Well before and since his swearing in on January 20, President Trump has been moving aggressively to secure Senate approval of a team of cabinet and sub-cabinet members to implement his Make America Great Again agenda.
To date he has achieved significant, but not yet universal success on those approvals.
Currently there are at least three of his nominations where Senate approval is in various stages of uncertainty.
They are Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kash Patel for FBI Director, and Tulsi Gabbard for National Intelligence Director.
Earlier last month Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense was approved in the Senate by the narrowest of margins.
Following contentious committee hearings on his background and competence, Hegseth was confirmed only after Vice President Vance broke a 50 -50 vote tie vote with a yes vote for him.
If any of the pending Trump nominations fail to receive full Senate approval, it will be the first time since 1925 when a Republican-controlled Senate rejected a Republican President’s cabinet nomination. The President then was Calvin Coolidge and failed nominee was Charles Warren for Attorney General.
Trump’s immediate Democratic predecessors – Barack Obama and Joe Biden had all their cabinet nominations approved by the Senate. In both cases there were Democratic majorities in the Senate and some of their more controversial nominations were withdrawn from consideration before full Senate consideration of their nominations.
The reasons for resistance to Trump are not surprising.
Over five hundred years ago political observer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli wrote the following timeless observation on change.
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
In 2024 Trump ran and won on a change platform and his commitment to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things in Washington.
That is similar to the goal that former President Obama expressed when he first ran for the presidency.
Early and often on the campaign trail Obama said, “Washington is broken. My whole campaign has been premised from the start on the idea that we have to fundamentally change how Washington works.”
After the election to his first term, Obama said with confidence that he had not miscalculated how difficult it would be to change Washington.
He said, “I didn’t overpromise. And I didn’t underestimate how tough this was gonna be.”
After four years in office and his election to a second term Obama acknowledged with a combination of frustration, regret, and self-reflection, that he had in fact miscalculated and underestimated how hard making changes was going to be.
He said “I’m the first one to confess that the spirit that I brought to Washington, that I wanted to see instituted, where we weren’t constantly in a political slugfest … I haven’t fully accomplished that. Haven’t even come close in some instances. And, you know, if you ask me what’s my biggest disappointment [it] is that we haven’t changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked.”
Time will tell if Donald Trump acknowledges and says much the same thing after the end of his second term.
The first test of success or failure for Trump will occur in less than two years.
In November 2026, all the seats in the House of Representatives and one third of the seats in the Senate will be up for election.
Historically, but not always, these elections are largely a referendum on a President’s performance and agenda.
If the Republicans do lose control of the House and/or the Senate in 2026, any unapproved elements of Trump’s MAGA agenda will likely be stalled, if not stopped completely.
Conversely, if that does not occur, the odds for success for Trump in continuing to advance his MAGA agenda are greatly increased.
It also increases the odds for Vice President Vance securing the Republican nomination for and winning the election as President in 2028.
Going forward, only one thing is certain.
Either way, we will soon be better able to affirm or challenge the thinking that in the political world, pursuing real change is often an exercise in futility, no matter who is elected president.
David Reel is a public affairs and public relations consultant in Easton.
Sam Wilson says
The money flow of the USAID has been exposed to the American taxpayer. President Trump has already succeeded.
Michael Pullen says
Donald Trump is no pioneer for the American working people. Change, yes, but to what end?
Tariffs are a tax on imports. That tax will be paid by Americans purchasing imported goods, or will be borne by American businesses that lose sales because their imported products are too expensive to sell.
Consider the cost spiral if other trading partners impose tariffs on American exports.
Change yes, chaos yes. But business investment does not flourish in chaos, it needs predictable outcomes supported by orderly commercial activity. Trump is creating chaos for the sake of chaos. Disruption for its own sake.
Ask, now that Republicans control Congress and the Presidency, “what’s your plan to improve our health care system?”
“What about lowering the high cost of food?” “What about investment in infrastructure?”
It’s easy to demolish things — simply break them. Much more difficult to build things, to generate cohesion, a shared purpose and prosperity for working Americans and their families.
Chaos certainly brings change, but that doesn’t equal improvement in living standards or working folks’ well-being, the real purpose of good government.
Bob Parker says
The reasons for the resistance to many of trump’s cabinet nominees stem directly from the fact that they are not qualified, have character “issues” or are indeed dangerous (see: McMahon, Hegseth, Goetz, Patel, Gabbard, RFK,jr). Several nominees also had difficulty explaining (i.e. refused to answer) how/why their strongly held positions miraculously changed with the nomination to trump’s cabinet.
Regarding the resistance to trump, they include many of the issues for his nominees (he IS a convicted felon for a sexual assault, and convicted of tax fraud and of the fraudulent use of his family “charity”. Oh, and let’s not forget his ethical lapses re: emoluments. However, the biggest reason for resistance to trump and many of his policies is his complete regard for the US Constitution. In normal times, Republicans in Congress and the SCOTUS would side with the Constitution, but that was when the norms anticipated by our Founding Fathers were respected by these entities and held a president in check. However, that was then, this is now. While trump is indeed Machiavellian (I doubt he has ever read him) the change trump wants, to which the current GOP has turned a blind eye, is not a change that would make our country or our society better. His desired change is to increase his personal power and wealth at the expense of others’ personal freedom, not as a result of increasing freedom. When trump and his supports complain that he (trump) is being criticized unfairly. The phrase in Hamlet ” methinks the lady foth protest too much” spoke to signify a lack of sincerity comes to mind.