Trump’s first day back at work should overwhelm the left

Few presidential clichés are more tiresome than “Day One.” As he prepared for his inauguration in 2009, then-president-elect Barack Obama pledged to work for peace in the Middle East from the first day of his administration. In 2016, Donald Trump promised a range of executive actions on his first day, from regulatory changes to a declaration that China was manipulating its currency.

Candidate Joe Biden, the irrepressible king of day one, has promised almost more than a single sentence can contain: “get COVID under control,” rejoin the Paris climate accord, “make smart infrastructure investments.” , send an immigration bill to Congress, rescind the “Muslim Travel Ban,” reform government ethics, address “systemic” racism, and begin appointing federal staff who “look like ) in the country” – all during its first 24 working hours. Perhaps chastised by her boss’s blunders, Vice President Kamala Harris made only one pledge on the first day of her ill-fated campaign. Alas, he promised action reducing educational requirements for federal workers, much of which the Trump and Biden administrations had already taken care of.

“Day One” is the “first 100 days” of an era of hyperpartisanship. This is Rooseveltism for dummies, absurd but unfortunately necessary. While previous presidents could count on three months of goodwill before the trapdoor opened beneath them, contemporary leaders do not have that luxury and know it. On Monday, January 20, Trump will take his second oath of office and bask in the comforting glow of triumph. On the 21st, he will wake up facing an agitated Congress and a press that would like him dead. Maybe keep a few hours of Monday evening to govern?

It wasn’t always like this. Taking office on a cloudy Tuesday in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower spent his opening hours watching the inaugural parade and hosting 57 guests for tea at the White House. Jimmy Carter barely had time to add Yasser Arafat to the short list in the Oval Office before heading to the lunches and balls. Although Ronald Reagan instituted a day-one hiring freeze for the executive branch, his most immediate successors largely waited until later in the week to flex their presidential muscles. George HW Bush’s first executive order was adopted on January 25 and established the President’s Commission on Federal Ethics Reform. (Shut up, my wobbly heart.) According to the Clinton Digital Library, old Bill did next to nothing until the afternoon of the 21st, remaining awake, in characteristic style, until 3:05 a.m. the previous morning.

If Day One is a moment in time, it is also a governmental ideology, brought about by the slow collapse of our constitutional order. For a time, America was a nation of laws, ordained by statutes duly adopted and signed. Today we are a nation of men and, increasingly, of regulatory interpretation. Consider, for example, the political football that is the federal Title IX guidelines for universities. What Obama ordered, the transgender pronoun and locker room madness, Trump reversed and Biden tried to restore. If the courts don’t defeat him, our new president will surely withdraw the relevant Biden-era “rule,” effectively kicking the ball once again into the other team’s territory. It may not happen on the afternoon of January 20, but it will definitely happen.

To adopt “day one” thinking is to advance an ideological narrative: the previous president’s work was so obscene that our man cannot waste a moment setting up dynamite. When, just hours before the 2020 election, Biden promised day one rules regarding mask wearing and social distancing, he had not the reduction of COVID-19 in mind but that of his opponent. It didn’t matter what words filled the political voids. It was about approving what Democrats wanted: the complete erasure of the 45th president’s fingerprints from American life.

Viewed in this context, Trump’s vow to be a day one “dictator” is simply a recognition of new norms. A troll with world-historical abilities, the former president must have known that Democrats would scream like they were on fire upon hearing this pledge. But he also knew he was sending an important signal to his supporters. The left’s task of repairing the damage is so crucial that it cannot wait for a “Grand Bargain” that may never happen. On the contrary, the president will give orders, and the courts will control him if necessary. Blame the Obama administration if you don’t like this state of affairs. (Obama aide Daniel Pfeiffer: “When Congress doesn’t act, this president will.”) Or blame the Supreme Court for allowing executive branch abominations like deferred action for arrivals of children are maintained. Whoever is blamed, this is how the political system works now. What Obama and Biden started, Trump must continue. Unilateral disarmament is no way to win a fight. The path to political compromise does not involve capitulation either.

This is not a call for anarchy. If Trump ordered, for example, that the IRS collect no income taxes, he would harm both Republicans and the republic, setting his party up for cataclysmic retaliation even as he further fueled the Constitution in tatters . He Easthowever, a call for day one maximalism. Cliché or not, Trump’s first afternoon should be a ruthlessly efficient operation, planned weeks in advance and as scripted as network television. Gather the lawyers. Put some ink in the president’s favorite pen. To the extent that half a day’s work can topple Biden’s ruinous administration, he must be given a chance to do so.

Trump’s own campaign promises will be part of a useful guide. Like the Wall Street Journal Recently reported, the president will likely on day one sign a pre-drafted order ordering relevant Cabinet agencies to deport illegal immigrants. Other promised actions include pardoning non-violent Jan. 6 prisoners and firing special counsel Jack Smith, the face of the Democratic judicial machine. Still others include the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the aforementioned reversal of Title IX, and the firing of “any general involved in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.” It goes without saying that these orders must be airtight, previously legal and as politically defensible as possible. An example of this last point is already circulating in certain sectors of the right. In addition to pardoning most of Jan. 6, Trump is expected to relieve New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a prominent Democrat who will never see the inside of a prison cell anyway. If the outgoing president had not already done the job, a pardon for Hunter Biden would have been consistent with this strategy.

Between bites of their Christmas dinner, Trump’s advisers are expected to search the archives of the outgoing administration, looking for executive actions to reverse. In February 2023, Biden signed an order advancing a “whole-of-government approach to racial equity” and further feeding the cancer that is diversity, equity, and inclusion. Kill him. When the next pandemic hits, Executive Order 13995, “Ensuring Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery,” will be used to justify prioritizing the treatment of non-white people. Erase that sneeze from the books. The same goes for orders regarding private prisons (EO 14006), the climate “crisis” (EO 14008), electric vehicle production (EO 14037), and abortion (EO 14076). These are all liberal fantasies, plucked from the muck of far-left political shops. If President Trump allows them to survive beyond his first bedtime, he will have gotten off to a lazy start.

And what about Project 2025, this great repository of tactics and priorities of the Trump Revival? Not surprisingly, the Heritage Foundation manual uses “Day One” and its derivations more than 30 times, a clear warning that the clock on the second Trump administration will be counting down from the beginning. Among Heritage’s recommendations for this first day are eliminating the federal government’s “counter-misinformation efforts” (i.e. its online censorship), renegotiating the Remain in Mexico policy, and the distancing of foreign aid agencies from Biden. priorities of the time, such as those emphasizing abortion and gender radicalism. Elsewhere, the playbook urges the new president to begin reforming the increasingly unaccountable Environmental Protection Agency, begin reviewing planning and budgeting for the 2030 census, and direct the Department of Health and Social Services to preserve the “sacred rights of conscience” of doctors.

Some conservatives would like Trump to go even further. As I write this, reports are emerging that the president-elect may move quickly to remove all transgender troops from the U.S. military. Trump himself has just doubled down on his protectionist commitment, pledging to immediately impose 25% tariffs on all products imported from Canada and Mexico. Center-right observers may disagree with these measures. (I am a “no” to the second solution and an emphatic “yes” to the first.) The fact is that Congress and the Constitution have given the chief executive the authority in question. Maybe the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 was a mistake. (The president can “adjust imports” that “damage the national security.”) Or maybe the Commander-in-Chief Clause of the Constitution is too broad. We should not, however, expect Trump to withhold these or any other possibilities from day one when he holds the power to do otherwise. A President Harris certainly wouldn’t.

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Finally, there is a strategic reason to fill the first day to the brim. THE New York Times can only contain some outrage above the A1 fold. MSNBC only has limited airtime. In today’s media environment, governing with fire hoses rather than sprinklers is good politics. Keep your opponents off balance, overwhelm them with action, and let the courts resolve the matter as they see fit. This is not the America envisioned by the founding fathers. It’s just the one we have.

The task of the right now is not just to preserve the nation but to restore it, a task that will inevitably be long, controversial and difficult. From day one, after scraping and scratching his way to power, Trump should get back to that job.

Graham Hillard is an editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal and Washington Examiner contributing writer to the magazine.