Donald Trump vs.the Administrative State

It's fair to say that Donald Trump is better at talking about draining the Swamp than he is at draining the Swamp. Jeffrey Tucker's article about Megyn Kelly's interview of Mr. Trump is quite enlightening on the subject. In the first paragraph, Tucker notes that "you can interview Trump provided you don’t ask perfectly obvious questions about his Covid response that shredded the Bill of Rights, wrecked his presidency, enabled mass mail-in ballots, elevated agencies to the status of dictators, and kicked off the biggest national crisis of our lifetimes from which we aren’t even close to recovering."

Trump knows that his lowest marks come from his mishandling of COVID. If he avoids talking about his mishandling of COVID, he thinks that the nomination is his. He might be right about that. That's all the more reason for a daring reporter to question Trump on his mishandling of COVID. Enter Megyn Kelly.

Tucker did the right thing in writing "Everyone has a right to know what happened to their basic rights and liberties. We need to know why the churches, schools, and businesses were closed at the urging of the White House. We need to know why we faced travel restrictions, why government printed and spent multiple trillions that produced crushing inflation, why the hospitals were shut to elective surgeries and diagnostics, and how it came to be that the fourth branch of government, the administrative state, became the only government in the last year of his term and largely remains so today."

Trump is the one who insists that he'll grind the Swamp into dust within his first 6 months back in office. Trump's record indicates the opposite. Here's where the calamity started:

The government was under the leadership of Donald Trump. He greenlighted the entire thing, starting on March 12, 2020, with his travel restrictions against Europe and the UK, continuing the next day with his state of emergency that put the National Security Council in charge of a virus, and continuing the next day with his edict that "bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed."
After that, others figured things out quicker than Trump. First among them was Kristi Noem, who didn't shut down South Dakota, followed by Brian Kemp, who was the first to re-open his state, followed by Gov. DeSantis, the man that Trump dishonestly vilifies most frequently.

Here's part of Kelly's interview with Trump:

Then there's this:
There are so many questions crying out for answers. In this interview, however, he says that he left it up to the states under a federalist idea. This is the line bandied about in Mar-a-Lago and no one around him dares questions it.

It is demonstrably untrue. The one state that stayed almost entirely open – South Dakota – was in defiance of the White House in doing so. The first state to open up after that was Georgia under Governor Kemp, whom Trump blasted for the decision. Moreover, Trump has repeatedly bragged about how he shut down the country, as if that makes him awesome.

Even his discussion of which governors did well is disingenuous.The sole basis of his reasoning is a loyalty test, detached from the substance of Covid policies. He celebrates South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster because they have endorsed him for the 2024 election. Meanwhile, he derides the two governors who received the most backlash for opening up their states, Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

This Trump turned into a politician. The Trump from 2015 was a patriot with a few rough edges. This Trump is a full-time narcissist. This year's Trump is mean-spirited, too.

To Trump's enablers

Let's be specific here. I'm not talking about the average Trump supporter. I'm talking specifically about Mark Simone, Charlie Hurt, Sean Hannity, Larry Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway. Kudlow's program should be considered an in-kind campaign contribution to the Trump campaign. Monday, Kudlow focused his opening riff on Trump's economic agenda:

Kudlow made a big deal about Trump's push for energy independence. To me, I ask 'what's the big deal? DeSantis is for energy independence, too.' The difference between Trump and DeSantis is that Trump has harshly criticized Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and Kim Reynolds because they didn't immediately support his campaign. Of McEnany, Trump said "Give her to the globalists and RINOs. FoxNews should only use REAL stars." To Mr. Kudlow: You worked alongside McEnany and Huckabee-Sanders. You count them as friends. Would you consider criticizing those women like that because they didn't immediately and enthusiastically support your campaign? We don't need just a guy who's right on policies. We need a candidate with the character of President Reagan, someone who called the Soviets the evil empire and who told Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." In that respect, Trump is a moral midget. DeSantis is a principled man of integrity who does the right thing even if it might hurt him politically in the short-term. We know that because that's what he did when COVID first hit.

To Kellyanne Conway: why are you defending a man who didn't hesitate in criticizing your fellow female friends? Does their friendship mean that little to you? Is this just about the right policies?? Or does character matter, too? Your silence towards Trump's criticisms of Ms. McEnany and Ms. Huckabee-Sanders is deafening.

To Charlie Hurt:Is Trump's additional attention to your newspaper that important? When looking at what's wrong with society, isn't it apparent that we need to dump people with the (lack of) character like Trump? Isn't it apparent that Gov. DeSantis is a man with a lengthy list of conservative accomplishments that's already longer than Trump will ever have?

To Sean Hannity: You've proclaimed yourself to be a Christian. I believe that. Where's that Christian gentleman when Trump turns into that mean-spirited guy? We need people of integrity to stand up to the Swamp, aka the Administrative State. Trump has a plan for the economy but, like with COVID, doesn't have a plan or a clue to defeat the Swamp.

Trump will restore energy independence but he won't put a dent into the FBI's and DOJ's corruption. Under Trump, the Swamp will continue doing the things that the Swamp has always done. We know that because that's what it did during Trump's first term in office. He didn't focus on the Swamp. That's a leopard that won't change its spots. The Swamp, aka the Administrative State, couldn't be happier.

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