Josh First's Blog

Forgive Me for Asking, But I Must

Forgive me, it is not my intention to cast cold water on our collective rejoicing at having President Donald Trump re-elected, again, and thus at having dodged the Democrat Party’s communist anti-democracy bullet aimed at America’s heart. It is true that Trump’s election gives us hope that our constitutional republic is not over. However, I feel like I am watching a repeat of 2016-2017, where highly qualified conservatives and Republicans were mysteriously bypassed, overlooked, left untouched by the then-new Trump Administration.

Well do I recall someone of real stature writing publicly then (2017-2018) about how mystified he was that no one from Team Trump had contacted him about any of the unique policy strengths he had, and how the new Trump Administration seemed disinterested or lost on whatever that policy subject was. Well, here we go again, from where I sit.

Trump supporters have learned to forgive the 2016-2017 lapses, missteps, failures, and missed opportunities as due to Trump’s unfamiliarity with government, his natural reliance upon long established and unreliable DC Beltway insiders, his understandably misplaced trust in deep staters and other bad actors, his misplaced faith in the weight of federal employees’ oaths of office.

We watched as Trump’s first term slowly, painfully, peeled away the mask from the hostile administrative state, generously bankrolled by American taxpayers and yet also so openly at war with us. We grudgingly learned to accept the stolen 2020 election as the cost of doing business within the parameters set for us by the establishment media, the administrative state, and its constellation of hostile non-government organizations, who then worked furiously from outside to undermine the very rules they set.

And so we miraculously prevailed in 2024, and America as founded yet lives again. And now we have earned the right to say openly, can we please not make the same and very avoidable mistakes again, this time around?

While President Trump is indeed appointing strong leaders who are willing to assertively implement his bold vision for a better government that is closely attuned to America’s founding documents and principles, one question has not been addressed: Who exactly is going to carry out these deep reforms?

With few exceptions (the US Dept. of Commerce being one), nearly the entire federal workforce was already openly insubordinate to President Trump the last time around. And there is no reason to believe that these public employees are going to honor their oaths of office this time. And if Trump follows through on the DOGE promise to eliminate entire federal agencies, and greatly streamline those that remain, then which law-abiding civil servants will there be to carry forward in those same agencies the Trump Administration’s policies?

Put another way, if President Trump installs leaders who, for example, change the name of the radicalized US Environmental Protection Agency, then which of the old USEPA staff will there be to then follow through with the systemic change through every artery and vein inside the old institutional body? If the federal government is going to aggressively do compliance checks or reel back in billions of dollars in Biden grants to far-left NGOs, then who exactly is prepared to hit that ground running? The current federal workforce is almost entirely unreliable, and if left in place, each and every federal employee will become a road block of one. The DOGE people had better be collecting lots and lots of names of prospective civil servants who are prepared to take the place of existing staff, who should end up fired from federal service for any number of good reasons.

House cleaning is promised, but who then moves into the house to give it new life?

Ending where this essay began, it is my turn to publicly complain: No one from Team Trump contacted me, way back in 2016-2020, or now, about my unique area of expertise. I am one of a very small handful of truly conservative Republicans nationwide with extensive hands-on experience with public land issues and wildlife habitat/ land conservation policy. No Trump staffer has called to ask my experienced opinion on federal appraisal standards, especially related to eminent domain, or on rights-of-way issues surrounding federal properties. To my knowledge, none of my few colleagues have been contacted, either. I am not looking for a job. I already run a small business that I really enjoy. But I am willing to volunteer my precious time to help shape sound federal policy that is a significant deviation from the longstanding horrible status quo.

President Trump has the loyalty of so many talented and experienced conservatives, any and all of whom will jump at the opportunity to simply help this one man (and his administration) who can save America. This is the big chance to get America back on track.

So why then do I feel like America via President Trump is once again missing easy opportunities to make lasting, good policy? If the right people do not identify and help fix these longstanding horrible policies, the civil servants will keep them in place, and we will miss a once in a lifetime opportunity for good government.