In the Wall Street Journal last week, Peggy Noonan saw shock and awe in Donald Trump’s return to office. She praised his energy, saying he is at the “top of his game.” The former Ronald Reagan speechwriter wondered whether he is in recovery from the “nervous breakdown” of his first administration. She compared his energy to Theodore Roosevelt’s. She depicted the septuagenarian as Arthur Miller’s Willie Loman, the anti-hero in Death of a Salesman. The analogy to Loman is too far.
“Trump is going to utterly dominate our brainspace,” Noonan writes. “He is a neurological imperialist, he storms in and stays. In his public self, Joe Biden asked nothing and gave nothing. Mr. Trump demands and dominates: Attention must be paid.” Attention must also be paid to a bull in a china shop.
Yes, Peggy, “attention must be paid.” Trump seeks to end government as we know it. Most inimical to the public welfare, he has significantly curtailed the operations of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Though he has not yet shuttered NIH, recent directives from the White House have significantly impacted the agency’s operations.
On January 22, the administration froze NIH activities, including grant review meetings, travel, communications, and hiring. This suspension is in effect until at least February 1. The halt has disrupted research and raised alarms among anyone relying on NIH funding.
The Trump freeze also muzzled the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), halting public communications and requiring documents to be approved by a presidential appointee before they could be released.
Additionally, the administration imposed significant restrictions on travel and funding for more than 13 health agencies. These measures included a halt to new contracts, grants, external communications, and medical research reviews, paralyzing a $50 billion industry. Employees were restricted from traveling except for life-threatening situations, severely impacting outbreak responses, especially concerning bird flu. The ban left staff demoralized and scientists and physicians scratching their heads.
While the health agencies were not closed, they might as well be until the suspension is lifted.
And there is more:
Immigration:
Redefining Birthright Citizenship: Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens or temporary visa holders. A federal judge in Washington State, calling the measure “blatantly unconstitutional,” issued a nationwide injunction temporarily blocking its implementation.
Defense:
Reinstating Discharged Service Members: Trump reinstated over 8,000 military personnel discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. These service members will return to their previous ranks with full back pay and benefits.
Eliminating DEI Initiatives: He ordered the removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the military. And to give it teeth, he fired Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Lee, the first woman to lead a branch of the US Armed Forces, over DEI. He replaced her with a man.
Dei, The Maga Piñata:
Suspending Federal DEI Staffers: Trump ordered all federal employees in DEI roles to be placed on leave. At the same time, their departments are dismantled as part of a broader effort to end DEI initiatives within the federal government.
Environmental Policy:
Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement: He signed an executive order titled “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” directing the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and other international climate commitments. The withdrawal was so draconian that Michael Bloomberg had to step in to maintain U.S. contributions to the agency tasked with implementing the Agreement. In 2017, following Trump’s initial decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, Bloomberg pledged $15 million to cover the government’s financial commitments. This time around, it is not known how much it will take.
Spending Freeze:
Trump’s sweeping freeze on key federal spending created such an uproar it was immediately enjoined by a federal judge. The administration rescinded the order the next day.
Guardrails:
And he is just getting started. Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general.
IGs investigate fraud, waste, and corruption in federal executive branch agencies. Trump has appointed his prime minister, Elon Musk, to investigate these excesses. The émigré engineer should welcome the IGs’ assistance.
He advised IGs at the departments of State, Energy, the Interior, Defense, Transportation, and others that their positions were being “terminated” immediately due to “changing priorities.” When I was in the Army, I learned that whenever questioned about some misdeed, I was to answer, “sorry, sir, circumstances.” But “changing priorities” is new to me. Is eliminating waste, fraud, and corruption not a priority?
Legally, the president must give Congress notice 30 days before firing IGs and advising them of its reasons. Trump did not do this. There was a strong suggestion that some of the IGs would continue to show up for work.
There is good and sufficient reason for the notice provision. Congress should act immediately to counter this move.
Firing the IGs was in Project 2025. But it should have been done lawfully, with notice, to give Congress a swing at it. Instead, Trump is testing how far he can go in the arrogant assertion of presidential power. We shall have to see what happens.
Adherence to the rule of law is not just a shibboleth. Heather Cox Richardson recently directed us to Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum address, delivered in 1838, early in his career. He called on Americans, among other things, “to exercise general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
He said:
“Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Richardson aptly argues the “recognition…that the law must prevail over individual passions reverberates far beyond the specific crises of the 1830s.” It is a shame that we need to be reminded of this.
Noonan says we must pay attention to Trump, and I agree. But Trump is not Willy Loman. Linda Loman says of her husband, “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So, attention must be paid…Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.” Donald Trump is hardly the “forgotten man at the other end of the economic totem pole.”
Presidents are traditionally given a honeymoon. But Trump has come out of the gate with dangerous and problematic ideas culled from Project 2025, which he disavowed during the campaign.
It is not too early to pay attention, or, to use Lincoln’s formulation, before we know it, Trump, “having ever regarded government as [his] deadliest bane,” will “make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”
