If you know anything about Washington, D.C., you know that lying and backstabbing are routine. Your enemies lie, and, often, your friends lie — or those you assume are friends. In Washington, hidden motives are a given. Sleight of hand is a card shark’s trick perfected in D.C.
When it comes to confirming Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Pete Hegseth as DoJ chief, Tulsi Gabbard as national security director, Kristi Noem at Homeland Security, and John Ratcliffe at CIA, it’s a given that hyperpartisan Democrats are going to fight their nominations. That’s as sure as it gets. But then there are establishment Republicans and pliable conservatives with hidden agendas, too. They have reasons to see Trump fail.
Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk will head the “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE. DOGE is meant to swoop in to compel swift and dramatic overhaul of executive departments and agencies. That includes slashing Uncle Sam’s workforce in the tens of thousands.
Said Ramaswamy to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo:
“The people who we elect to run the government — they’re NOT the ones who actually run the government. It’s the unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state — that was CREATED through executive action… it’s gonna be FIXED through executive action.”
Part of DOGE’s success hinges on Trump having his nominees confirmed. Ideally, they’ll be in place to work hand-in-glove with Ramaswamy and Musk.
The nominees mentioned are particularly critical (the FBI nomination is vacant as of this writing). Law, defense, and security and intelligence portfolios are the muscle and sinew of big government and underpin the incipient tyranny we’ve experienced for four long years. It’s imperative to overhaul those key departments and agencies. Forever wars and military adventurism need to end. Our liberties require greater safeguards. The confirmation fights involving those offices are the makings of an epic struggle. The struggle is about to get intense and nasty.
Republicans enjoy a modest Senate majority. There are enough RINOs in the GOP caucus to make trouble for Trump. Doddering Mitch McConnell has just pledged that there won’t be any recess appointments for Trump. Evidently, no one reminded McConnell that he’s no longer the GOP leader. But he still has a vote, as do other anti-Trump Republicans. The window for confirming nominees is smaller than some may appreciate. Protracted confirmations work for Trump’s opponents and are slow-bleed deaths.
Trump’s election mandate — both his Electoral College and popular vote thumpings of Kamala Harris — has stunned D.C. lifers, including Republicans. Washington elites and corporate media have been rocked back on their heels, though in the last few days, we’re seeing them recover some footing. False allegations have begun flying.
Allegations of sexual impropriety are being leveled by corporate media against Hegseth and Gaetz. That’s right from the “Get Trump” playbook. Trump has been dogged by baseless charges — criminal and civil — of sexual misconduct since running for president in 2015. He’s appealing the absurd E. Jean Carroll verdict in blue-biased Manhattan.
Jerusalem Cross.” The tattoo is clearly meant to proclaim his Christian faith. Media is alleging it’s a white supremacist insignia. They damn well know better. Democrat representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in full character assassination mode, branding Tulsi Gabbard a “Russian asset” — that’s Army Reserve Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard, whose record of service is unblemished. John Brennan, a college communist and a master smearer, accuses Gabbard of being an “apologist for Putin.” If Gabbard can sue for defamation, she should.
Those are only opening salvos in attempts to destroy Trump’s picks. Salvos will continue and increase in the coming weeks. Call them rangefinders. To counteract the media’s efforts to pick off his nominees one at a time, Trump and his team blitz-announced his major nominees, knowing that sequential announcements spaced throughout the transition would have left Trump’s picks highly vulnerable.
In the coming weeks, and into his term of office, Trump’s mandate will lessen as events overtake the freshness of his win. Trump is aware of this. He struck hard bargains with each of the contenders for the GOP Senate leadership job — but especially with John Thune, who was the leading contender. Thune won. In exchange for Trump staying out of the Senate leadership battle, Thune pledged not to delay Trump’s nominees. Unlike his long-time mentor, Mitch McConnell, Thune has declared that he’s open to recess appointments if necessary. With Thune, though, there’s a huge “trust but verify” factor.
In the wake of the 2020 elections, Trump established the America First Policy Institute, a D.C.-based collection of veteran conservative policymakers and Trump loyalists. They’ve hammered out many of the policy prescriptions that Trump has featured. AFPI pros have also helped identify candidates for roles in Trump’s second administration.
Make no mistake, Trump means for his presidency to initiate historic, ground-shifting change. Think Franklin Roosevelt and the 1932 elections, when the Roosevelt coalition won a landslide victory over Herbert Hoover and the Republicans. The GOP’s long political dominance — starting with Lincoln and extended by William McKinley’s election in 1896 — came to a crashing finish.
The longer Progressive Era, with its many chapters, has been disintegrating since the 1960s. Trump seeks to inaugurate an “Era of Common Sense,” driven less by ideology and more by practical solutions to the nation’s many problems. Trump does mean to return government to a more limited, traditional framework.
Trump’s nominees — named and to be named — pose mortal threats to the culture that’s grown up in Washington over 90 years. Incomes, careers, and lifestyles are at stake. Business as usual in Washington is bad for average folk, but has been a boon to politicians, bureaucrats, government contractors, and hordes of consultants. Some of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. are the D.C. metro area.
Government has been corrupted and infested with leftist militants. A newer generation of leftists — led by an older generation of power-hungry Democrats \– have sought to trample our constitutional rights — starting with the 1st and 2nd Amendments — to centralize elections in Congress, unleash the DoJ, FBI, IRS, and other powerful federal agencies on average citizens who won’t knuckle under.
Trump’s nominations are the first in a series of critical steps designed to seize government and change its course, and in so doing, change the nation’s trajectory. No small feat, but Donald Trump doesn’t think small. Nothing is guaranteed, though. Losing momentum is the greatest danger in the early going.
With both houses of Congress under Republican control — albeit by slim margins — the game is for Trump and his White House team to engage congressional Republicans using carrots and sticks. Just four GOP senators (expect Dave McCormick to be seated) bolting spells trouble. Conservative grassroots and alternative media need to be brought to bear routinely.
Democrats and their corporate media allies have easier jobs: Make enough noise and kick up enough dust to provide cover for anti-Trump or weak-kneed Senate Republicans to vote against key nominations or stonewall them out of existence. The 2026 midterm elections will see more Republican than Democrat senate seats up. You can bet reelection is top of mind for that class of GOP senators. Speed is Trump’s best ally.
Getting Trump’s nominees confirmed will be a fireworks spectacular. Getting John Thune and Mike Johnson and their lieutenants to keep their caucuses together to move Trump’s legislative agenda as a compliment to, or an expansion of, Trump’s executive actions, will be a prodigious effort. The first half of 2025 will be a mad dash. Mandates don’t last. Politicians waver. Get ready for a helluva show.
J. Robert Smith can be found at X. His handle is @JRobertSmith1. At Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover.
Image: AT via Magic Studio
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