There was once a time when a new U.S. presidential administration would be granted a “honeymoon period” to set an agenda and establish new policies. Not so for President Donald Trump. Instead, the knives were being drawn even before his first inauguration in 2017, and guns were being drawn before his second term electoral victory in November 2024. But behind these battle lines, Trump’s enemies are losing the war.
Protests against Elon Musk and Donald Trump reveal the false and disingenuous nature of this "Hands off" movement. Consider the protest’s two main focal points:
- DOGE’s ability to effectively identify and eliminate and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
- Trump’s prioritization of deporting criminal elements among the illegal aliens.
Even counting the addition of illegal aliens over the past four years, it is safe to say that 80+ percent of American residents support these two policy objectives.
In protest movements it is important to differentiate between the ringleaders—those who want radical change and destruction—and the rank-and-file sign-carriers, who get used by the ringleaders to project numbers and the image of popular support. Lenin called the foot soldier sign-carriers “useful idiots”— people driven by emotion and easily manipulated. But you can be sure that among the leaders of “Hands-off” are shrewd America-hating radicals, revolutionaries, and subversives whose goal is not reforming America, but rather keeping America on the trajectory of destruction that was the legacy of the power brokers behind the Obama and Biden administrations.
On Saturday, April 5, over 1,400 “Hands Off!” supposed grassroots mass-action protests against Trump, Musk and DOGE were held at state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s headquarters, parks and city halls throughout the entire country – “anywhere we can make sure they hear us,” organizers said.
But again, don’t be fooled. The “Hands Off!” protest, which runs under monickers such as “the Tesla Takedown,” and “ending the billionaire power grab,” is anything but “grassroots, organic or spontaneous.” We now know that many protestors are paid as much as $300 a day, with funding sources coming from over 175 NGOs. The different protest groups involved in the Hands-Off protest campaign have been assisted and coordinated by an organization known as Indivisible that has received millions of dollars from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Big data analyst and CIA/NSA Contractor/Whistleblower Tony Seruga asserts that “among the eleven additional groups paying for protest, demonstrations, and riots, many are linked to foreign bad actors in countries funding terrorism.”
Additionally, these protests that decry Trump and Musk’s investigations and audit policies resulting in federal government worker layoffs and deportations, come on the heels of Soros-backed federal judges attempting to order injunctions against Trump’s actions.
We also know that the mass protests over the April 5 weekend were organized and not spontaneous. We know this because there was a choreography of busing to deliver signs and protesters as well as food and even high-tech tents to keep protestors comfortable.
Because DOGE has the uncanny ability to follow the digital trails of money and fraud, protest organizers and funders are naturally concerned that their jig might be up. Regardless, average Americans’ tolerance for protest that leads to riots and property destruction – the pattern of the George Floyd riots that ended up destroying over $2 billion in property – is gone. Americans want law and order and jail time for law-breaking destroyers.
In assessing Trump’s initiatives including DOGE, it is essential to have context to understand the merit of the prescriptions and policies.
The fact is that President Obama increased the national debt more than any prior administration—adding $9.5 trillion in eight years—putting the United States on a trajectory of bankruptcy. That trajectory continued and was further accelerated by massive stimulus and bailout spending driven by the Covid-19 shutdown of the economy during Trump’s last year of his first term. On an annual basis, no one poured more gas on the debt growth fire than the Biden administration, which added $8.5 trillion to the national debt in just four years.
The credit worthiness of a nation is driven by the Debt-to-GDP ratio. The “AAA” rating median ratio is 39.3 percent and the “AA” rating median is 44.7 percent. Today, the combined U.S. state and federal Debt-to-GDP ratio is 133 percent, a level that is approaching Greece’s condition in 2012, when it experienced a sovereign debt crisis that required 130 billion Euro bailout from the EU.
There is no one to bail out the United States and the bottom line is that Trump’s second term began with a stark recognition that America has limited time and policy choices with its solvency now being at risk. Trump’s initiative to scale back government agencies and his DOGE initiative of rooting out wasteful and fraudulent spending combined with tariff initiatives to bring in new revenue and stimulate American manufacturing should applauded, not protested.
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Scott S. Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His timeless book, Rediscovering America, has been #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre for eight weeks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org
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