 2028 to continue the good work.
I don’t remember a crazier transition than the one we’ve had over the last two months, but I think I like it so far.
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.