“Double, double toil and trouble.”

 

Not sure why the sudden troubling and unconstrained disruption engendered by President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Russ Vought, and team remind me of that line from Macbeth, but it does.

 

No doubt the following goaded my subconscious:

 

Federal payments for grants and contracts frozen then quickly unfrozen; a trade war with Columbia announced then rescinded; 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada announced then paused; USPS parcel deliveries from China and Hong Kong suspended then reinstated – all causing panic followed by fearful, temporary relief.

 

Most federal workers told they should consider a buyout or face layoffs; FBI agents told they may face terminations or reassignments based on their officially assigned involvement in January 6 riot prosecutions; freezing all foreign assistance for 90 days and dissolving USAID; Elon Musk teams accessing and locking federal officials out of sensitive computer systems – all causing more anxiety and fear.

 

Threats to invade Canada, Panama, and Greenland; the declaration of national emergencies for oil production and southern border immigration; reclassifying federal civil service workers as political hires and issuing a freeze on hiring; a freeze on all pending and proposed federal regulations pending review; proposals to terminate FEMA and the Department of Education; an order ending birthright citizenship; ordering health agencies to suspend all communications; sending troops to secure the borders; suspending all refugee programs; renaming the Gulf of Mexico; canceling asylum for Afghans who supported the U.S. military; creating a migrant detention center at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba; halting off-shore leasing for wind farms; rescinding 78 Biden executive orders in one fell swoop; abruptly ending DEI programs in the military and government agencies – all causing consternation and/or confusion.

 

In his first two weeks, the President issued 53 executive orders with new ones announced daily since then. He has denied knowing anything in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook but much of what he has proposed comes right out of it.

 

One of Project 2025’s key authors, Russ Vought, is Trump’s incoming head of the Office of Management and Budget which drives many of the President’s initiatives. Vought’s prescription in Project 2025 for a strong, conservative president called for “boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will.” Fear and anxiety can do that.

 

Many, especially his ardent supporters, expected Trump to be disruptive during his second term. But few expected this sudden, startling onslaught of disruption. And none predicted the firestorm a seemingly all-powerful Elon Musk would spark as the “temporary government employee” in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency.

 

We can only pray all this disruption does not descend into chaos.

 

Crawford is the author of “A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives.”