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April 19 marks the 250th anniversary of the inception of the American Revolution at Lexington, Masachusetts. The issue at stake was: could Imperial Britain's Parliament impose bureaucratic regulations and taxes on what had been self governing colonies. The result after a long war was a constitutional republic with a very limited Federal Government.
April 20 marks three months of Donald J Trump's second administration. Soon, the Trump administration will reach the 100 day- mark. The issue at stake is whether it is too late in the world to restore America as a constitutional republic with a limited Federal Government. This is an ambitious high stakes undertaking and involves huge risks for America and the world. If Trump succeeds , even imperfectly , the entire edifice of unelected bureaucratic government built up stone by stone by the Democratic Party since the Franklin D. Roosevelt regime (and vastly expanded by Lyndon Johnson with dubious contributions by "establishment" Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon, followed by Obama) will collapse.
That edifice, often called the "Deep State", provides comfortable livings for millions of government workers at the Federal, state and local level and millions more in the form of "government adjacent" sectors like health care and education. These emoluments swell with the addition of contractors, sub-contractors, armies of lawyers and consultants, along with tens of thousands of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Altogether the Deep State probably employs more people than the private market economy which pays the taxes to support it. Tellingly, the five wealthiest counties in America are in the Washington DC metro area. These people are almost all Democrats. They are also concentrated in a few urban areas in the so-called "Blue States" like New York, California, Massachusetts and Illinois where Democrats have complete political control.
Before Trump's 2016 victory, although they won about half of post-war Presidential elections Republicans had never seriously tried to slow, much less halt, the expansion of the Roosevelt-Johnson Deep State. They settled for a share of the spoils.
Republicans and Democrats were equally horrified when Trump demolished the old Republican Party of corporate interests and tapped into populist rage at the fruits of the "globalist" agenda embraced by both parties. They succeeded in tying up his administration in phony scandals and investigations fueled by a legacy media that gave up all pretense of fairness. They ultimately used Covid as cover to amend electoral laws and procedures (massive mail-in votes e.g.) to help elect senile Joe Biden.
During Trump's time in the wilderness the Biden (or whoever was really running the government at the time) regime aided by "never Trumper" Republicans conducted an unprecedented and coordinated campaign to destroy him using impeachment and the courts in solidly Blue jurisdictions. The press cheered them on. He knows that if Democrats win back the House in 2026 he will again face impeachment immediately. He has also learned a few things in exile.
The key is speed. Even Roosevelt's "100 days" was leisurely by comparison to Trump's energetic use of executive authority, something Democrats had expanded vastly since 1932 assuming they would be the ones to wield it.
His agenda is often distorted in the press, especially in Europe .but it has two pilars. One is that the one sided American provision of public goods, such as defense, to the rest of the world Is not any longer in the interests of the bulk of tax paying citizens. The second is that the toxic "civil religion" and "woke culture" of America's university educated elites (anti-white racism, sexual deviancy, extreme feminism, the cult of climate change) is both destructive of society and repugnant to the common sense of the bulk of tax paying citizens.
In terms of public goods, the aim is to shut down a hollowed-out Pax Americana and replace it with "peace through strength" meaning that America will deter all threats to its own interests but curtail interventions beyond that. The EU, Japan and even South Korea have lived in American provided security while using the benefits of underinvestment in defense to better compete with the US or (especially Europe) to finance social programs. Rhetoric aside, everyone knows NATO , apart from the US , has little military muscle. Trump is simply blunt enough to point out the obvious and tell Europe. a rich and populous continent, to see to its own defense (the US will probably still offer its nuclear umbrella). If Europe really wants to save Ukraine it should but America has no inherent interest in conflict with Russia. Other pillars of the post-WW2 settlement like the UN agencies and World Bank are viewed with equal contempt. The very notion that there is or ever has been a thing called the "Free World" with America at its head never comported with reality and Trump is dispensing with the fiction. Realpolitik will replace the often foolish and destructive liberal ideology in foreign affairs.
Trump also views economic globalization as a disaster leading to the deindustrialization of America, especially since China was admitted to the WTO. The brute fact is America accounts for so much (perhaps 40%) of total global consumer spending that it can afford to play hard ball in trade. It is the one indispensable market for everyone else. More to point America has cheap and abundant energy which its key rivals lack. If Trump can marry cheap energy, deregulation and low taxes with tarrif incentives, at least modest onshoring of industry is possible though it is a heavy lift. Lack of visible progress on trade and manufacturing may undo Trump.
The second major challenge facing Trump where he is acting with ruthless speed is best understood as "defunding the left". The deep state lives entirely on rent seeking and graft. It produces nothing. This is the real import of DOGE though more systemic reforms are needed because the deep state can and does use progressive judges to thwart and delay actions by Trump's team. No one even knows how many Federal Departments, Bureaus and Programs there are but 500 is a good guess. "Blue" states like New York have parallel structures, often funded at least partially by Federal grants. For the most part these organizations provide no services but contract consultants and NGOs to perform activities. Elon Musk and Trump recognize this as a vast money laundering scheme where Federal funds provide Democratic party loyalists and operators with well paid work (or salaries without real work) and they in turn donate to the party and get out the vote. There are also vast amounts of outright fraud in Federal government "entitlement" programs, especially in health care.
Besides the grift provided by government grants, since Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s the Democratic Party has cultivated a vast government dependent underclass, mainly African American, that have enjoyed "affirmative action" enforced by the Deep State bureaucracy and the courts. In other words they are presumed victims entitled to redress. Since the 1960s such protected classes have been expanded to include women, all sexual minorities, and every ethnicity except Whites. For generations Democrats have used the civil rights industrial complex to bludgeon conservatives as racists, sexists, homophobic and whatever though these preferences have never enjoyed public support. Trump has moved quickly to purge three generations of affirmative action/DEI (Diversity. Equity, Inclusion) preferences from government and the private sector but, again, it is a heavy lift.
The supporting narrative, dominant in academia and media, sometimes dubbed "Critical Race Theory" holds that that America and indeed Western Civilization is irredeemably racist and oppressive, worthy of destruction. This is the rationale for changing the ethnic composition of the US by facilitating mass immigration from third world countries. This had the practical benefit of increasing the dependent population of future Democratic voters to create permanent one-party government like that achieved in California. This backfired on the left as large numbers of so-called Hispanic voters proved to be allergic to socialism and more entrepreneurial than native born Americans. This was a key to Trump's astonishing victory. With illegal border crossings down 95% through vigorous enforcement ending illegal mass immigration is Trump's most clear cut success.
Trump needs all the stars to align for this all to work, meaning that he holds Congress in 2026 and his successor is a Trumpian (the historic Republican Party is dead) in 2028.
The Democratic Party has grown increasingly leftist / Communist since the 1960s Antiwar movement with a further sharp turn under Obama. It has a fondness for political violence ( through movements such as the Black Lives Matter - BLM and Antifa , a few years ago) and has already shown itself capable of police state tactics and censorship. It has learned nothing from the last election except to double down on all the policies rejected by the obviously ignorant electorate. It controls the legacy media, academia, education at all levels and corporate human resources departments. It has lost its historical working class base to the Trumpians and replaced it with "knowledge workers" (who do no useful work but despise those who do) and angry minorities of various types.. They cannot live without political power because they have no marketable skills and expensive tastes
If Trump fails in his gamble the resurgent left would not only destroy him and his supporters personally but never permit a free and fair election again. America's 250 year experiment would be at an end.
In the meantime, Trump's policies are encountering strong headwinds, some to be expected and some due to Trump's own mistakes, bluntness and bullying habits.
Nobody will forget the treatment meted out to Zelensky in front of the TV cameras, getting friendly with Putin and supporting Russia at the UN.
Trump's pronouncements about taking over Canada and Greenland, Vance's comments in connection with the attacks on Houthis - " I hate bailing out the Europeans again" and other similar moments have stirred up anti-American feelings among America's traditional friends and allies.
The trade war is however the biggest issue on the table at this moment. Clearly the tariffs announced on April 2 were just an opening salvo, designed to bring trading partners to the negotiating table and soften them up in advance. The Trump administration punished countries that introduced retaliatory tariffs, especially China by counter-retaliating massively. Clearly, the China-America relationship is at a very low point and both Xi and Trump have painted themselves into opposite corners.The best outcome for Trump would be to hammer out tariff deals with Europe, Japan, South Korea and a few other critical trade partners and convince them to join a de facto anti-China tariff and trade coalition. This makes sense for many , especially Europe , because China's manufacturing prowess threatens many of their home industries. A free-trade zone, or quasi free-trade zone excluding China would be a very effective solution.
Regarding Ukraine, Trump faces another thorny situation. After having boasted he would solve the crisis in 24 hours, he is not getting any cooperation from Putin so far. In fact, it looks like Putin is . so far a better negotiator. He has obtained a lot from Trump without giving anything in return.
In the Middle East, Trump is talking to the ayatollahs. The ayatollah regime is obviously just buying time while continuing their nuclear weapons program and protecting it from a possible Israeli attack. In fact, if Israel were able to destroy or seriously damage Iran's nuclear installations, this would be a positive for the entire West. It might even bring regime change to Iran.
Bottom line: alrhough Trump has had a very active and bold first 3 months, many challenges remain. The good news is that despite his many defects, Trump is a practical guy, willing and flexible to change policy as a function of market reaction and popular approval surveys.
Expect to be surprised by his moves.
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