The pace at which official policy is moving with a new administration is dizzying. As he tries to seat a new cabinet, which includes a number of problematic choices, President Trump is ordering a wholesale change in the way government operates.
While he is reordering government, in the first national crucial event of his second term—a plane crash over the Potomac River—he is offering, without evidence, opinions on the cause of the fatal air disaster that occurred just miles from the White House one week ago.
The accident involving an Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people and whose cause remains under investigation, gave the President an opportunity to offer a nation’s condolences to the families of the crash victims.
Trump asked first for a moment of silence for the crash victims before quickly veering into his own explanation, attributing the fatal accident to government DEI—Diversity, Equity, Inclusion—policies and programs. Unqualified personnel were responsible, he believes.
“I put safety first,” said Trump a day after the crash, while suggesting his predecessors “put policy first.” By that, Trump said Presidents Obama and Biden gave favor to the hiring of a whole host of people he saw as unqualified and whose hiring was not quality based. People with “hearing, vision, missing extremities…psychiatric disability and dwarfism,” got the nod for jobs over those more deserving, he said.
Trump’s words were a reflection of changes he has wanted for years in the way government conducts business. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly six decades of affirmative action, a policy that outlawed discrimination in the awarding of federal contracts based on gender, race or national origin. Trump has said he wants to hire only “the brightest people” and eliminate hiring based on any other criteria.
While many perceived many of his early pronouncements as troubling, they were just a portion of a number of policies designed to take the federal government in a new direction.
Trump shocked our closest allies, Canada and Mexico, by stamping a 25 percent tariff on all imported goods though only a 10 percent add-on to Canadian oil. He also added a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods. In addition, Trump wants wholesale changes in the way the government addresses diversity and gender, education, energy and environment, slimming the federal workforce, foreign policy and military doctrine, and border security.
Former Parker, Colorado, mayor and Republican Congressman Greg Lopez, so far, likes what he sees from Trump. “What I see,” he said, “is truly a reflection of his agenda and his team’s guidance.” Lopez held the 4th Congressional seat for six months when Representative Ken Buck left Congress nine months before his term was up.
The suburban Denver Lopez is also impressed with the speed at which the President is conducting his overhaul and remaking of government. “Some of the things he might be doing differently,” Lopez said. “Some people are not accustomed to agendas being initiated in such rapid fashion.”
“One of the things I’m seeing is that he is managing the calendar more than any newly elected president.” He said Trump has a built-in advantage because he’s already held the office once. That, said Lopez, has allowed him to reflect and do some of things (now) he might do differently.”
What Trump may have wanted to do in a first term is now very much moving at warp speed. In just a bit more than two weeks, Trump has ordered the firing of a number of high level FBI agents who worked on January 6th cases; ordered the repainting of the agency’s wall that proclaimed “fairness, equity and diversity” as part of its credo; ordered all federal employees to remove pronouns from their email accounts; issued a memo from the Office of Personnel and Management to close all DEI offices and place employees on administrative leave.
In working with tech guru Elon Musk, Trump ordered a letter sent to millions of federal employees offering eight months’ pay with full benefits if they would resign from the federal workforce. There is yet no indication how many would take Trump up on his offer. The plan is part of Musk’s efficiency plan to cut the fat from the federal payroll.
In seeking additional Republican perspectives on Trump’s meteoric plan to refashion the federal government into his image, calls to Republican state representatives Carlos Barron (HD 48) and Ryan Gonzalez (HD50) were not returned. Instead, Republican communications spokesperson, Laurel Boyle, said the two state representatives were not “comfortable” speaking on federal policy and would only address state issues.
While Trump finally issued a statement late Friday night commemorating Black History month, compared to previous proclamations from the Oval Office in which the contributions of Black Americans are celebrated, Trump’s was more muted. Edicts from the President to federal agencies also reflect a new direction in acknowledging the nation’s diversity.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, NBC News reported, put in place a pause of all activities and events related to Black History Month, Juneteenth, LGBTQ Pride Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day. Black History Month began February 1st.
The new direction being encouraged by Trump, said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, is a thinly disguised effort to abolish part of America’s cultural heritage. “You can’t erase what you didn’t start,” Webb said. “Donald Trump has no understanding” of the history of African Americans in this country. Webb, who led Denver from 1991 to 2003, said that Trump’s second term policies are a “reflection of Germany’s policies of the 1930’s.”
