As the Biden-Harris administration slips away, Donald Trump must fulfill his promises to dispose of the woke detritus. His administration will have to bypass antidemocratic booby traps, including recently adopted rules that take time to reverse, last-minute appointments of progressive federal judges, and a hostile, left-leaning Deep State protected by Joe Biden’s revocation of Schedule F termination rights.
Democrats incessantly claimed that Trump would be a dictator. Instead, Biden became the most authoritarian president of the last 80 years. Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution requires the President to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” and in his oath of office, he swears to do so. Instead, Biden and his administration issued executive orders and rules he knew to be unconstitutional, unlawful and unpopular, including a radical left agenda of censorship, racism through diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and fanatic transgenderism.
The Trump administration should promptly seek to settle lawsuits centered on the outgoing administration’s hard left policies by conceding the government’s position is wrong. It will be difficult for future administrations to violate the settlements without approval of the other parties. At the least, the administration should dismiss, with prejudice, the cases in which it is the plaintiff.
The Trump administration also should seek legislative solutions that give standing to states and private individuals to secure government compliance, and to act as “private attorneys general” to enforce these laws if a future administration fails to do so. Though it will be tough to obtain the 60 votes required for passage in the Senate, there may be opportunities to peel off a few Democrats, or to use reconciliation, which requires only a majority. Regrettably, eliminating the filibuster to facilitate passage would ultimately backfire.
Trump’s team is well positioned for this mission. Harmeet K. Dhillon, Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is a tough litigator who believes in the Constitution and individual rights. Linda McMahon, another of the strong, intelligent women around Trump, will be instrumental as secretary of the Department of Education, which mandated and funds much of the woke jihad. Trump fairly describes Brendan Carr, his pick to chair the Federal Communications Commission, as “a warrior for Free Speech.”
Abhorrent polices to which the Trump administration must take a blowtorch include:
Censorship: The White House directed at least 80 senior officials in 11 federal agencies to collude with and coerce media platforms into blocking content unsupportive of administration positions. Homeland Security official Jen Easterly explained that the goal was to require Americans to “get the facts” from the administration.
When states and individuals sued, Federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty found that the administration was arguably engaged in “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, but the Supreme Court reversed by ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
On December 20, 2024, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its final 17,000-page report detailing this repressive censorship enterprise, which, unknown to Trump, got its start during his first administration.
The Republican platform promises: “We will ban the Federal Government from colluding with anyone to censor Lawful Speech, defund institutions engaged in censorship, and hold accountable all bureaucrats involved with illegal censoring. We will protect Free Speech online.” Now, Trump must deliver.
DEI: Despite constitutional prohibitions on racial discrimination, a century of federal civil rights law and Supreme Court rulings, Americans’ overwhelming opposition, and the harm it does to people of all backgrounds, the administration imposed DEI throughout government, and on private institutions and businesses receiving federal grants and contracts (see here , here, here, here, here, here). It spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on these programs, and hundreds of millions more to develop and administer them. A recent report from the Legal Insurrection Foundation reveals that even after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, universities persist in expanding DEI.
Chief Justice John Roberts bluntly declared, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Trump and many of his nominees have pledged to end DEI.
Trump should appoint an Anti-DEI czar who will meticulously take the steps required to rescind all executive actions and rules, fire all federal DEI officials, end all federal DEI efforts, terminate contracts, grants and other programs with recipients engaged in DEI, and commence litigation against state and local governments, universities, and businesses that continue this odious practice.
Transgenderism: Biden was relentless in advancing transgenderism, imperiling American rights and the safety of many of the approximately 1% of Americans who are confused about their sex (see here, here, and here). Among numerous trans-centric actions, the administration issued regulations under Title IX of the Education Amendments that effectively required schools to treat trans men as females and health care rules to require everyone to share in the cost of gender re-assignment surgery and lifelong hormone treatments. Concurrently, the administration eviscerated due process for students accused of a new expansive definition of “sexual discrimination.”
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Title IX regulations, and in December the administration withdrew them. Conversely, after 25 states passed laws barring transgender athletes from competing on opposite-sex teams, federal appellate courts prohibited implementation of those laws in four states.
If an adult believes he or she is another “gender,” that adult has the right to cross-dress, or to pay for surgery and hormones, but that cost should not be passed on to others through government or insurance reimbursement, and no American should be compelled to forgo privacy, safety or opportunities to pander to a disorder. The new administration must restore the rules and regulations that existed at the end of Trump’s first term, and it must litigate to protect women and girls. In December, Trump reiterated his commitment to do so. As a first step, the Justice Department should end its partisan prosecution of Dr. Eithan Haim for disclosing that Texas Children’s Hospital secretly continued to implant hormone blockers in children after announcing that it would cease doing so.
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The Trump administration must control our borders; de-politicize the Justice Department; tamp down the embers of inflation; restore American prestige, military preparedness, and the criminal justice system; rescind Biden-Harris’ climate zealotry; rebuild our industrial base; harden our infrastructure; and rid the bureaucracy of far-left extremists.
But, aside from our borders, none of these priorities is more important than fulfilling Trump’s pledge to restore traditional, sane, centrist American values.
