For those of you not familiar with horse racing, the audience participation is based on gambling. There are many ways to bet the horses, including pick the winner, or pick a horse to “win, place (2nd) or show (3rd). There are also all sorts of groupings of horses, some over multiple races. All to attract the “gambler’s dollar”, where the real money is in the racing industry.
100 Days
The tradition started with Franklin Roosevelt. Elected in 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, the nation wanted action. About a quarter of the Nation’s citizens were out of work, desperately struggling to find the next meal for themselves and their families. After FDR told the country there was, “Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself”, he entered the White House with a mandate to get something, anything, done.
In his first 100 days in office, fifteen major bills passed Congress to try to alleviate the impact of the Depression. On the list were many laws Americans are familiar with as the “alphabet soup” legislation:
- Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)
- Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
- Glass-Steagall Act (established the FDIC)
- National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).
It wasn’t just that FDR was making major changes in the American economy. He was putting the American Government into action. His predecessor waited for the economy to correct itself (laissez-faire economics), but it didn’t happen. There was less to fear, because there was a President taking direct action to make things better.
Tradition
That began the American Presidential tradition of “the first 100 days”. What used to be a time when the new President “eased into the job”, is now a flurry of activity. It also made sense; it is the time (other than when America is under military attack) that a President has the most political power. Every President, from Roosevelt’s landslide victory to George W Bush’s Supreme Court triggered win, claimed a “mandate” from the American people. Congress, fresh off elections themselves, wants to get things done as well. And the President gets a “honeymoon” from the press and the people. It’s the perfect time to exercise the powers of the executive office.
More recently, Presidents enter office with a whole range of “Executive Orders”. Instead of introducing a plan for the Congress to enact into law, like the New Deal, they use their singular power to make all of the changes they can. Trump, Biden, and now Trump again were well prepared on “Day ONE”, and part of Inauguration Day tradition has become the signing of a flurry of orders trying to redirect the executive branch.
Project 2025
During the runup to the 2024 election, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, released their “Project 2025” document. It was over 900 pages of changes that they saw as needed to alter the American government and align it with their own conservative views. Many of those proposals outraged less ideologically inclined citizens, and the Trump campaign distanced itself from the plan. Ultimately, Democratic warnings about Project 2025 fell on deaf ears when it came to the voters. The Trump Administration is now using Project 2025 as their blueprint.
Part of the “Project” was a series of executive orders to be signed by an incoming Trump Presidency. They were nicknamed “Shock and Awe”, after the US military strategy of the early 2000’s. That was massive bombing attacks to obliterate enemy defensive positions. Then Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld used the term over and over again at the beginning of the Second Persian Gulf War, as we watched the combat video from American warplanes.
Donald Trump was sworn (hand on the Bible or not) on Monday. It’s Wednesday morning, and there’s been an avalanche of executive orders released, many signed in front of 20,000 fans at the Capital Center on Inauguration Night. They encompass changes to the Federal government, alterations to the US Constitution, and, most importantly, the Project 2025 determination to wipe out anything that the Biden Administration did in four years in office.
Winners
Some of these orders are serious, with serious consequences. Like them or not, they are within the power of the President to act “alone” (remember Trump told us “I alone can fix this”). Those are the “winners” for Project 2025 and their MAGA followers. Others are “placers”, Trump can say it, but it will take a lot more than just his “say” to get them done. And others are a flat “no”. They are not within the power of the President to decide, and are simply smoke; part of the “shock and awe” strategy to overwhelm Democrats before the “loyal (or not so loyal) opposition” can get organized.
”Winners”: most of the Immigration changes that Trump is making, including closing the border, ending remote requests for asylum, and “rounding up” undocumented migrants, are fully within his power. While there’s going to be lots of attempts at Judicial intervention, the Supreme Court has already placed most of those powers in the sole hand of the President, (absent an actual immigration law passed by Congress). It’s one of his greatest powers, and one of the reasons he ordered the immigration proposal tanked by Republicans in Congress last year.
More Winners
Another “winner”: Trump rescinded Biden’s Executive Orders advancing racial equity, not asking for citizenship status on the census, combatting Covid, preventing discrimination based on gender identity, and requiring executive personnel to commit to an ethics agreement. Trump also removed environmental protections, worker protections, including the right of Federal workers to organize in unions, and eliminating privately run prisons. And Trump ended the taskforce to reunify families that his first Administration separated at the border. Whatever Biden did by Executive Order, Trump can undo. And he’s doing it.
And the saddest “winner”: Trump pardoned 1600 some convicted felons from the January 6th Insurrection, including those who physically attacked and injured policemen, and the organizers of much of the violence.
Placers and No
A “Placer”: Trump ordered all Federal employees to return to “work”. He ordered the end of remote work from home. And for those Federal employees at the management level, who are not under a union negotiated contract, they are going back to their offices. But for the vast majority of Federal workers their contract protects them from the arbitrary whims of the President, and would require re-negotiation.
And, much to Trump’s and Project 2025’s dismay, the President of the United States cannot re-write the laws of Congress. Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act, but he can’t, even though he signed an Executive Order trying to do that. He also wants to remove the $35 cap on insulin, also passed into law by Congress (as well as much of the Inflation Reduction Act, another Congressional Law). And he wants to “impound” the money already allocated in the Infrastructure Law, perhaps to use to “build the Wall”. That’s not within his power either.
Trump signed an Executive order changing the Constitutional mandate to grant citizenship to those born on US soil. That’s Black Letter Law in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, and clearly is NOT in the purview of the President’s executive discretion. Even with a Trump 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, it’s unlikely that will fly. Rewriting the Constitution is a “hard NO”.
Shock and Awe
So many orders, so much paper, all of the headlines: it looks like a President jumping into action. But a lot of the paper is just that, paper without substance. Americans need to weather the storm, and not be overwhelmed by the swirl of Project 2025 propaganda.
There are real things that Donald Trump is doing; including providing cover for his flawed nominee for Defense Secretary. But there is only so much outrage, and action, the “loyal opposition” can take. And there is very real damage that Trump can do to America. That’s where Democrats need to focus their opposition. Let the noise, the flash, the nonsense, go by. Democrats need to focus on defending the core essentials of the American Republic. If it sounds like a war, it is, a political war to determine what kind of America we will have. Like George Washington’s Army, Democrats lost a crucial battle in November.
But the struggle goes on.
