There’s a historic myth that George Washington rejected an offer to serve as king instead of president for leading the foundling nation to military victory in the Revolutionary War.
Historians trace the falsehood to the army’s disgruntlement with the Continental Congress delaying payment of a pay raise, leading to murmurs of a monarchy and crowning Washington, their beloved commander, as king.
Washington dismissed the matter as idle talk and counseled patience as the original 13 states dealt with forming a central government. His troops eventually received their owed wages. Washington resigned his military commission and returned happily to his home in Mount Vernon.
Later, he joined delegates from the states in presiding over the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — a gathering that birthed the U.S. Constitution and unanimously elected Washington the first president of the newborn republic.
His inaugural address included these self-effacing words: “The magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me … could not but overwhelm with despondence one who … ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”
Now, more than two centuries later, the federal government is headed for an uncertain future under a president who admits to no shortcomings and sees himself as a sainted strongman called to rescue a corrupted system.
Just days into his second presidency, Donald Trump disrupted the system with a blizzard of executive orders.
They range from purging officials who investigated or prosecuted him during his interregnum, to urging thousands of government workers to resign for seven months of severance pay, to revoking government diversity training and hiring programs, to imposing stiff tariffs on imports from the country’s three largest trading partners.
These are just a few of the immediate effects from Trump’s return to the White House. Chaos best describes the messiness.
Ever confident, Trump assures Americans all will work out for their betterment when the smoke clears. He will cut down the size of government, rid it of waste and decay, and do what no other contemporary president has achieved — save billions of dollars for tax cuts to individuals and corporations.
But will he? Congress and the courts may have something to say about just how far Trump can go.
For example, a federal judge promptly blocked Trump’s executive order freezing scores of federal funding initiatives approved by Congress before he took office. This president then recalled the order until he can figure out another way to stop money flowing to programs he dislikes.
Two other presidential orders — ending birthright citizenship and banning transgender people from the military — face legal challenges that may ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
So far there’s soft resistance to Trump’s showcase campaign promise of mass deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants, starting with those accused or convicted of crimes. Critics of his promise acknowledge they misread public concern over illegal immigration from the southern border during the 2024 election campaign.
The Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba will soon serve as a deportation facility. But planeloads of migrants have already been sent back to Mexico, Colombia and Central American countries. Some 350,000 Venezuelans who received temporary legal refuge in the U.S. since 2023 due to the strife in their country will be returned. Haitians and other migrants from violence-beset countries with similar temporary protection could face the same fate.
Trump’s variable orders have raised eyebrows about the influence of his top adviser, Elon Musk, on the federal government sweep out. He may be the world’s richest man, but doubters say he is ill-equipped to understand the reasons for and the functions of the myriad federal services and programs to support the American public.
Trump and Musk have made no secret of their ambitions to downsize government across the board, ridding it of regulators and regulations that get in the way of the president’s “Golden Age” dream.
Still, the ifs are large.