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In the span of a few weeks, Donald Trump has carried out one of the most sweeping political revolutions in modern history. Using DOGE as his battering ram, he has crippled the Democrats, exposed machinery of corruption that would have beggared the imaginations of Boss Tweed and Ted Pendergast, and effectively ended a political era going back a century or more. He—along with Elon Musk and his merry band of nerds—has uncovered a system of public theft and money laundering that, in the end, may account for trillions of dollars over the last eighty years. And it has just started. Wait until the DoJ and Congress enter the field.
It will likely be years before we grasp the full magnitude of the DOGE revolution. The Democrats already have—and they’re running like rabbits. The D.C. housing market has collapsed, with more than 14,000 houses listed over the past two weeks. You won’t find many Republicans selling. Google Analytics reveals that the most common search terms in D.C. over the past week have included “defense attorneys,” “statute of limitations,” and “overseas accounts.”
The impact of this has been muted, largely by the media, which instead has spent its time bleating about “constitutional crisis” and “President Musk.” So, the public at large has not quite grasped the import of what has occurred, appearing to look at it as a Beltway uproar that sensible people should pay no attention to.
Which is why Donald Trump needs to make a speech.
The role of speeches as political events can scarcely be overemphasized. When we think of critical events in the historical record, we often think first of the speeches associated with them. In his Funeral Oration in 431, Pericles, as presented in Thuycides, outlined for all time the role of the republic in human affairs. At Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln, in a few short words, reiterated the promise of American democracy. In 1940, in the midst of near-catastrophe, Winston Churchill rallied Great Britain to stand alone against one of the most vicious tyrannies in the historical record. We could go on: Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream,” Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down this wall.” A speech can act as a kind of historical punctuation, telling us when something has ended and when something has begun…or is beginning.
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Jesus Christ is King
