Republican Ideal

*Editor’s note: On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Donald Trump -– 45th president of the U.S., who will also get a second number and as the 47th president – has nearly completed naming his future Cabinet and some other key leaders in his administration. The American political system does not have positions such as prime minister, and the head of state directly controls his Cabinet.

The personalities of his future team are important both in the context of the future president’s priorities and as autonomous and self-sufficient political players and government actors who can make their own decisions especially in the fields that are not considered key for Trump personally. The president appoints Cabinet members subject to confirmation by the Senate, which usually votes to confirm except on rare occasions. The senators act on the premise that the president, as the head of the executive branch, has the right to have his own team. And, despite the fact that the president can fire members of his Cabinet, they usually can forge their own policy in their respective offices because not even the most competent and versatile president can track all the activities of his Cabinet.

The most interesting and, perhaps, the boldest and potentially most transformative figures Trump has nominated are concentrated in the social sphere, as well as around the task of reorganizing and optimizing the bureaucratic machine, with the objective of reducing state regulation and spending.

Curiously, Trump personally focused on different issues his three presidential campaigns: curbing illegal immigration and intensifying the extraction of fossil fuels in the United States. Nonetheless, he’s ready to untie the hands of those who supported him during the election, realizing that his victory in many ways rests on the votes of those people who may not have agreed on everything but still voted for Trump, hoping for a grand-scale revision and restructuring of decades-old government social policy.

For example, Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services -– and the very fact Trump nominated Kennedy for such an important position is a measure of the president-elect’s political bravery, in a good way. Before the election, people expected Trump to nominate a more centrist-oriented ad candidate for this position, someone known to the medical community, and figured Trump would give Kennedy a different job that would not require Senate confirmation. With Kennedy’s appointment to a full-fledged secretary position and considering his personal views, we can expect he will critically and genuinely reevaluate a range of “sacred cows” of the modern medical expert community, not just spout rhetoric about doing so. For example, he will reevaluate the undisputed benefit (and, in some cases, mandatory nature) of vaccines available on the market and the absence of any proven side effects; fluoridation of drinking water; and the food composition problem. Kennedy has raised these questions for many years and, by and large, became famous not because he is a descendant of the Kennedy political clan, but because he has discussed these questions for years despite that they were politically inconvenient for him and his reputation.

Trump has also created a Department of Government Efficiency, led by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk and Ramaswamy, who have managed competitive businesses, plan to launch the department in an effort to optimize the bureaucratic machine. Most likely, they will be doing the same kind of work that the Hoover Commission did in the 1940s and 1950s, which in many ways managed to put the U.S. back on the free market track after Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency and the World War II mobilization economy.

However, looming in the shadows is Russell Vought, the future director of the Office of Management and Budget. A political intellectual and a convinced ideologue in favor of restricting the Democratic influence in American politics that led to expanded federal government at the cost of individual freedom, he can boast real experience working in the government and understands how to bolster the executive branch and diminish the role of the federal government.

With people like these, we can count on the U.S. to take a significant step on the path back to the Republican ideal of the American state, Founding Fathers-esque — where the role of the federal government is restricted, and the ability of citizens to act under free market conditions is unrestricted.