Item one: Trump 1.0 was a Pollock—splat splat all over the place. Trump 2.0 is painting within very precise lines. It’s terrifying—but it should help plan how to fight. |
We’re nearing the end of week two of Trump 2.0, and several things are already manifestly clear. First and foremost, that the new Trump administration was more than ready to hit the ground running at noon on January 20. As one journalist friend said to me: "We were prepared for a 2,000-volt dose of MAGA. We got a 20,000-volt dose." The scope and audacity of the moves floored everyone. There have been a lot of complaints about the Democrats; with Democrats, there’s always something legitimate to complain about (their timidity, their rationales for nonaggression). But there’s also an extent to which, in this case, everybody was taken aback by the tsunami of orders, the fuck-you unqualified-ness of crucial appointees, and more. That we’ve needed a few days to take it in is understandable. But now we know. I write these words on Day 12 of the new Trump era, and already, the three guiding principles are obvious: |
| 1. | | There is no such thing as settled law. There is law Trump and the broader right accept, and law that they don’t accept, and everything in the latter category will be relentlessly challenged. | | 2. | | There is no such thing as independence within the government. There is only loyalty to Trump and the cause. | | 3. | | Diversity is poison. It’s the job of the federal government not merely to arrest its progress where it is but to push it back, aggressively. |
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On February 12, we are producing an important event to help you prepare for Trump 2.0. Livestreamed from Washington, D.C., it will gather influential political commentators determined to mitigate the imminent threats of a second Trump term, including Jared Bernstein, Pramila Jayapal, Jamie Raskin, Bennie Thompson, Olivia Troye, Mark Zaid, and more. This event is produced in partnership with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Rachel Carson Council. |
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With respect to the first principle, the key evidence exists in the form of certain moves Trump has made that challenge settled law. The Office of Management and Budget order attempting to block all federal grants and loans is Exhibit A. The Trump people know very well that this is money appropriated by Congress, and that money appropriated by Congress is money that a presidential administration has no legal right to rescind. So it’s not that they aren’t aware of what the law says. Rather, they know and just don’t care. They know very well that the order violates the 1974 Impoundment Act. That’s not a problem. It’s the point. They want to challenge the law, have people bring lawsuits, and hopefully from their perspective have it get to the Supreme Court, where, in theory, there are at least five justices available to overturn the Impoundment Act. Why play it this way? Well, there are two motivations here—Trump’s, and that of the broader right. Trump’s motivations are simple to understand: It’s just so that he will have fewer constraints on his executive power. For the right, this is a longtime goal that precedes Trump’s arrival on the scene. They hate this post-Nixon reform that gives power to a drunken Congress (especially when run by Democrats), and they want a (Republican) president to be able to unilaterally cancel piles of federal spending. If you’re of a certain age, you remember Ronald Reagan’s obsession with the line-item veto. This is its kissing cousin. The same motivations are on display with the firing of the 18 inspectors general. They know that these dismissals violated the law. Their point is to change the law: to have the Supreme Court affirm that the president can fire these people at will—or ideally, that he can even just order such offices dissolved. These are just a few of the ways this drive for raw and unchecked power has manifested itself over these first few days, and we’ll see many more. And by the way, this is all straight out of the pages of Project 2025. Principle two: The firings of the 12 prosecutors who worked for Jack Smith. A half-dozen or so top-ranking FBI officials told to resign or retire. The buyouts offered to roughly two million federal employees. The point of these and other similar moves is obvious, and it’s exactly what we’ve known ever since Axios broke that Schedule F story back in July 2022: Across the federal bureaucracy, career bureaucrats are to be replaced by operatives loyal to Trump. This, again, is both a Trump goal and a longer-held goal of the broader right. For Trump, the motivation is obvious: Nothing is more important to him than loyalty. For the right, the point is to reshape the bureaucracy and fill it with people who seek not to carry out the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Housing and Urban Development but who seek to subvert it. And yes, a Democratic president can come in and replace all those people if he or she wants, but it’s a reasonable bet that the Democrat will be slow and timid about doing so—or that their respect for norms will override the commonsense urge to fumigate the civil service of Trumpian parasites and return it to its former level of professionalism. From the perspective of Trump’s Project 2025 goons, they know they can break more things than future Democrats will be able, perhaps even willing, to fix. And so the sledgehammers swing. Result: On balance, the federal bureaucracy will have fewer dedicated civil servants who can perform their jobs under Democratic or Republican regimes, as has been the norm in the United States for a century, and instead will be more packed with right-wing ideologues. Principle three is more ideologically aggressive than the first two, because diversity has become so embroidered into so many aspects of American life and culture, accepted even by many facially conservative institutions, such as large corporations. There are certainly instances of woke leftism in this country, chiefly in the academy, which are illiberal and lamentable. But by far, the reality is that a broad consensus exists that diversity is a good thing that has enriched society. Trump is moving with gobsmacking speed against this consensus on many fronts. His statement that DEI was basically to blame for the Washington, D.C., plane crash was, of course, intentional; no doubt uttered to push this idea into the media maw so that it got talked about and argued over at the expense of conversations about the fact that he dismissed that aviation safety board or that Elon Musk bullied the holdover Federal Aviation Administration head out the door. Mainly, however, he wanted to get more Americans to start thinking in the MAGA way: that any instance of sloppiness, inefficiency, or incompetence can be laid at the feet of liberal diversity initiatives. Oh, and by the way—the kinds of diversity initiatives that he railed against Thursday for weakening the FAA? They were put in place in 2019, under President Trump. The assault is multipronged. If you haven’t, for example, read the language of the executive order banning transgender people from enlisting in the armed services, you should do so. It basically says that these Americans, who have volunteered to risk their lives if necessary for their country, are inherently incapable of loyal service: "Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member." These are the ugly organizing principles of Trump 2.0. But on the bright side: At least we know them. At least they are self-evident to us, just 12 days in. It’s like Germany announcing they’re marching through the Ardennes before they even do it. The battle lines are clear. We can’t say we don’t know what we’re fighting for. |
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{{/if}} Item two: Those confirmation hearings |
There’s been a lot of betting, ever since Trump named those other-Earth Cabinet nominees, as to how many of them the Senate would have the gumption to vote down. The four biggies, of course, were: Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon; RFK Jr. at Health and Human Services; Kash Patel for the FBI; and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. (It’s worth recalling that Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first absurdist choice for attorney general, lasted only a few days.) Cable news host Hegseth, the alleged sexual predator and hooch guzzler, is now Secretary Hegseth, already launching an investigation into Mark Milley and stripping him of his security detail and clearance. He made it through by one vote. As for the others? Well, after gazing upon the hearings this week, it seems there’s a fair chance that Gabbard might not make it. She got pretty roughed up by some Republicans as well as the Democrats. Kennedy, I’d have to say, seems a little more likely to slide through. Patel, sadly, would appear to have made it. I’m just guessing here. I have no inside information. But my experience in watching these things tells me this much. It’s a given that these people are going to lie in these situations. That goes without saying. Their job is to lie with just the right balance of humility and rectitude that they come across as having been well prepared for their hearing. That’s it. They don’t have to evince deep knowledge of any issue or, God forbid, flash anything approaching a genuine conscience; they just have to show that they’re skillful at parrying predictable questions. So when Patel for example is asked by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin whether he thinks America is safer with the January 6 rioters set free, and he responds with, "Senator, America will be safe when we don’t have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years," blahdadey blah, that counts as a win. Trump has a few days to lean on wobbly senators for all three. Not predicting here, but it wouldn’t shock me to see all three make it. Of course, on Earth One, the fact that any of the three can get even 10 votes is offensive to common sense. And Cheryl Hines sitting there. Makes it hard to watch old CYE episodes, even. |
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The New Republic’s new senior legal columnist talks with editor Michael Tomasky about how Donald Trump is wrecking the Justice Department. |
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Last week’s quiz: Simple black and white.… Since last week’s quiz was so lowbrow, I decided to go highbrow this week. Today, January 24, is Robert Motherwell’s birthday. So let’s talk mid-twentieth century art. |
1. With what school was Robert Motherwell associated? |
A. Expressionism B. Abstract expressionism C. Minimalism D. Fluxus |
Answer: B, abstract expressionism. An answer that is given away to you in question number four. |
2. Many of Motherwell’s gigantic canvases consisted of just black and white splotches of paint. Who was the other prominent midcentury artist who commonly painted large black and white canvases? |
A. Ad Reinhardt B. Clyfford Still C. Elaine de Kooning D. Franz Kline |
3. Who said: "On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting"? |
A. Willem de Kooning B. Jackson Pollock C. Barnett Newman D. Arshile Gorky |
Answer: B, Pollock. Should have been pretty obvious, I would think. |
4. Who among the following is not considered an abstract expressionist sculptor? |
A. Richard Serra B. Isamu Noguchi C. David Smith D. Louise Nevelson |
Answer: A, Serra. He came along later. He was a minimalist, or maybe a post-minimalist. Views vary. |
5. Which abstract expressionist artist accepted a commission to paint murals for New York’s Four Seasons restaurant but, opposed in principle to spending more than $5 on a meal, grew disgusted with the idea that his work would be used as a backdrop for wealthy diners, yanked the murals, and gave the money back? |
A. Hans Hoffman B. Mark Rothko C. Philip Guston D. Sandy Amoros |
Answer: B, Rothko. Funny story here. Hoffman and Guston were artists. Sandy Amoros was an outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time. |
6. In 2015, the Whitney Museum in New York stirred a controversy by doing what with a Pollock canvas? |
A. Allowing visitors to touch it B. Rotating it so it made viewers dizzy C. Having a monkey attempt to replicate it D. Hanging it sideways |
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Chaos isn’t a by-product; it’s the goal. |
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New quiz: "The answer, my friend.…" In honor of what I guess we must now call the Complete Unknown phenomenon, a quiz … not on Bob Dylan, per se, but on the early 1960s folk music scene (OK, it’s partly on Dylan). |
1. A Complete Unknown portrays Pete Seeger as Dylan’s main mentor and friend in his early Greenwich Village days, but in real life, it was this person: |
A. Dave Van Ronk B. Phil Ochs C. Paul Stookey D. Fred Hellerman |
2. What’s the name of the legendary folk music club where Dylan first sang "Blowin’ in the Wind"? |
A. Gaslight Café B. Café Wha? C. La Lanterna D. Gerde’s Folk City |
3. The iconic cover photo of Dylan walking arm in arm in the New York winter with Suze Rotolo, on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan—on what Greenwich Village street was that photo taken? |
A. Bleecker Street B. Cornelia Street C. Jones Street D. West 11th Street |
4. The Village-based folk singer Mimi Fariña was the younger sister of: |
A. Judy Collins B. Joan Baez C. Ronnie Gilbert D. Susan Brownmiller |
5. The folk music boom of the 1950s and ’60s is largely credited to the release in 1952 of the three-album compilation Anthology of American Folk Music, which introduced millions of young listeners to the genre. Who compiled this album for the Folkways label? |
A. Harry Jaggard B. Harry Reasoner C. Harry Jones D. Harry Smith |
6. What folk singing group was described by one critic in 1961 as "the most envied, the most imitated, and the most successful singing group, folk or otherwise, in all show business"? |
A. Peter, Paul, and Mary B. The Four Freshmen C. The Kingston Trio D. The New Christy Minstrels |
Feel that mighty wind blowing across the room? Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. —Michael Tomasky, editor |
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Don’t be fooled by the clownish incompetence of people like Dr. Phil and Tom Homan. These sorts of people now hold the fates of millions in their hands. |
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