WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s first week in office was a blitz of executive orders and memos — some important, others little more than press releases on fancy letterhead — designed to overwhelm Washington into submission.
Week Two showed Trump’s maximalist second-term instincts were more than just an opening bid. It revealed how the president many Americans grew to distrust in his first term — erratic, chaotic, and unwilling or unable to focus on uniting the country rather than dividing it — has not really gone anywhere.
The result, for many Trump critics in Washington, is a mixture of fear and hope: worries about purges of the civil service and unconstitutional power grabs by Trump, mixed with a revival of hopes that Democrats can fight a president who’s proven more effective at blustering than taking real action.
Trump, who has largely shed the illusion he is not attempting to implement large chunks of the Project 2025 agenda, is unlikely to let up. And…
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