RUTHFULLY YOURS

Whatever else you can say about the  Joe Biden administration, I think you have to admit that its effort to keep the public informed about its progress in realizing the president’s agenda was impressive.  I think, for example, of the way his press secretary memorialized his first month in office.  She convened a briefing at the White House on February 20 at which three senior members of the new administration gave reports on their progress in realizing the president’s agenda and then answered questions from reporters.

What, you don’t remember that? Neither do I. I had briefly confused the masked ball that was the early months of the Biden administration with stunning performance of Trump and his team in these early weeks. There is Trump himself, of course, who thrives on his exchanges with the press. His prime lieutenants—Vice President J. D Vance, for example, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been front and center giving talks, answering questions, and responding to criticisms.

One of the most impressive performances—it is not too much to call it historic—occurred on February 20 when press Secretary Karoline Leavitt invited Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to the podium to say a few words about the administration’s accomplishments during its first month in office. They touched on everything from Trump’s dismantling of the DEI concession in government to inflation and the economy to foreign policy, especially with respect to the war in Ukraine.

Stephen Miller, who spoke first, set the tone when he described the culture of DEI as the “illegal” practice of discrimination based on race and/or sex. What we call “diversity, equity, and inclusion” today is really just a more toxic form of the “affirmative action” mandates that have been with us for decades. The key to the success of both is based on a rhetorical sleight-of-hand.  Talk about “equality” but practice discrimination. It’s nice work if you can get it.

By ending DEI throughout the federal government, Miller said, Trump has “restored merit as the cornerstone of all federal policy; restored the full, fair, impartial enforcement of our federal civil rights laws for the first time in generations; and he has cracked down on individuals across this government and nonprofits who have engaged in illegal racial discrimination against the American people.”

This is absolutely correct. But when was the last time you heard such plain speaking from a government official? And note that Trump’s interdiction of racist DEI initiatives will cast a long shadow.  The president can directly forbid the practice throughout the federal workforce. He cannot do this with respect to colleges and universities.  What he can do, as Miller noted, is make the release of federal funds to any institution contingent upon their ending the unfair practice of DEI initiatives on their campuses.  That would include the presence of confused or predatory men who pretend to be female and present themselves as candidates for women’s sports teams.  Trump has ended, Miller noted, “radical gender ideology across the entire federal government, and he’s pressured the private sector to also end and combat radical gender ideology.  He’s reestablished the scientific and biological truth that there are only two sexes in this country—male and female.”

Miller also touched on Trump’s early successes in rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. So far, and it is early days still, the work of the Department of Government Efficiency has identified savings of some $50 billion per year. On the border crisis, Miller noted, illegal crossings are down 95 percent. Free speech is once again a protected activity, and the DOJ is no longer weaponized against political opponents of the administration. On the contrary, it is now weaponized against criminals, as it should be. For example, Trump has designated six Mexican and two transnational gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. This means that the combined police power of the U.S. government—the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security,  and the rest of U.S. law enforcement and the Department of Defense can work in tandem to identify these terrorist cartels which have been the conduit for the deadly invasion of fentanyl and other deadly drugs, sex trafficking, and which have harassed, intimidated, and in many cases assaulted innocent Americans.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett then outlined some of the ways in which the Trump administration is pursuing its number one economic goal: combatting inflation, which has, Hassett noted,  been at its highest level since the “misery index” years of Jimmy Carter. The administration’s main tools are cutting spending, maintaining and perhaps deepening the Trump tax cuts from his first term, overhauling our trade agreements with other countries to be sure that the United States is not disadvantaged, and robustly exploiting our energy resources. “We’ve opened up 625 million acres to energy exploration,” Hassett noted, adding that although we are only 30 days into the second Trump administration, already optimism among small businesses is soaring as is domestic manufacturing.

It was an extraordinary performance in the White House briefing room, remarkable in part for the candor and articulateness of the participants, and partly for the evident transparency of the entire proceedings.  Not all of the press were comfortable with this novel approach to press briefings.  Like the cave dwellers in Plato’s Republic, who find themselves dazzled by the sunlight when they emerged from their subterranean haunt, several members of the press corps seemed to sputter when asking questions.  They were apparently unused to such forthrightness.  I’ll close by quoting part of Stephen Miller’s response to a question about Elon Musk’s work for the president and the criticism that Musk is an “unelected bureaucrat” who has been vested with enormous power.

Miller responded with had he called a “civics lesson” that should be memorized by every schoolboy, not to mention members of the Fourth Estate. In the United States, Miller explained, “A president is elected by the whole American people.”

He’s the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation.  Right?  Judges are appointed.  Members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. . . . And the Constitution, Article Two, has a clause, known as the vesting clause, and it says, “The executive power shall be vested in a president,” singular.  The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.  That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government.

The threat to democracy — indeed, the existential threat to democracy — is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime, tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for.

So, Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don’t want to change.  Or Americans vote for radical reform in our energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don’t want to change.  Or Americans vote to end DEI — racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the Department of Justice say they don’t want to change.

What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people.

To which I say, Amen.