Thomas Paine saw “The American Crisis” of his day and warned of “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.” Perhaps he glimpsed the Republican summer soldiers and sunshine patriots in the crisis of our day, who have shrunk indeed. They have confirmed Russell Vought, one of the architects of the Project 2025 blueprint for dismantling American democracy, for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought, Trump’s first term budget director and overseer of the Republican platform committee during the recent campaign observed, “what we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them” (Shapiro and Vegh, 2024). Those pockets of independence include the FBI, the CIA, and Inspectors General, the last charged with investigating fraud, ethics violations, and conflicts of interest in the federal government. Trump has already fired seventeen IGs. In goose-step with Elon Musk, Vought will oversee the purging of any federal government employee determined by them to be disloyal—not to the country, not to the Constitution, but to the person of Donald Trump.
Trump claimed during the campaign to know nothing of Project 2025, a 900 page document largely based on Viktor Orban’s takeover of Hungary. He lied, of course. It is unclear whether Trump, Musk, and Vought’s vision for America is merely the pseudo-democracy in Hungary or, in their fondest dream, Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia. Meanwhile the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of the GOP bow and scrape.
J. Shapiro and Z. Vegh. “The Orbanisation of America: Hungary’s Lessons for Donald Trump,” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 9, 2024. https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-orbanisation-of-america-hungarys-lessons-for-donald-trump/
John Rachal's Blog
Thomas Paine Speaks to Us
February 8, 2025 at 5:47 pm (Political Commentary)
Thomas Paine saw “The American Crisis” of his day and warned of “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.” Perhaps he glimpsed the Republican summer soldiers and sunshine patriots in the crisis of our day, who have shrunk indeed. They have confirmed Russell Vought, one of the architects of the Project 2025 blueprint for dismantling American democracy, for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought, Trump’s first term budget director and overseer of the Republican platform committee during the recent campaign observed, “what we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them” (Shapiro and Vegh, 2024). Those pockets of independence include the FBI, the CIA, and Inspectors General, the last charged with investigating fraud, ethics violations, and conflicts of interest in the federal government. Trump has already fired seventeen IGs. In goose-step with Elon Musk, Vought will oversee the purging of any federal government employee determined by them to be disloyal—not to the country, not to the Constitution, but to the person of Donald Trump.
Trump claimed during the campaign to know nothing of Project 2025, a 900 page document largely based on Viktor Orban’s takeover of Hungary. He lied, of course. It is unclear whether Trump, Musk, and Vought’s vision for America is merely the pseudo-democracy in Hungary or, in their fondest dream, Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia. Meanwhile the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots of the GOP bow and scrape.
J. Shapiro and Z. Vegh. “The Orbanisation of America: Hungary’s Lessons for Donald Trump,” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 9, 2024. https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-orbanisation-of-america-hungarys-lessons-for-donald-trump/
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