Disruption grows out of profound social, economic or political dislocation that demands solutions that go beyond traditional approaches. To be successful, a leader must see the issues clearly, act strategically and solve problems creatively.
At the turn of the 20th century, America experienced social disruption, the result of a shift from a rural agrarian economy to an urban industrial economy. Theodore Roosevelt rose to power during a time of conflict “between the forces of industrial capitalism and militant workers.” Roosevelt’s progressivism would expand the footprint of our federal government into land conservation for national parks, trust-busting, workers’ rights, and food safety.
Over the following decades, we would adopt a progressive income tax, create the federal reserve, grant women the right to vote, and outlaw the sale of spirits. The progressive period lasted more than 20 years, expanding the reach of government to manage our society.
Beginning in 1929, Americans faced economic disruption that created fear and uncertainty that traditional approaches failed to resolve. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt proposed an expansive federal government that would employ, regulate, subsidize, and create a new economy in which the federal government would be an active participant.
Franklin Roosevelt’s narrative would dominate our politics for more than 90 years as we became increasingly “Washington-centric,” due in considerable measure to the federal government’s ability to print money and distribute federal funds in return for compliance.
When Franklin Roosevelt was first elected president, the national debt was $20 billion. Today, according to the Debt Clock, the national debt is approaching $37 trillion, the federal budget exceeds $7 trillion and deficit spending tops $2 trillion.
The gravy train gave birth to a “uniparty” government as both parties supported massive spending programs. Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, defined the political dysfunction as “both the Democratic and the Republican side, by a lack of initiative and an urge to do things on the cheap and halfheartedly … manage crises instead of resolving them.”
Reckless spending peaked under Joe Biden. David Winston, the president of The Winston Group, wrote in Roll Call, “Biden spent, on average, $1.7 trillion a year more than Trump did, and that includes Trump’s 2020 pandemic budget of $6.6 trillion. But despite his declaration that the pandemic was over in September 2022, Biden … kept the COVID levels of spending well above $6 trillion. Overall, Biden’s spending was 36 percent higher than Trump.”
In the end, Biden’s spending produced few tangible results.
Trust in government has been decreasing since the 1960s. Gallup found that under Lyndon Johnson, trust reached 77 percent. Barack Obama’s high was 29 percent, and Trump, in his first term, hit 27 percent. Trust in government under Biden was as low as 16 percent. Spending became an end in itself.
In 2024, Donald Trump was elected to disrupt Washington and to tame a ubiquitous and inefficient government bureaucracy that has lost touch with the American people.
In the early weeks of his second term, the Department of Government Efficiency says it has uncovered multi-billion dollar boondoggles and programs that are easy targets for fraud and corruption.
Disruption attracts critics who focus on its victims. The key to success is keeping critics from sharing control of the narrative until sustainable momentum is established.
Disruption is exhausting to sustain over long periods, but if done right for only a few years, it can shape the conversation for decades that follow. The key for Trump will be to avoid creating sympathetic victims of his cuts and deliver measurable results for the American people.
Assuming he can balance these two objectives, Trump’s populism will define governing well into the future.
Dennis M. Powell is a strategic management consultant at Massey Powell and author of the book, “Leading from the Top: Presidential Lessons in Issues Management.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Reprinted with permission from The DC Journal – By Dennis M. Powell
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Woodrow Wilson ushered in the beginnings of the so-called progressive movement in the United States. Actually, it would be more rightly referred to as America’s socialist movement, if we wanted to be brutally honest about it. Wilson gave us the income tax, the failed League of Nations, the Federal Reserve and other counter-productive and ultimately regressive changes to both our economy, form of governance and society as a whole.
Next up, the author talks about FDR. He took Wilson’s version of government intrusion and social engineering and amped it up a 100-fold. FDR created all the major building blocks of what we call today the Administrative State of the federal government. Under the guise of his New Deal, which extended the Great Depression for many years beyond which it should have naturally ended, FDR took control via the federal government of broad swaths of the economy and private sector. The resulting unaccountable bureaucracy, which has been growing steadily ever since its creation, now acts as brake on almost all forms of private sector economic growth in this country via excessive regulations and permitting processes.
LBJ and the damage his so-called Great Society spending spree and resulting inflation added to the mounting problems of an ever-growing federal bureaucracy for the United States is conspicuously absent. Nixon stupidly taking the United States off of the gold standard, thus allowing the Treasury to print whatever amounts of dollars needed to feed the federal government’s insatiable hunger is also not mentioned for some reason. The same goes for Carter, both Bushes, Clinton, Obama and Biden. All consequential to expanding the size and scope of the federal government or altering the direction of the United States for the worse. All while the annual deficits and the national debt continued to spiral ever upward.
Yes, President Trump is trying to repair as much of the cumulative damage from past decades of really bad or intentionally harmful decisions made by a number of past Presidents as he can in his limited time in office. The Left in this country will of course oppose whatever he tries to accomplish. Socialism or Marxism is after all completely incompatible with Capitalism, so the Left will do everything in their power to preserve the bureaucratic infrastructure they have spent well over 100 years building to bring this country down. It is up the American people to have enough intelligence and good judgement to see the constant attacks from the Left for what they are: Simply the predictable response from those that seek to protect their political power and personal wealth at any cost.