The War On The Shadows

One of the early features of Trump 2.0 is that it is nothing like the first version of Trump and nothing like what his adversaries imagined. Despite the evidence that this version of Trump would be different, his antagonists inside and outside the regime were certain he was the guy they imagined. Therefore, his victory was a shock, but they were sure what worked the first time around would work again. The weird silence from regime outposts is due to having been wrong yet again.

This version of Trump is a very different thing from the original version. We are seeing this in the realm of foreign policy where Trump 2.0 has been executing a plan rather than doing battle with the hydra that is the foreign policy community. It turns out that his refusal to have any dealings with the foreign policy community as a candidate, and his decision not to use government resources for the transition, has provided him with the element of surprise upon taking office.

You see that with his initial appointments. Marco Rubio was an out of the blue pick for the State Department. It seems to have been a shock to Rubio as well. Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon is another bolt from the blue. In the case of Rubio, he is an easily controlled lieutenant running an agency in need of radical reform. Hegseth comes to the job with his own radical ideas about reforming the Pentagon. The semi-permanent staff at the top of both agencies are now in a crisis.

Then you have Trump's peculiar moves regarding the Ukraine war. He appoints Keith Kellogg as his personal envoy on the issue, but Kellogg is in no big hurry to get the ball rolling on Project Ukraine. He initially set up a tour of Europe and meetings with Kiev but then cancelled all of it. Trump has answered some questions about the Ukraine war but has not had any discussions with Europe about it. In fact, no one in the Trump administration has talked to the Europeans about the war.

At the same time, there is a purge underway of certain parts of the foreign policy establishment with some novel tools. For starters, Trump is cleaning house of neocons by assigning them to new positions intended to encourage their departure. This is an old corporate trick. He has frozen spending on just about everything, pending a review of how the money is being spent. Since all of government exists to spend money, it has thrown the usual suspects into a panic.

What this move is aimed at is the shadow foreign policy community that exists outside of government but is funded by government. These are the think tanks and research shops that live off government grants. They are full of former government officials and future government officials. Their job is to prevent whoever is in the White House from changing the direction of foreign policy. It is in the offices of these places that his first impeachment was organized.

These covens of mischief that were prepared to do their old tricks now find themselves in a crisis as their income is frozen and under scrutiny, while at the same time their friends and collaborators are being forced out of government. It is hard to plot the next regime change operation against Trump when you are struggling to make payroll, which is the point of this funding freeze. It is also a clear signal that Trump 2.0 is prepared to deal with these people.

This extends to the thicket of NGO's, charities and think tanks that operate internationally, in coordination with the shadow government. Trump had Rubio freeze all work at these operations by freezing their money. The people who make regime change possible through their color revolution schemes are now starved of cash. If they cannot pay "independent media" and "opposition leaders" then those entities cannot organize "spontaneous" rallies against the government.

What Trump 2.0 is doing is attacking the vast shadow government that has evolved to be resistant to electoral politics. The Kagan family, for example, have plied their trade regardless of who is in the White House. They were able to do this because so much of what ends up as a foreign policy item on the president's agenda is created by entities operating outside of government. Victoria did not retire when she quit the State Department. She continues her work in the shadow government.

Foreign policy is just one example. The chaos of immigration is due in large part to the vast network of not-for-profit entities that make millions facilitating the wholesale abrogation of immigration laws. These entities survive on grants from the government, much in the same way we see with foreign policy. The freeze and review of these programs is part of bringing them to heel. When J.D. Vance mentioned Catholic Charities role in immigration, it was a deliberate warning.

This is why the media response to Trump 2.0 has been so weird. Much of what they produce is handed to them by this thicket of extra-government entities who shape the media narratives around public policy. That extra government ecosystem now finds itself under direct assault by a new administration that did its homework and is now executing a plan of attack on that ecosystem. Compounding it is the fact that the donor class seems to be backing the Trump plan.

What has happened over the last several decades is that the official government of the United States was enveloped by this vast collection of extra-government entities that produce good jobs at good wages for the managerial elite. Since the number of government posts is small, relative to the number of credentialed people who think they deserve them, this network of entities has grown to serve an ever-growing collection of people who cycle in and out of government.

Since these people not only think they deserve the plumb assignments, but they think they know better than the voters and their politicians, the result has been a slow shifting of policy outside of official government into this shadow government. Foreign policy is most obvious, but this process has happened everywhere. No one can say who banned normal light bulbs, for example, because the policy bubbled up from the network of extra-government entities of environmentalism.

It remains to be seen if the Trump effort to defang this shadow government will succeed, but it helps that he has support from economic elites. The shadow government does not live only on government handouts. It also thrives by selling indulgences to powerful people and business sectors. Having friends in the shadow government is better than having friends in politics, because politicians come and go, but the shadow government is permanent.

One reason for the swing to the side of Trump by the economic elites could be that they have grown frustrated with this arrangement. People who think they are smarter than the voters are going to think they are smarter than the donors. Like a business run into the ground by management, the large shareholders are now stepping in with the support of the small shareholders, to clear out old management. Trump is like the old greenmailers; except this time the target is Washington.