Rick McGinnis:
Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements
American voters who cast their ballot for Donald Trump in November have certainly seen results since his inauguration last month. A table was set up in the Capitol One Arena after his swearing in ceremony where he began signing executive orders, which he continued to do later that day in the Oval Office at the White House.
As I write this, a week after the inauguration, Trump has signed 54 executive orders, mandating everything from ending federal censorship, how to fly the flag on Inauguration Day, returning federal employees to in-office work, withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, restoring the death penalty, ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government agencies, restoring binary gender options in government policy and declassifying documents on the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy.
He ordered the pardon and release of prisoners and defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riots in addition to 23 pro-life protesters. He ramped up federal aid to regions of North Carolina destroyed in flooding during Hurricane Helene last September, visited Los Angeles to confront Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass over their response to the recent wildfires there, and authorized immediate mass deportations of illegal immigrants in the United States.
It signalled his intention to dismantle not just the work of the previous administration under Joe Biden, but of government initiatives going as far back as presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. And it was met with a rapturous response by his supporters on social media.
Conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote on X that “DEI and gender ideology are dying in front of our eyes,” marveling at how much less resistance he was seeing and speculating that “some leftists are quietly relieved to be done with the trans bulls**t and the relentless white guilt… They’ve been held hostage by the trannies and race hustlers for years. We are their liberators.”
YouTube podcaster Tim Pool, responding to a news story that Trump was about to gut the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health and the Federal Drug Administration, tweeted: “please… trump no more… no more winning… i can’t take it.”
An X account for a “political commentator” going by the trademarked handle of Gunther Eagleman wrote that “The WEF has admitted defeat. ‘Trump has done something that no one else has done. Trump has won, and we have lost’.”
Novelist Walter Kirn wrote that “Watching the Dem media right now is like watching the water suddenly drain out of a reservoir and seeing the fish flop around in small residual puddles.”
This is a random cherry pick from thousands of similar responses that suggest that morale among Trump supporters in the first week of his second non-consecutive administration was far higher than even they had hoped, exceeding expectations to the point of sounding uncomfortably triumphalist.
I couldn’t help but think of the story of victorious Roman generals in their procession into Rome, standing in their chariot while their legions lead the prisoners and spoils of conquest into the capitol. It’s apparently more than mere myth, going back to sources like the 2nd century Christian writer Tertullian. In the most popular version, a slave stands behind the general holding a crown of golden laurels over his head, while whispering in his ear to “Look behind you. Remember you are a man” (in Tertullian’s account).
In other sources there’s no slave, but the “verbal medicine” is still conveyed to the triumphant general that he should “look back in order to conjure away Fortune, the butcher of glory, from following behind him.” The most abiding version today comes from the final scene of Patton, the 1970 biopic of U.S. General George S. Patton, played by George C. Scott, who tells in voiceover the story of the triumph, the parade, the golden crown, and the slave’s whispered warning that “all glory is fleeting.”
It’s a fair warning. Rome both as republic and empire was politically vicious, and a victorious general was as much a threat as a gift to the political status quo; no less than Caesar himself embodied this truth. It’s hard not to consider this wise, timeless advice, though a Christian like Tertullian would have found it particularly cogent. (And I have learned after 60 years to take the counsel of Patton in all things.)
Trump’s character is characterized more by arrogance than circumspection, so it’s hard to imagine that he’s hearing a lot of voices advising caution at this point. But even the most exuberant posters on social media right now must have an inkling that this moment, unprecedented and unexpected as it seems, can’t last.
There’s the American political system for one, a democratic republic built on – as both parties proclaim whenever they prepare to do battle with the other side – a series of “checks and balances” meant to prevent any legislative body from assuming authoritarian power.
For Canadians this surge of executive orders makes it seem like the U.S. president has sweeping powers, though our own prime minister has executive power concentrated in his office that equals or even surpasses that of the president in some instances. It only seems like Trump is exercising near-dictatorial power because we rarely see government move this quickly or decisively; there are, after all, no term limits on prime ministers, and it has taken Justin Trudeau a decade to alter Canada to the point where his changes have consequences severe enough for voters to notice.
And right now, there’s doubtless some relief that Trump is so busy with his executive orders that he’s taken his eye off Canada, for at least a few weeks.
The president’s many opponents will look for and promote any conflict in his administration and supporters. Just three days after the inauguration, The Atlantic published an article by Ali Breland laying out how many of Trump’s supporters during his first administration are far from the centre of power for his second – people like his former strategist Steve Bannon, whose position has been usurped by supporters like Elon Musk.
There is what seems to be a factional split in Trump’s coterie of highly visible supporters, which, in the eyes of the Left roughly (and rather inaccurately), corresponds to “tech bros vs. nationalists.” And it must be noted that his inner circle includes several players, like his own vice president, who were outspokenly anti-Trump during his four embattled years out of power.
There are a lot of very big egos in the new Trump administration, more than a few of whom will not withstand the wall of scrutiny and opposition they’re going to meet. There are more than a few MAGA veterans who, feeling owed for years of support at the cost of both money and reputation, will feel slighted when sidelined and denied the opportunity to share the spoils.
It might seem like Trump’s opponents on the Democrat side and elsewhere seem stunned and lethargic at the moment, unable to muster more than their old tactics to fight back. But that moment will pass; once the many authors of their November loss leave the stage and new, overlooked talent is found, the administration will be faced with legal challenges across the many judicial, federal, state and municipal levels of the system. Those checks and balances will not be ignored, nor will potential policy failures and scandals.
And then there’s the painful lesson learned by George W. Bush, who took power in 2001 with what he understood as a mandate to concentrate on domestic issues at the exclusion of international ones. Events arose to dismantle his plans in a single morning, and there’s no reason to imagine that the next four years aren’t already sewn with similar dragon’s teeth. With this in mind, hope that Trump and his supporters will enjoy this moment; it’s unlikely that the next four years will provide too many more.
