Donald Trump’s long march through the most liberal of liberal institutions has been one of the most historically significant events of the last fifty years.
In less than eight months, Trump has made good progress on remaking the federal bureaucracy, begun blunting the influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), finally ended federal funding of public broadcasting, defunded the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and successfully started undoing the stranglehold that academia has had on U.S. higher education.
It’s unclear how some of those accomplishments will become permanent. None of them has been codified into law by Congress, and a Democratic administration could upend or overturn most of what Trump has done.
Nevertheless, in 2024, the American people demanded a shake-up of the status quo, and that’s precisely what Trump is giving them.
It’s not just remarkable that these initiatives by Trump are happening; it’s incredible that they’re happening all at once. Since the 1980s, conservatives have been clamoring for an end to liberal dominance of American institutions, but have had little to show for their efforts. No matter what the right was able to accomplish as far as reining in the inexorable march of liberal institutional power, the administrative state expanded, the culture coarsened, and American values eroded.
Donald Trump hasn’t “fixed” all of it, but he’s offered a roadmap to the destination. Trump is not a conservative in the classic sense of the term, but he and Republican conservatives in Congress have done more for conservative government than anyone, ever.
It should be noted that Trump had help. The implosion of liberal institutions brought about by several world-historical events and their own hubris set the stage for Trump’s wrecking ball.
The Free Press:
Events from 2020 to 2024 robbed progressive institutions of their legitimacy. An insurgent radical left shattered the confidence of liberal elites. The right adopted new techniques of political combat. As a result, institutions once thought untouchable buckled to Trump’s demands.
The collapse went like this. Double standards during the Covid-19 pandemic triggered widespread indignation. Closed schools and social distancing for most Americans, but not for Black Lives Matter protesters or governors with reservations at the French Laundry. Public trust in government, science, and education declined. Universities and corporations that had pretended to be apolitical slandered America as systemically racist and went all in on race-conscious policies.
The media’s complicity was just as damaging. Its censorship of evidence regarding Covid’s origins, its silencing of vaccine skeptics, its participation in the Russian collusion hoax, its misleading portrayal of Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation, and its cover-up of Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline caused irreparable harm to what remained of its reputation. Alternative news sources—short-form video and long-form podcasts—filled the vacuum.
Like Jimmy Carter’s disastrous presidency that preceded Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden’s incompetence soured the public on the radical left’s agenda. The massive increases in spending — $5 trillion on COVID relief alone — which led to the most significant spike in inflation in 40 years; the calls to defund the police, resulting in skyrocketing rates of violent crime; the catastrophic loss of learning caused by the overweening power of the teacher’s unions, demanding schools remain closed; and a loss of respect for American values all led to an electoral earthquake that gave Donald Trump the presidency.
What Trump has done is turn the liberal lawfare playbook around and give the left a taste of its own medicine.
The Trump administration could seize on these opportunities because of an important shift in Republican thinking. During the Biden years, Republicans adopted a politics of confrontation and unapologetic advocacy of traditional American values. They no longer sought validation from progressive media, academic institutions, and nonprofits. Activist Christopher Rufo showed them how to wield law and bureaucracy against woke institutions that had violated the public trust while depending on public support.
Hence the irony: Progressives spent a century extending the federal government into all corners of American life—and using regulations and taxpayer funds to sustain an architecture of left-wing cultural dominance. All President Trump did was turn this system against itself. He’s using progressive means—regulations, appropriations, executive orders—for nationalist, populist ends.
One important caveat is that the left spent the better part of two centuries establishing these institutions. They certainly are not going to give up or give in. We’ve already seen colleges and universities defying federal rules against DEI by simply slapping a new name on old departments. Companies are doing the same thing.
This is a long, twilight struggle against an incredibly entrenched enemy who still wields enormous influence. The courts can also impede or even halt Trump’s progress. What’s desperately needed is a Republican Congress that can codify most of Trump’s victories into law.
Until that happens, a reversal is always possible.
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