It began, as these things often do, not with a proclamation but with a shrug—the kind that says, “Why fix what we can break more efficiently?” Having clawed his way back into office on a rickety platform of nostalgia, grievance, and recycled red hats, the small-p president resumed his perch atop the wrecking ball of American governance with the gusto of a demolition foreman who’d lost the blueprint.
Domestic policy in Trump’s second term is not a plan, nor a doctrine, nor even an afterthought. It is a carnival of sledgehammers masquerading as statecraft. Where once there were agencies, now there are amplifiers—megaphones for cultural grievance, revenge fantasies, and bureaucratic spite. The goal is no longer to govern but to perform the act of governing, like a dinner theater version of the presidency, only with fewer facts and a heavier smell of Axe body spray.
Let us take stock, then, of what passes for “domestic priorities” under this regime, where every lever of federal power has been converted into a slot machine for cruelty, corruption, and applause.
Governance by Grievance: The Bureaucracy as Blunt Instrument
The administrative state has not been reformed. It has been repurposed into a tool of vengeance and loyalty enforcement. The return of Schedule F—that Trojan horse for firing any civil servant insufficiently devoted to the Trumpian cause—has transformed government service from a career of competence into a gauntlet of sycophancy.
Departments such as Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services are no longer considered policy laboratories. They are now test kitchens for retribution recipes. From drag show bans in veterans’ hospitals to loyalty oaths for teachers, the bureaucracy has been asked to play a new role: enforcer of the president’s daily mood swings
Urban Occupation: Cities as Political Piñatas
In this second term, blue cities are not municipalities. They are enemy territory. Federal enforcement agencies have been unleashed like dogs on a duck hunt, not to help but to intimidate. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles—all designated as failed cities, subject to ritual humiliation by a president who regards urban governance as a kind of Antifa cosplay.
Federal troops in unmarked vans. Surveillance partnerships without warrants. The threat of federal receivership for cities deemed “anarchist jurisdictions.” Trump’s use of federal agents and troops in our cities is not federalism. It is federal occupation, draped in the American flag and soaked in gasoline.
Budgets as Bludgeons: The Revenge Economy
Trump’s budgets are not financial instruments; they are psychological weapons. Programs that aid the poor, the sick, or the informed are slashed not for savings but for spectacle. Cutting funding to the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, or Meals on Wheels is no longer policy—it’s performance art for the Heritage Foundation.
In the name of “efficiency,” entire regulatory regimes are being defunded, not replaced. The IRS has been reduced to a call center with a rotary phone. OSHA operates like a neighborhood watch group. The EPA is now just a guy in a truck with a leaf blower. All while billionaires receive tax cuts so significant they must be delivered by forklift.
The Bureaucratic Inquisition: Culture War by Other Means
Domestic policy has become the velvet glove over the mailed fist of cultural enforcement. HHS writes health policy with one hand and scriptures with the other. Education is no longer about schools but about which books to burn and which prayers to mandate.
Moral zoning codes have replaced HUD’s fair housing rules. Title IX is interpreted as a ban on pronouns. The Department of Labor is contemplating a ban on DEI training, not because it costs money, but because it compromises the comfort of Trump donors.
The administration has found its true policy north star: governing by exorcism, where the demons are liberals, educators, scientists, and anyone who knows what the 14th Amendment says.
Deregulation by Neglect: Let It Rot
Why repeal regulations when you can just ignore them? Trump 2.0 has perfected the art of passive deregulation. Agencies are left leaderless, unstaffed, and without a mission, like ghost ships drifting through Washington with MAGA stickers slapped over their mission statements.
Environmental enforcement has collapsed into photo ops. Workplace safety inspections are now conducted via email. And while trains derail, factories burn, and floodwaters rise, the administration’s answer is to blame local mayors and talk about Joe or Hunter Biden.
Immigration as Spectacle: The Wall Never Ends
Border policy under Trump has never been about immigration. It is domestic policy by proxy—an endless shadow play for the base. Every migrant is a headline. Every headline is a donation. Family separation is not a deterrent; it’s a sideshow.
The Border Patrol is armed like a SEAL team. Governors are encouraged to deploy National Guard troops not to help but to compete for MAGA points. Asylum is treated like a punchline. And the Statue of Liberty might as well be wearing a gag.
A Closing Note from the Ghost of Governance
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. He spoke of power untethered from public oversight. Today, we live under the grievance-industrial complex—a system where every domestic policy lever is twisted into a stage prop.
Trump 2.0 is not about governance. This is what happens when the circus stays in town, and the clowns write the building codes.
God bless America. She’s going to need it as long as this lot is in power.
~Dunneagin
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