MORGAN MURPHY: Trump Gives Washington Long-Overdue Reality Check

Washington, D.C., is experiencing its first true transfer of power in 50 years.

No state in America leans so liberal as the nation’s capital. Exhibit A: Washington voted for Kamala Harris by 92.5%. The district’s true-blue voting record shamed leftist strongholds such as California and Vermont, which only went for the Veep by 58 and 63%, respectively.

Washington also blew past other liberal cities, crushing San Francisco (85%), Detroit (84%) and Atlanta (83%) in its leftward lurch to the donkey party. 

Our nation’s capital is the most liberal part of the United States. It is to Democrats what Wyoming or King’s County, Texas, is to Republicans.

Unlike the 265 patriots in King’s County, the problem with Washington is that the whole town works for or with the government. Washington, D.C. has but one industry, with 375,000 people employed by the Federal government and more than a million others working as contractors. To put that in context, there are only 404,000 people in the district’s entire labor force.

What happens when a Republican wades into the deep blue waters of the D.C. swamp? Historically, not much. That’s because the voters of Washington don’t suddenly find bipartisan religion when they go to work.

According to a poll last month from the Napolitan Institute, nearly half of government managers say they would openly defy an order from President Donald Trump, even if it were completely legal.  Forty-six percent of respondents said they’d instead, “Do what I thought was best.” 9% said they’d didn’t know what they’d do.

To be clear, that’s not civil service, but gross insubordination.

Yet in D.C., defying a lawful order from the president of the United States is business as usual when a Republican comes to town. For decades, D.C.’s uniparty has ignored Article II of the Constitution, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

And through a combination of government bloat and collusion, blue bureaucrats have gotten away with it. A logical person might ask, “Why doesn’t the media expose this racket?”

They’re doing backstrokes in the blue pool, too. According to a 2022 survey from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, only 3.4% of journalists identify as Republicans.

So when President Trump took office a month ago, many government workers probably assumed they could safely “resist” as they had in Trump 1.0.

That might explain why Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees defied President Trump’s executive order and booked $59 million worth of rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York for illegal immigrants. Perhaps they counted on such a small amount of money not being noticed by a new administration busy with other priorities.

What they didn’t count on was Elon Musk, DOGE, and his Musk-rats using A.I. to spot irregularities. Musk called out the insubordination on X and four FEMA employees were shown the door.

It’s just one example of a GOP administration moving like never before to get a firm hold on the government. Since January, estimates vary, but it appears more than 75,000 government workers have accepted Trump’s offer of a buyout. Another 10,000 have been fired, according to a report last week from Reuters.

Eliminating probationary workers may jettison another 250,000 employees on top of the normal attrition of about 100,000 each year due to retirement.

Simultaneously, to get a grasp on the reigns of government, the Trump Administration will undoubtedly reinstate Schedule F, where at least 50,000 federal employees in policy-making positions could be removed, reassigned or replaced at will.

Trump is also dismantling unconstitutional “independent” agencies — nobody seems to know exactly how many there are, but estimates suggest as many as 80 are due to be put back under the Executive where they belong.

Lastly, real reform can’t just sack and replace federal employees in Washington, which is itself is the problem. In his first term, Trump sent the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Colorado — losing 90% of the staff along the way.

That is a fourth way to drain the swamp. Pack the Department of Energy off to Texas. Send Ag to Iowa. Fly Kash Patel and the FBI to Alabama.

Trump must destroy D.C.’s shadow government, which rules and represses through regulation rather than legislation. It’s the surest way to save the republic.

Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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