Dec
29
Incoming Trump Admin Must Move Hard and Fast
It’s a safe bet that bureaucrats of the Deep State (among others) will do their level best to stymie Trump from accomplishing his agenda. I would say that that starts on Day 1, i.e., when he is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025. But, as Kurt Schlichter said, it has already begun:
“[T]here are reports that the deep state is trying to solidify its hold on power with last-minute reclassifications of jobs, renegotiation of union contracts, and similar antics. The President must override all this with an executive order on Inauguration Day. Let the bureaucrats tell it to the judge.”
Schlichter, you may recall, is a retired Army colonel, trial lawyer, and conservative political columnist/commentator. The context of the quote was the end of an article he published 2 or 3 weeks ago, laying out what he thinks Trump needs to do to counter those obstructive efforts by the Deep State once he is in office. I’ll give you a few excerpts here…
“[President Trump] and his appointees, as well as Republicans in Congress, must use [his tremendous authority]. They will feel considerable pressure to be soft and weak, not only from the regime media but from the spineless establishmentarians. They must reject it, and fully exercise the power the American people have granted them.”
“[T]hey must resolve to never be reasonable. The fake ‘reasonability’ argument is a weapon they always deploy against a change agent…. You cannot let yourself be talked out of what you need to do. That’s always the first line of defense for the bureaucrats. They will explain why it’s a bad idea to implement your good idea. Embrace the power of ‘No. We’re doing this. This is not a discussion. Get it done.'”
“Sometimes they will hide behind lawyers and claim what you want is illegal. That’s supposed to stop you cold. Nah. When bureaucrats want something done, they figure out how to get it done. So, never trust the lawyers when they tell you something is impossible. It’s their job to figure out how to do it legally (I let my fellow non-attorney combat arms officers in on the secrets of how to manage lawyers in this edition of Infantry magazine years ago).”
“Another favorite tactic is to simply delay in the hopes that you’ll forget. Don’t tolerate delays. Always have your loyal chief of staff standing with you with a notepad so he can take down the deadline you’ve given the staff to report to you that the mission is completed. In the interim, he can follow up. You expect results by a set time within a time frame that you consider reasonable, not that they consider reasonable, and then you enforce it.”
“Now, when you’re looking at big picture stuff, Trump will want to do a lot of things very fast. He’s got a whole bunch of executive orders to get out, and he needs to get them out all at once — preferably on January 20th. That’s not just because these things need to happen, everything from banning DEI to opening up oil drilling and beyond. It is because you want to overwhelm the opposition.”
“Congress has a job to do, too. Actually, it’s got far too many jobs to do. It must ruthlessly prioritize and then tell us what its priorities are…. Congress has only limited bandwidth. That’s why they must prioritize. We’re not going to be able to do everything we want to do. That’s impossible, but here’s the thing — the voters will understand that. They might disagree over which is the main priority, but they will respect the fact that the GOP is setting priorities. The Republicans must set them in public. That means John Thune and Mike Johnson need to get out there and explain the priorities so no one is surprised. When you fail to keep your people informed, they worry and start wondering what the hell is happening. If you tell them what’s going on, even if they don’t precisely agree with it, they at least accept it because you’re being transparent. Be transparent. Get out there and set the priorities.”
“Oh, and there are legal considerations that must be applied to bureaucrats, too. Bureaucrats who ignore directives and spend government time and money on things the executive branch has told them not to will be guilty of a crime. You know what else is a crime? Making false statements to the government. One tactic is to order subordinates to make written reports to a satellite office out in, say, the Northern District of Texas, about their work. That way, if they lie, they lied in a venue where they can get convicted.”
“In short, the Trump administration must come into office free of any hesitation about exercising the full extent of its lawful power. It needs to understand that it will face, at best, improper and perhaps illegal resistance to implementing the electorate’s will, so it needs to prepare. It needs to ruthlessly cull those who are insubordinate within the bureaucracy, and it’s not a bad thing to challenge what are probably unconstitutional civil service protections that limit the Article II power of the President to hire and fire members of the executive branch. Let’s see how that goes.”
I like most of what Schlichter wrote but can see a couple issues with his approach. What do you think?
If you want to read Schlichter’s article (and I recommend you do), you can find it here: “Tactics, Techniques and Procedures to Keep Deep State Bureaucrats From Obstructing Donald Trump’s Agenda”.
