Memories tend to be short in American politics, but it was not so long ago that Donald Trump was a first-term president and, if we're to be honest, a flailing one at that. Trump's presidency began with the hiring and firing of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, which sent the signal early on that Trump was 1) highly responsive to media criticism, and 2) more than willing to jettison anyone in his circle who he viewed as a polling liability. The result was massive turnover throughout the four years of Trump's first term, a constant barrage of media attacks, and a steady drumbeat of policy reversals, as Trump struggled to find a tone and a direction that resonated with both the public and the D.C. in-crowd. Trump was also repeatedly hamstrung by the seditious behavior of his own appointees, who frequently leaked information to the press, and often ended up on the outside looking in, joining the ranks of Trump's bitterest critics and most formidable enemies. It was not, in short, an administration characterized by loyalty, efficiency, or consistency, to say the least.
That's why the smooth functioning of Trump's second-term administration comes as such a pleasant surprise to his supporters. Trump's Chief of Staff this time around is Susan Wiles, who effectively ran his 2024 presidential campaign. Wiles has kept Trump focused and dissuaded him from posting rash or self-destructive comments on social media. She has also helped Trump to assemble a team, centered on his cabinet, that is competent, deferential, and ideologically in sync with Trump and the MAGA movement.
Compared to Trump's first term, his second has featured remarkably few personnel changes. We saw one notable exception recently, with the ouster of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, who was in charge of the DOJ's all-important antitrust division. Slater appears to have been encouraged to resign because of persistent conflicts with her boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, potentially verging into insubordination and mendacity, not to mention selective leaking. She allegedly lied to Bondi about checking with intelligence officials before maneuvering to block a national security-related merger, which some intel experts said helped China at our expense.
Rather than let Slater hang around and become a cancer on his administration, though, Trump – or rather Bondi – engineered her quiet departure, without undue notice from the press or significant damage to Trump or the MAGA movement. Meanwhile, Bondi, despite a drumbeat of criticism from the media and Democrats, retains Trump's confidence and continues her efforts to bring justice to Deep State darlings like Adam Schiff, James Comey, et al. All this shows an administration capable of a deftness and a poise quite unlike the manic chaos that characterized its first iteration in 2017-2021.
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None of this is to deny that the Democrats and the Deep State retain powerful assets in their relentless and ruthless drive to obstruct Trump and MAGA. The mainstream media remains as implacably hostile as ever, and it has succeeded in vilifying ICE, the Border Patrol, and Trump himself as far as half the country is concerned. Meanwhile, liberal judges, although they have not had the same success in sabotaging executive power as they did in Trump's first term, have nonetheless proved a significant obstacle. D.C. juries and grand juries, infected with TDS, have also made it nearly impossible to hold any prominent Democrat or leftist accountable for crimes he or she may have committed.
The fact remains that Trump haters seldom are in a position, in his second term, to dismiss the President as a bumbler or a buffoon. Quite the contrary, they hate Trump now more than ever, but because of his policy successes rather than his failures. They know that Trump now has a smart, articulate, and loyal team surrounding him, and that he is painstakingly executing a well-considered set of policies that is rolling back wokeism and bureaucratic overreach, while reaffirming our constitutional liberties, our national sovereignty, our common civilization, and our capitalist and competitive values.
This time, leftists are not aghast at Donald Trump and his presidency because they are train wrecks, but because they are sleek, modern, and powerful engines of change that threaten to obliterate everything in their path – the Deep State, most of all.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is a history professor at SUNY Alfred and blogs at www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmakers show on WLEA/WYSL.
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