The anti-Trump media seems partially paralyzed following President Donald Trump's reelection last November and particularly since his inauguration on Jan. 20. The president has been moving at lightning speed to implement the policies on which he and Vice President JD Vance ran and won not only a victory within the Electoral College but also in the so-called popular vote -- the first time a Republican has done so since 2004.
But election vote tallies don't tell the whole story. Trump 2.0 is a manifestation of monumental changes in American political alliances. Like his second campaign, Trump's cabinet -- currently taking shape as his nominees move through the confirmation process -- demonstrates the bipartisan appeal of his policy positions.
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard supported Trump's 2024 campaign, ultimately changed parties and is now his nominee for director of national intelligence. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- a scion of one the best-known Democratic families in the country -- dropped his own presidential campaign (running as an independent) to support Trump and has been nominated to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services.
Silicon Valley tycoons like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen as well as power brokers and megadonors like Bill Ackman and Nicole Shanahan (RFK Jr.'s running mate in 2024) have also severed ties with Democrats and thrown their support behind the MAGA agenda. Musk's has certainly been the most visible Silicon Valley about-face, as he joined Trump on the campaign trail and will be serving in the new administration. But Shanahan isn't far behind. Just yesterday, she dropped a video in which she promised to fund primary challengers against any Democrat senators who vote against Kennedy for HHS chief.
On issue after issue, Trump and his team have tapped into a well stream of widespread public support that upends the traditional narrative about party politics.
Opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign wars -- a consistent plank in the Democratic Party platform since the Vietnam War -- has become a position shared by a broad cross-section of the American public. Democrats and Republicans alike can tally the lives of U.S. servicemen and women lost: more than 720,000 since World War I. It's a statistic made even more painful in wars that were either not "won" or in which America seems to have had no vital interest. This includes the current war between Russia and Ukraine, into which the Biden administration pumped more than $65 billion in what looks like a massive money laundering operation and boondoggle for multinational defense contractors.
The same cross-party support can be seen with respect to Trump's determination to end illegal entry of foreign nationals into this country, the scope of which has exceeded all reasonable definitions of "compassion" or "asylum." Americans deeply resent the hypocrisy and betrayal of politicians who have blocked efforts to curb illegal entry. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both critical of illegal immigration just a few years ago. But during the four years of the Biden administration's "open borders" policies, at least 10 million people entered this country illegally.
Left-leaning and conservative Americans were horrified to learn that criminals who crossed the border -- some after multiple deportations -- murdered innocent Americans like Laken Riley, Lizbeth Medina, Mollie Tibbetts, Rachel Morin and Jocelyn Nungaray. Drugs like fentanyl flowed freely across the border, killing thousands of Americans a year. Our citizens were aghast at the billions of dollars being spent on illegal aliens, and at the billions given by the federal government to nongovernmental organizations that facilitated what can only be described as an invasion.
For the past week, Trump's Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, led by "border czar" Tom Homan, are now arresting and deporting aliens who have been engaging in criminal conduct, including the notorious MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members who have been acting with impunity and terrorizing Americans. An Axios/Ipsos poll from last week shows that 66% of Americans support the deportation of illegal aliens.
This week, Trump signed an executive order preventing federal funds from going to the use of puberty blockers in children or the surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts, another issue that has generated widespread public consternation.
Trump also traveled to California and demanded that water be sent to central California and to the greater Los Angeles area. As a rule, Americans support efforts to preserve clean water and air, and the habitats of animals, but not at the expense of agriculture, private homes and businesses, or public safety. California's water and forestry policies have caused unfathomable damage, and residents there are devastated and fed up.
And then there is poor western North Carolina, whose residents have been suffering without homes or adequate shelter since Hurricane Helene ravaged the area in late September of last year. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's response has been inadequate. Trump and Vance have both visited that portion of the state in the past week and promised immediate assistance. Trump has even suggested that FEMA might need to be scrapped or overhauled. Other than professional whiners like CBS's Margaret Brennan, it's unlikely that such a decision would meet with much public pushback.
Trump has also signed orders protecting freedom of speech and reinstating (with back pay) members of the U.S. military who lost their positions when they refused to take the experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
Despite the press's efforts to cast Trump's policies as extremist, CNN statistician Harry Enten shocked his colleagues last Friday with data showing that Trump's popularity is at an all-time high. Four years of policies that were absurd, grotesque and frankly destructive to the nation, its institutions and its citizens has prompted huge numbers of Americans -- regardless of political affiliation -- to say, "Enough!"
The times, they are a-changin'.