Trump’s Triumph

1. Trump's Unprecedented Triumph and the MAGA Movement's Resilience

This victory over all opposition made the 2024 election a moment of triumph for President Trump and all his supporters.

Unprecedented Gauntlet. Donald J. Trump endured a political and personal gauntlet from 2015 to his 2024 reelection unlike any other presidential candidate in American history. He faced relentless institutional opposition, including the FBI-enabled Russia hoax, the Mueller investigation, two impeachments, countless lawsuits, and even two assassination attempts. This sustained assault, which many supporters viewed as an attack on themselves, only strengthened the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

Movement and Man. Trump's reelection was a triumph of both a man and a movement, each essential to the other's success. His willingness to reject the old order of the Republican Party and the Washington establishment led to the rise of the "Never Trumpers" and a bitter anti-Trump wing, exemplified by Liz Cheney campaigning with Kamala Harris. This victory, far exceeding popular vote margins, felt like a salvation from government domination, economic decay, and aberrant social policies.

Adaptability and Resilience. The sudden shift from Biden to Harris as the Democratic nominee, following Biden's debate performance and George Clooney's influential letter, forced the Trump campaign to rapidly adapt. Despite Harris's initial surge and a massive influx of over $1 billion in donations, Trump's team, led by Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, demonstrated superior agility and a deeper understanding of the American electorate, ultimately securing a decisive victory.

2. Kamala Harris's Campaign Collapse and the Democrats' Strategic Missteps

She simply had no in-depth experience of interacting with the news media and answering random questions.

Lack of Legitimacy. Vice President Kamala Harris's effective "coronation" as the Democratic nominee, without winning a single primary vote or delegate, severely undermined her legitimacy. Her prior 2019 campaign had collapsed before any ballots were cast, leaving her unprepared for the rigors of a presidential campaign. This inexperience became glaringly obvious as she struggled to articulate coherent positions or handle unscripted interviews.

Policy Extremism and Gaffes. Harris's campaign was plagued by her inability to explain changes in her positions or defend the extremism of her past views on issues like energy production, the Southern border, and gender politics. Her infamous "There is not a thing that comes to mind" response when asked if she would have done anything differently than President Biden became a devastating centerpiece of Trump's advertising, highlighting her lack of a distinct vision. Her selection of Tim Walz as VP, known for his "Tampon Tim" nickname and tax increases, further alienated working-class voters.

Failed Strategy and Media Bias. The Harris campaign's decision to define Trump as an extremist and dictator, echoing Biden's failed strategy, backfired as voters increasingly viewed the legal attacks on Trump as persecution. Despite overwhelmingly biased media coverage that attempted to prop her up, Harris's limited campaign events and avoidance of long-form interviews contrasted sharply with Trump's relentless schedule and mastery of new media platforms like Joe Rogan's podcast, ultimately leading to her defeat.

3. The Trump Mandate: A Return to Common Sense and American Values

Candidate Trump instinctively knew he had to have a “great thing” to communicate. He concluded that it was to “make America great again.”

Beyond Charisma. While President Trump possesses undeniable charisma, his appeal to millions of Americans stems primarily from his focus on issues and policies, not just personality. His "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) brand resonated deeply, capturing the sentiment that the establishment had failed and that fundamental change was needed. Trump's rallies served as dynamic focus groups, allowing him to identify and refine messages that truly connected with the public.

Intellectual Foundations. The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) and America's New Majority Project (ANMP) provided crucial intellectual and political ammunition for the MAGA agenda. AFPI, comprising over 400 former Trump administration policymakers, developed hundreds of executive orders and positive proposals, while ANMP conducted strategic polling and focus groups to identify issues with broad public support, particularly cultural ones. This synergy ensured that Trump's vision was grounded in both policy and popular sentiment.

Cultural Divide. ANMP's polling revealed a significant cultural gap between the American people and the "woke left," particularly on issues like:

• Teaching that race/sex determines moral character (12% support)
• Believing meritocracy is racist/sexist (12% support)
• Teaching the U.S. is fundamentally racist/sexist (17% support)
  Conversely, 88% supported equal treatment for all, and 87% favored hiring the best person for the job. This stark contrast provided a clear mandate for Trump's agenda, trapping Democrats between their radical flank and the majority of Americans.

4. Governing is Harder: Navigating Bureaucracy and Sustaining Popular Support

President Harry Truman captured part of this reality when he said about newly elected President Dwight Eisenhower: “Poor Ike, when he was a general, he gave an order and it was carried out. Now he’s going to sit in that big office and he’ll give an order and not a damn thing is going to happen.”

Unforeseen Challenges. Governing presents far greater complexities than campaigning, as leaders face unpredictable global events and domestic crises that can derail their agendas. Historical examples abound, from Nixon's Watergate to Bush's 9/11 and Katrina, and Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal and inflation. These external forces demand constant adaptation and can overwhelm even the most prepared administrations.

Constitutional Hurdles. The U.S. Constitution was intentionally designed to make governing difficult, with its separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism. This intricate system, influenced by Montesquieu, creates inherent friction between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and between federal and state governments. Elected officials, often accustomed to campaign-era control, find themselves frustrated by the need for constant negotiation and compromise to achieve lasting change.

Popular Sentiment is Paramount. As Abraham Lincoln observed, "In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." Sustaining popular support is crucial for overcoming bureaucratic inertia and legislative resistance. Leaders like Reagan and Thatcher understood the need to "win the argument" with the people, who then apply pressure on Congress. FDR's court-packing failure demonstrated the perils of underestimating public and congressional pushback, highlighting that even immense popularity has limits.

5. Making America Affordable Again: Economic Revival Through Deregulation and Growth

Perhaps the most immediate and imperative challenge President Donald Trump and Republicans face is getting our economy back on the right track.

Tackling Inflation. The most urgent economic priority for the Trump administration is to significantly lower inflation and the cost of living, not merely slow its rate. The Biden-Harris administration's "presidential inflation rate" reached 20.7%, a stark contrast to Trump's 7.2% in his first term, demonstrating a disconnect between official statistics and everyday reality for Americans. Addressing this requires a multi-pronged approach to reduce costs across the board, starting with energy.

Unleashing Energy and Cutting Government Costs. President Trump's strategy includes dramatically lowering costs for domestic oil and gas production by revoking Biden-era regulations and accelerating LNG exports, which will reduce prices for gasoline and electricity, impacting every sector of the economy. Additionally, the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, aims to cut $2 trillion from federal spending by curbing unauthorized costs, improper payments in Medicare/Medicaid, and reversing costly executive actions like college loan debt cancellation. The DOGE will also push for federal employees to return to the office and sell underutilized federal property, saving billions.

Driving Economic Growth. Beyond cost-cutting, the administration will focus on spurring economic growth by making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 permanent and expanding it. The TCJA, which lowered corporate and individual tax rates and doubled the child tax credit, led to record revenues and economic growth. Trump's new proposals include eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security payments, and increasing the child tax credit to $5,000, aiming to boost take-home pay, incentivize work, and support families, while ignoring establishment "nay-sayers" who predict shortfalls.

6. Securing the Border and Reforming Immigration for American Survival

President Trump’s mother came from Scotland. His wife Melania came from Slovenia.

Historical Context and Modern Crisis. America has a complex history with immigration, from Benjamin Franklin's concerns about German influx to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the orderly processing at Ellis Island. However, the rise of the anti-American left in the 1960s eroded consensus on border control and assimilation, leading to the "Biden deluge" of over 7.5 million illegal immigrants. This influx, including criminals, became a top issue in 2024, with Americans overwhelmingly supporting stronger border security.

Public Mandate for Enforcement. Polling from America's New Majority Project revealed strong public support for aggressive measures:

• 77% oppose illegal immigrants voting.
• 77% support hiring more border patrol agents.
• 70% support declaring a border emergency and deploying National Guard.
• 68% support designating drug cartels as terrorist groups.
• 83% support local law enforcement checking immigration status of arrested individuals.
  This clear mandate empowered President Trump's first-week executive actions, including reinstating "Remain in Mexico," halting illegal entry, deploying troops, and designating cartels as terrorist organizations.

Legal Immigration and Dreamers. While resolute in stopping illegal immigration, Americans deeply favor legal immigration, recognizing its historical contribution to the nation's economic and technological growth, as exemplified by figures like Alexander Hamilton and Elon Musk. The difficult question of "Dreamers"—young people brought to the U.S. as children—also requires a path to citizenship. A FWD.us poll found 71% of Americans favor legislation pairing border security with an earned path to citizenship for Dreamers, acknowledging their motivation and contributions.

7. Transforming Government: From Bureaucracy to Entrepreneurial Effectiveness

Entrepreneurs end each day asking, “Did we achieve what we set out to get done?” Bureaucrats end each day asking, “Did we follow the process correctly?”

Bureaucracy's Inertia. For over 90 years, the American system has grown increasingly bureaucratic, centralized, and unaccountable, prioritizing internal rules and processes over public service. This ossification, as satirized in "Yes, Minister," leads to a "summer help" mentality among civil servants who believe they can outlast political appointees. This contrasts sharply with the entrepreneurial model, which is achievement-oriented, risk-tolerant, and focused on continuous improvement, as demonstrated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Challenges to Transformation. Implementing an entrepreneurial government faces formidable obstacles:

• Lack of Theory: No established long-term model for sustained entrepreneurial governance.
• Few Existing Spaces: Limited existing entrepreneurial pockets within government.
• Retraining Millions: The immense challenge of shifting millions of process-oriented bureaucrats to a high-tempo, change-oriented system.
• Outsourcing Model: The need to shift from codependent government-private bureaucracies to lean, flexible entrepreneurial firms.
• Citizen Involvement: Opportunities to leverage modern technology for citizen problem-solving, as explored in "Citizenville."
• Education Systems: Overhauling in-house training to align with entrepreneurial models.
• State/Local Engagement: Recruiting state and local leaders to identify and eliminate federal bureaucratic interference.
• Bias Toward Innovation: Prioritizing innovative, less expensive, citizen-centric approaches over traditional bureaucratic responses.

Measuring Effectiveness. Peter Drucker's distinction between efficiency (doing things right) and effectiveness (doing the right thing) is crucial. An entrepreneurial government would measure impact from the outside, focusing on customer (taxpayer) experience. Examples like the dysfunctional naval shipbuilding program and the failing Baltimore City Schools highlight systems where activity is confused with achievement, and where a shift to an entrepreneurial mindset could lead to massive overhahauls and better outcomes.

8. Reimagining Education for National Competitiveness and Citizen Empowerment

The crisis we face in education is ultimately a crisis of our survival—as an informed, self-governing country and as a workforce capable of being productive.

A Nation at Risk, Still. Forty-two years after "A Nation at Risk" warned of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in American education, the crisis remains deep and unacceptable. Examples like Baltimore City Schools, where 13 high schools had zero students proficient in math despite a $1.6 billion budget, illustrate a system disconnected from performance. Spending increases have not correlated with improved achievement, and private schools often outperform public ones with less funding.

Rethinking Learning. The traditional classroom-teacher model, designed for an industrial age, is increasingly obsolete. We need to "make it bigger" by focusing on a hierarchy of learning, training, and educating, maximizing every American's ability to acquire basic skills like reading, writing, and math. The smartphone, available 24/7, should be seen as the "school of the future," enabling convenient, personalized learning.

Beyond Traditional Degrees. There's a cultural mismatch pushing too many into low-paying degree jobs while scorning high-paying skilled trades. We must rebuild the dignity of all work and emphasize training that leads to productive careers, as advocated by Mike Rowe. Higher education, often dominated by self-indulgent, left-leaning faculty and massive endowments, needs a fundamental rethinking of its funding, accreditation, and influence to return to its original purpose of preparing students with useful, specialized knowledge.

9. Revolutionizing Health and Healthcare: From Sick Care to Healthy Longevity

Health is a moral rather than an economic issue. You must save lives, and then you can focus on saving money.

The Sick Care System. America's health system, consuming over 17% of the economy, is fundamentally a "sick care" system focused on treating chronic diseases after they develop, rather than preventing them. This is why 86% of all healthcare spending goes to chronic conditions, many of which are preventable. The system's incentives, from medical training to financial pressures, prioritize specialized treatment over lifestyle modifications, leading to stagnant or declining life expectancy despite medical advancements.

Healthspan and Lifestyle Medicine. A true revolution requires shifting focus to "healthspan"—the average age before chronic disease develops—as a key public health metric. Lifestyle medicine, exemplified by Dr. Dean Ornish's program for heart disease and Alzheimer's reversal, demonstrates the power of diet, exercise, stress management, and support groups to prevent and reverse chronic illness. This approach, which emphasizes "joy of living" over "fear of dying," offers a path to improved health outcomes and reduced costs, even if it challenges traditional medical and insurance models.

Market Dysfunctions and Middlemen. The healthcare market is broken by:

• Doctor Shortages: Physician groups limit supply, driving up prices and creating "healthcare deserts."
• Third-Party Payers: Insurance companies create an adversarial system, obscuring costs and adding bureaucracy.
• Pricing Chaos: Negotiated rates and CPT codes lead to vast price variations, hindering transparency.
• Middlemen: Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and other intermediaries extract wealth through spread pricing and rebates, inflating drug costs.
• Innovation Challenges: High R&D costs and a focus on treatments over cures disincentivize preventative therapies and cures.
  Overcoming these systemic issues, including the "prison guards of the past" who resist change, requires bold reforms like strengthening price transparency, incentivizing patient choice, and developing new FDA pathways for preventative aging biology therapies.

10. Redefining National Security: Confronting New Threats and Orphaned Capabilities

Today, I believe we are in enormous danger.

A Nation in Peril. The American system's decline, coupled with a decaying news media and short-term political focus, has created an existential threat to national survival, arguably the greatest since 1776. The post-Cold War era of "hubris and amnesia" ended tragically on 9/11, revealing a national security system ill-equipped for new, unconventional conflicts. Failed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, costing trillions and thousands of lives, highlight a systemic inability to develop and execute winning strategies.

Strategic Orphans. America faces 12 critical "strategic orphans"—key elements of national power that are neglected or lack a clear driving strategy:

• Grand National Strategy: Absence of a cohesive vision beyond "Make America Great Again."
• Education: Failure to produce scientists, engineers, and a productive workforce.
• EMP Defense: Lack of a crash program to harden the electric grid against electromagnetic pulse attacks.
• Limited Nuclear Events: No serious plan for rapid response, recovery, and rehabilitation after a nuclear attack.
• Industrial Base for AI: Need to reshape policies to maximize growth of a new AI-empowered economy.
• Spacefaring Nation: Insufficient commitment to becoming dominant in space.
• Defense Strategy/Procurement: Obsolete acquisition system and resistance to transformation.
• Iran Strategy: No effective strategy for regime replacement despite 40+ years of hostility.
• Defeating Radical Islam: Failure to confront and overcome the growing strength of radical Islamist movements.
• Winning Unconventional Wars: Inability to learn from past defeats in conflicts like Vietnam and Afghanistan.
• Convincing the American People: Failure to effectively communicate and sustain public support for long-term strategic goals.

Systemic Dysfunction. The American system is not designed to develop holistic views or effectively delegate implementation to winning systems. Instead, strategies are often redesigned to fit bureaucratic comfort zones, leading to "activity confused with achievement." This "insanity" of repeating failures without fundamental change, as seen in the military's inability to learn from Vietnam or Afghanistan, poses a grave danger in an increasingly complex and violent world.

11. American Dominance in Space: A New Frontier for Exploration and Prosperity

When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.

A New Era of Space Leadership. The second Trump administration has a magnificent opportunity to achieve decisive American leadership in space, building on the vision articulated in his first term. The dual emergence of Elon Musk as a close adviser and Jared Isaacman leading NASA, alongside other entrepreneurial ventures like Blue Origin, signals a revolution in American space capability, moving beyond the timid bureaucracies of the past.

Three Pillars of Space Activity. The future of humanity will be shaped by three vital areas of space activity:

• Military Dominance: The Space Force must develop capabilities to ensure American dominance in and from space, far outpacing rivals like China.
• Scientific Exploration: NASA needs a radical overhaul, shrinking its bureaucracy and leveraging dramatically lower launch costs to pursue more robust and daring scientific missions, rather than protecting expensive, obsolete projects like the Space Launch System (SLS).
• Commercial Growth: The rapidly expanding $570 billion commercial space industry, projected to reach $1 trillion by 2040, must be fostered through deregulation and incentives, serving as a vital resource and test bed for military and scientific advancements.

Entrepreneurial Revolution and Policy Imperatives. Elon Musk's passion for colonizing Mars, driving the development of reusable rockets like the Starship (which reduced satellite launch costs by 90%), exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit needed. To accelerate this American adventure, several policy changes are imperative:

• Synthetic Biology: Invest vastly more resources into developing life-sustaining capabilities for long space voyages and colonization.
• Moon-Mars Parallel: Develop Mars in parallel with the Moon, rejecting the "moon-first" philosophy.
• Pay for Performance: Shift NASA and DoD contracts to private sector-style pay-for-performance models.
• Asteroid Mining: Resurrect asteroid mining as a major project, leveraging robotics for immense mineral wealth.
• Nuclear Propulsion: Develop robust nuclear propulsion for faster, farther interplanetary travel.
• Cutting Red Tape: Eliminate regulatory and paperwork interference that hinders innovation and increases costs.
• Space Tax Break: Implement a 20-year tax moratorium on profits from space manufacturing and activities on other celestial bodies.
• Property Rights: Establish clear federal law for property rights in space to incentivize investment.
• Acceptable Risk: Adopt a more practical approach to safety, accepting calculated risks for space travel.
• Space Lottery: Consider a national lottery to democratize access to space travel, inspiring public engagement.

12. America's 250th Birthday: A Dual Celebration of Past Principles and Future Potential

This great occasion can also be an opportunity to look forward to the next 250 years of American life.

A Revolutionary Legacy. On July 4, 2026, America will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that unleashed a moral and intellectual revolution asserting God-given rights, equality, and government by consent. This celebration offers a unique opportunity to both reflect on this foundational legacy and project an even more exciting future. President Trump, a staunch patriot, consistently articulates this dual opportunity, emphasizing both historical principles and optimistic progress.

Retrospective and Prospective Vision. The 250th birthday should reemphasize patriotism by remembering how America became the most powerful, prosperous, and freest country, revitalizing values like service, family, faith, and volunteerism. Simultaneously, it must inspire optimism about the future, showcasing the potential for scientific and technological progress. Just as the past 250 years brought steamships, railroads, electricity, and the internet, the next 250 could bring cures for major diseases, self-driving cities, modular nuclear power, and human expansion beyond the solar system.

Inspiring a New Generation. Elon Musk's vision of colonizing Mars, making humanity a multi-planetary species, serves as a modern "Christopher Columbus" moment, capable of inspiring young people to study and learn for a great adventure. This optimism, contrasting with the left's bleak narratives of climate doom and spiritual vacuum, can renew the American saga. The celebration should be grassroots, decentralized, and participatory, leveraging social media, videos, and podcasts to engage every American in exploring the past and speculating about a future where distance is irrelevant and life is more interesting and exciting.

Last updated: August 19, 2025