His reputation for being “Trump’s Holy Warrior” during the 45th president’s first term didn’t stop him. His intimate involvement with the Project 2025 agenda for Trump’s second administration, which became so controversial that the Trump campaign all but disavowed it, didn’t stop him. His espousal of radical ideas about presidential power during his confirmation hearings didn’t stop him. His suspected association with a wildly unpopular federal funding freeze imposed by the agency he was nominated to run didn’t stop him. And Senate Democrats, who belatedly mobilized a boycott of the a committee’s vote endorsing him and then launched an all-night “talk-a-thon” on the Senate floor to warn of his malevolent designs, couldn’t stop him. And so on Thursday night, with a vote along party lines, Russell Vought was confirmed to return to the directorship of the Office of Management and Budget, which he has described as the “nerve center” of the federal government.
With this vote a very important piece of the Trump 2.0 machinery was snapped into place. Other Cabinet-rank appointees are much flashier and get more attention. Their departments do things that everyone understands and that touch millions of lives directly. But far beyond his specific responsibilities (preparing the president’s budget and reviewing fiscal and regulatory decisions), the new OMB director is a particularly valuable player in the planned MAGA transformation of the federal government. To borrow a sports term, Vought is a “glue guy.” He’s the team member who lifts the performance of everyone around him without necessarily being the big star himself. And if you are alarmed by the counter-revolutionary ambitions of this administration, that should make him a very scary man for real.
In the shake-up of the federal government that MAGA folk generally call an assault on the “deep state,” there are three main forces. One is a Congress controlled by a Republican Party that has sworn an unusually intense allegiance to Trump, and that has its own ideological reasons (mostly related to the need to pay for tax cuts and Trump’s mass deportation program, while making at least a stab at reducing deficits and debt) for taking a sledgehammer to the parts of the federal government that don’t involve GOP sacred cows like Social Security and defense. Another is DOGE, Elon Musk’s pseudo-agency that is already wreaking havoc in agency after agency as he applies his radical corporate-takeover methods to the public sector with a giant social-media troll army at his back. Each is engaged in demolition work that could be at least temporarily stopped by federal court orders (in Musk’s case) or by internal wrangling (in Congress’s). Vought’s OMB is the third force that will make sure Trump’s agenda moves forward one way or the other. And he is perfectly equipped to coordinate these disparate forces and supply blows to the bureaucracy if and when others fall short.
The funding freeze showed us what a single memo from OMB can do, spawning nationwide chaos and panic. A more sustained effort, and one that relies less on “pauses” and more on a true freeze of grants and contracts backed up by explicit presidential executive orders, can do a lot more damage to the programs and services that MAGA folk don’t like anyway. Meanwhile OMB can exchange intel with DOGE on potential targets in the bureaucracy, while OMB will definitely guide congressional Republicans as they put together massive budget-reconciliation and appropriations bills.
Vought’s personality, worldview, and experience make him a lot more pivotal than his job description, believe it or not. He’s in sync with deep wellsprings of the conservative infrastructure as a committed Christian nationalist (he is a graduate of the old-school fundamentalist Wheaton College, and is closely associated with the theocratic neo-Calvinist wing of the Southern Baptist Convention), a think-tank veteran (at the Heritage Foundation and his own Center for Renewing America), an heir of the budget-slashing tea-party movement, and as someone who perfectly synthesizes the hardcore right of both the pre-Trump and Trump eras.
Just as importantly, Vought is the one person other than Trump himself who may be able to keep his budget-cutting allies working together and not fighting for power. He spent many years working on Capitol Hill and knows the House GOP culture particularly well; he is a natural ally of the fiscal radicals of the House Freedom Caucus, who currently have enormous influence (and perhaps even control) of 2025 budget decisions thanks to their willingness to blow up things if they don’t get their way. But he’s also as radical as Musk in his antipathy to the deep state, as the chief apostle of the idea the president should have vast powers to usurp congressional spending decisions if he deems it necessary. And unlike Musk and his team of software engineers, he knows every nook and cranny of the enemy territory from his earlier stint at OMB. Vought has also forged personal links with the turbulent tech bro, according to The Wall Street Journal:
“A senior administration official said Vought and Musk have been building a partnership since just after Trump’s victory in November.
“’They share the same passion for making the federal government more efficient and rooting out waste, corruption and fraud, so I think they are very aligned,’ said Wesley Denton, a longtime adviser to former Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) and a Vought friend.”
So Musk may get the headlines, and Mike Johnson and John Thune may flex their muscles on Capitol Hill as they compete to turn Trump’s lawless impulses into laws. But the hand on the wheel may really belong to Russ Vought, who is trusted implicitly by a president who isn’t interested in the details of governing and appreciates a loyal subordinate who shuns the spotlight as much as his radical views allow.
THE BOOK “THE COLDEST WINTER EVER” WAS HOT, I’M NOT GONE HATE…BUT AFTER READING THE BOOK ONLY TWICE, A FUNNY VIBE SPARKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS AS TO WHETHER SISTA SOULJAH HERSELF DIDN’T KNOW WINTER SANTIAGA (CHARACTER IN THE BOOK) OR EVEN IF SHE EVER EXSIST OR NOT SOUNDS CHILDISH… HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YALL THINK.
Please don’t use the phrase “national security street cred” again. Ever.
Thank you.
Great blog, by the way.
Let’s not get hung up on names. I don’t think the Democrats should focus on independents, moderates, liberals or conservatives. They should focus on the average guy who is not rich and not benefiting from Bush’s tax cuts.
John Edwards has it right. There are 2 Americas: the rich and the rest of us. Bush serves the rich. Kerry will serve the rest of us.
The biggest problem for Kerry and the Democrats is the negative advertisements sure to be thrown at us. Every slur, every lie must be answered. And I think we should do this respectfully. The Democrats should not get into the gutter with the Republicans. Such a strategy will eventually show the population the BIG difference between the 2 parties.
attack: massachsetts liberal.
response: when that viet cong who wounded me caught me in his sites he didn’t say “i’ll let this one go becasue he is from massachusetts and a liberal.”
Our enemies don’t make these distinctions and neither should we.
Additionally about the Massachusetts Liberal label, the early history of Massachusetts is U.S. history. John Addams wrote the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. which in turn was used as a pattern for the Constitution of the U.S.
Further to Mark Alan’s excellent defense of the Massachusetts Liberal label , how about this:
“I’m proud to be from the bithplace of such great Americans as Paul Revere, John F. Kennedy, and George Herbert Walker Bush. ”
Paul C, I’m not sure what it says about our society but I think your observations about the guy who would “get the girl” winning our recent presidential elections are on the mark.
Bruce Reed has what I think is a funny and perceptive (albeit self-serving) piece on “wonks and hacks” in the current issue of The Washington Monthly magazine.
Paul C, I’m not sure what it says about our society but I think your observations about the guy who would “get the girl” winning our recent presidential elections are on the mark.
Bruce Reed has what I think is a funny and perceptive piece on “wonks and hacks” in the current issue of The Washington Monthly magazine.
I have been thinking about something similar to what Bob H just said. If you look at the presidential elections of the past 40 or so years, the guy with the most “sex appeal” has won almost every one. Not necessarily the most macho, but the most vital. Look at the match-ups and decide who would play the leading man and “get the girl” at the end of the movie. Reagan or Carter? Reagan or Mondale??? It is almost unbelievable that GHW Bush could find someone with less sex appeal, but he did, in Mike Dukakis. Clinton/Bush and Clinton/Dole were no contest. Al Gore almost pulled it out with “the kiss,” but then he reverted to his wonky form.
Kerry can easily top Bush, if he keeps up certain themes and practices. His war hero record and “I know something about aircraft carriers for real” is a great start. His distainful talk about W as the pretend Marlboro Man helps also. Drip by drip, the portrait of W as the effite son of a priviledged family really helps. Kerry may be rich also, but he served in the war rather than getting Daddy to get him into the guard (forget whether he actually served, all of us who lived through that era know what the deal was with the Guard at that time). Kerry may have gone to an elite prep school, but he played hockey there, while W was a cheerleader. The Harley may have been over-contrived, but the idea is right. Theresa can be a great help, if she continues to gaze at John with pride and admiration, like Nancy Reagan used to do. Laura Bush, who may well be a nice lady, has never really connected with the public.
Vigor and vitality, along with judgment and trustworthyness, should be main themes. We can win with them.
Paul
I just sent in the first of what I hope will be many contributions to the cause. I would like to make a superficial observation:
Before they even open their mouths, Kerry and Edwards present an image of fighting vigor, physical attractiveness, youthfulness, and optimism. Compare the increasingly haggard and drawn president, the angioplastic VP. The Dem team looks the part. Such things are important-look at California!
$100 revolution? Try $100 status quo. Astoundingly, we small donors are not the Party’s mad money ATM machine, where they can rack up the cash while selling access to the big bucks.
You want the money? Start fixing the crooked system.
Link is to the intelletually honest William Saletan’s look at yesterday’s data on the independent and Republican vote:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096505
as a long time kerry supporter, I am very glad to see all of us coalesing around him, times will be rough b4 election day but we must stick together and get these clowns out of the white house. donated before and will donate money and time again.
I think many are seized by the same instinct–the first thing I did this morning was logon and give Kerry my hundred bucks. But I think the challenge should be higher–don’t simply give $100 but give whatever you can, whenever you can. I intend to make another contribution next month, and the month after, etc. so long as I have money to give. Just like paying the gas bill.
I’ve been having a lot of drinks with a lot of different democrats over the last few days, and I don’t know any who aren’t falling in with Kerry now that he is the nominee. Even the Kucinich voters are planning on turning out for Kerry. The only people I’ve spoken to who DON’T plan on voting for Kerry are the Republicans and the black-helicopter new-world-order people. And the latter probably aren’t as numerous in the population as they are in my drinking circles.
I was a Dean supporter who switched to Edwards in the last few weeks. I just donated to the Kerry campaign and will do all that I can to help him win (I also ordered two free bumper stickers from his website). I hope everyone else like me is doing the same.
> Does he need a Sista Souljah moment?
Doesn’t Nader’s candidacy already provide this?
Does he need a Sista Souljah moment? What should be the target?
He should try to neutralize the liberal tagging coming his way soon. Not sure how.
And yes, donate. (click on name.)
On your suggestion, I just donated to the Kerry campaign. Thanks.