Ex-Bush speechwriter: How Trump 'moved rapidly to consolidate power'

03 February

David Frum, a former Republican turned independent, was once a prominent figure in the GOP. Frum, now 64, was a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, served on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and wrote extensively for the now-defunct Weekly Standard.

Frum is still a prominent conservative, but not in the Republican Party. His scathing criticism of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement made him a pariah in his former party, and he often commiserates with liberals during his appearances on MSNBC.

In an article published by The Atlantic on February 2, Frum compares Trump's first and second terms — and lays out some reasons why he considers him much more dangerous this time around.

Frum explains, "The first Trump term was very different…. First-term Trump knew what he wanted: unlimited personal power. But he did not know how to achieve it, and an insufficient number of those around him was willing and able to help him. The senior administration officials who supported Trump's autocratic ambitions lacked bureaucratic competence; the officials who possessed the bureaucratic competence did not support his ambitions."

But Trump, Frum emphasizes, is moving at a much more rapid pace during his second administration.

"Second-term Trump is very different," Frum writes. "He has moved rapidly to consolidate power. Even before he took office, the Department of Justice preemptively stopped all legal actions against him for his attempted seizure of power on January 6, 2021. As soon as he was inaugurated, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of those convicted for the violent attack on Congress. He then announced investigations of the lawyers who had acted to enforce the law against him. Trump has moved rapidly to oust independent civil servants, beginning with 17 nonpartisan inspectors general."

Frum continues, "He moved fast to install loyalists atop the two most important federal management agencies, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management. His administration is united in claiming power to refuse to spend funds already appropriated by Congress and to ignore laws that constrain the absolute power of the executive branch. The whole Trump team, not only the president personally, is testing another important tool of power: stopping congressionally approved grants to states, to ensure that he is funding supporters and punishing opponents. The Trump Administration retreated from the test after two days of uproar — but how permanently, who can say?"

Trump's "opponents," Frum laments, "seem dazed, disoriented, and defeated."

"Compared with eight years ago," Frum observes, "Trump is winning more, and his opponents are resisting less. What's changed? Four major things. First, this time Trump is not arriving in power alone."

Frum adds, "He and the Republican mainstream have merged, a convergence symbolized by the highly detailed Project 2025 plan written for Trump by the Heritage Foundation…. Second, this time Trump's opponents feel beaten in a way that they did not after 2016…. Third, Trump owes many of his early successes to previous Democratic mistakes…. The fourth difference between 2017 and 2025 is the difference in the information space in which American politics is conducted."

David Frum's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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