Protesters are Wrong: DOGE, Tariffs, and Law and Order Should be Applauded
by Scott S.
Powell
There was once a time when a new U.S. Presidential administration would
be granted a “honeymoon period” to set an agenda and establish new policies.
Not so for President Donald Trump. Instead, the knives were being drawn even
before his first inauguration in 2017, and guns were being drawn before his
second term electoral victory in November 2024. But behind these battle lines, Trump’s enemies are losing the war.
Amping
up street protests, marketed under the catch phrase, the “Hands-off movement,” against
Elon Musk and Donald Trump, reveals the false and disingenuous nature of this
protest movement. Consider the protest’s two main focal points:
· DOGE’s ability to effectively identify and eliminate and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
· Trump’s prioritization of deporting criminal elements among the illegal aliens.
Even
counting the addition of illegal aliens over the past four years, it is safe to
say that 80+ percent of American residents support these two policy objectives.
In protest movements it is important to
differentiate between the ringleaders—who want radical change and destruction,
and the rank-and-file sign-carriers—who
get used by the ringleaders to project numbers and the image of popular
support. Lenin called the foot soldier sign-carriers “useful idiots”— people
driven by emotion and easily manipulated. But you can be sure that among the
leaders of “Hands-off” are shrewd America-hating radicals, revolutionaries, and
subversives whose goal is not reforming America, but rather keeping America on
the trajectory of destruction that was the legacy of the power brokers behind
the Obama and Biden Administrations
On
Saturday, April 5, over 1,400 “Hands Off!” supposed
grassroots mass-action protests against Trump, Musk and DOGE were held at
state capitols, federal buildings, congressional offices, Social Security’s
headquarters, parks and city halls throughout the entire country – “anywhere we
can make sure they hear us,” organizers said.
But
again, don’t be fooled. The “Hands Off!” protest, which runs under monickers
such as “the Tesla Takedown,” “ending the billionaire power grab,” is anything
but “grassroots, organic or spontaneous.” We now know that many protestors are paid as
much as $300 a day, with funding sources coming from over
175 NGOs. The different protest groups involved in the Hands-Off
protest campaign have been assisted and coordinated by an organization known as
Indivisible that has received millions of dollars from George Soros’s Open
Society Foundations. Big data analyst and CIA/NSA Contractor/Whistleblower Tony
Seruga asserts that “among the eleven additional groups paying for
protest, demonstrations, and riots, many are linked to foreign bad actors in
countries funding terrorism.”
Additionally,
these protests that decry Trump and Musk’s investigations and audit policies resulting
in federal government worker layoffs and deportations, come on the heels of
Soros-backed federal judges attempting to order injunctions against Trump’s
actions.
We
also know that the mass protests over the April 5 weekend were organized and not
spontaneous. We know this because there was a choreography of bussing to
deliver signs and protesters as well as food, pizza, and even high-tech tents to
keep protestors comfortable.
Because
DOGE has the uncanny ability to follow the digital trails of money and fraud, protest
organizers and funders are naturally concerned that their jig might be up. Regardless, average Americans’ tolerance for protest that
leads to riots and property destruction--the pattern of the George Floyd riots
that ended up destroying over $2 billion in property--is gone. Americans want
law and order and jail time for law-breaking destroyers.
In
assessing Trump’s initiatives including DOGE, it is essential to have context to
understand the merit of the prescriptions and policies.
The
fact is that President Obama increased the national debt more than any prior
administration—adding $9.5 trillion in eight years--putting the United States on
a trajectory of bankruptcy. That trajectory continued and was further
accelerated by massive stimulus and bailout spending driven by the Covid-19
shutdown of the economy during the Trump’s last year of his first term. On an
annual basis, no one poured more gas on the debt growth fire than the Biden
administration, which added $8.5
trillion to the national debt in just four years.
The
credit worthiness of a nation is driven by the Debt-to-GDP ratio. The “AAA”
rating median ratio is 39.3% and the “AA” rating median is 44.7%. Today the
combined U.S. state and federal Debt-to-GDP ratio is 133%, a level that is approaching
Greece’s condition in 2012, when it experienced a sovereign debt crisis that
required 130 billion Euro bailout from the EU.
There
is no one to bailout the United States and the bottom line is that Trump’s
second term began with a stark recognition that America has limited time and policy
choices with its solvency now being at risk. Trump’s initiative to scale back
government agencies and his DOGE initiative of rooting out wasteful and
fraudulent spending combined with tariff initiatives to bring in new revenue and
stimulate American manufacturing should applauded, not protested.
__________________________
Scott
S. Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a
member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His timeless book,
Rediscovering America, has been #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre
for eight weeks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599.
Reach him at scottp@discovery.org
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