adminThe past year has been a nonstop scramble as Democratic leaders race to erase an agenda they never accepted in the first place, trying to unwind massive policy changes President Trump pushed through on day one of his second term. On January 20, 2025, the administration launched a sweeping set of rescissions and rollbacks aimed at reversing the previous administration’s priorities, and Washington has been in a furious tug-of-war ever since.
Those rollbacks were concrete and consequential: the White House moved quickly to end official DEI programs across the federal government and to withdraw the United States from international climate commitments, among other actions that struck at the heart of the left’s agenda. These were not symbolic gestures; they were intentional policy reversals meant to restore competence and priorities to the executive branch.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats have not responded with debate so much as with demands for reversal. Over the last two weeks of shutdown negotiations, leading House and Senate Democrats have insisted that rehiring career civil servants and overturning recent reductions-in-force be a nonnegotiable condition to reopen the government. This is a political play intended to hamstring an administration that dared to put efficiency and accountability ahead of bureaucratic inertia.
The White House in turn has used the budget standoff to press its advantage, initiating reductions-in-force that have seen thousands of federal employees terminated as part of what it calls a streamlining effort. Those actions have further intensified partisan warfare in Congress and on the courts, with unions and Democratic attorneys-general rushing into litigation while Democrats leverage public outrage as a bargaining chip.
Make no mistake: this is not governance, it is partisan warfare by another name. When one side treats policy as property to be seized and the other treats every decision as an existential threat to be reversed, the American people lose the stability they deserve and the republic’s institutions suffer. Conservatives argue that permanent change requires winning elections and implementing laws, not relying on ephemeral injunctions or episodic reversals orchestrated by whichever party controls the levers this week.
Democrats’ reflex to undo rather than debate reveals their contempt for democratic normalcy: instead of offering better policy, they attempt to erase disagreement by bureaucratic fiat and courtroom theater. That approach corrodes trust, discourages public servants from doing difficult work, and turns every executive action into a political boomerang the next time control flips. If the country is to have durable reforms, they must be built through legislation and public persuasion, not perpetual administrative whiplash.
The takeaway is obvious to anyone who pays attention: this cycle of reversal benefits no one but the permanent political class. Americans deserve steady leadership, not a carousel of policy driven by whoever holds the presidency on a given January morning. Those who believe in limited government and accountable public service should insist that changes be defended on principle, legislated where possible, and preserved through civic engagement rather than left to the mercy of partisan undoing.
