The will of the people?
When Elon Musk giddily brandished a chainsaw on stage at CPAC, the annual conservative confab, he claimed he was just having a little fun regarding the buzz cut he was applying to the federal bureaucracy. The problem with those who opposed him, he said, was that they lacked "a sense of humor." Surely the thousands of competent federal employees fired (so far) without cause or due process must have found Musk's chainsaw antics to be side-splittingly entertaining.
In an earlier joint Oval Office interview with President Trump, Musk insisted that his budget cutting was simply an act of democracy, an effort to "restore the will of the people." This is what voters demanded, he implied, when they elected Trump by an exceedingly slim margin.
Well actually Elon (and Donald). . . no. The "will of the people" is decidedly not in favor of Musk's chainsaw-wielding rampage. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that a significant majority of Americans have deep reservations about how Musk is going about his business. Even among conservatives, Congressional Republicans are facing strong pushback against Musk's shenanigans. For example, Georgia Republican congressman Rich McCormack held a town hall recently in a district that gave Trump two-thirds of the vote, and he was virtually booed off the stage when he tried to defend the budget cuts. As Musk's slash-and-burn "restoration of the will of the people" moves forward, wreaking havoc on vital services, federal jobs, and federal funding for local and regional projects, more public resistance and bipartisan outcry can be expected. (A few people and projects in Vermont are already feeling the sting.)
In fact, if exit polls are to be trusted, the will of the people in electing Trump was overwhelmingly defined by two topics – boosting the economy (specifically reducing inflation) and bringing immigration under control. (Abortion, foreign policy, and several other bullet points typically followed, but nowhere to be found was a call to eviscerate the federal budget.) So how is the administration faring so far on the big two issues?
Start with immigration. "On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out," Trump declared before entering office. In fact, the pace of deportation in the first month of his presidency has lagged well behind the deportation pace of the Biden administration, or the pace of the Obama administration, for that matter. Team Trump is now scrambling to increase deportations in quest of the dubious distinction of becoming America's GOAT president when it comes to deportation.
One tactic, for example, that Trump has taken to grease the slide out of the country has been to remove so-called Temporary Protected Status for a half million Haitians living legally (and non-criminally) in the U.S. That leaves many or most of those Haitians destined to be shipped back to a country where, according to U.N. statistics, gang violence is at an all-time high and sexual abuse against children is skyrocketing. But sorry, Haitians – those are your problems, not America's.
Stephen Miller, the poisonously truculent advisor to Trump on immigration, proclaimed that Trump had cut illegal border crossings by 95% shortly after taking office. Sounds spectacular, but like so much information that comes from Trumpworld, it isn't to be believed. Illegal border crossings might be down 95% percent (or close to it) compared with the number of crossings a year ago, but that reduction is due largely to the impact of a Biden executive order on border security issued last June. Border apprehensions had already plummeted more than 80% between December 2023 and December 2024, before Trump took office.
Bottom line: Trump's efforts to control immigration, at least so far, can be characterized by missed targets and taking credit where credit is not due.
The electoral will of the people was perhaps even more focused on the economy. "When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one," Trump boasted on the campaign trail. In another campaign rally, he declared, "I will very quickly deflate."
Well, let's see how the Deflater in Chief has done so far. Egg prices, which, seem to have become an inflationary benchmark, are through the roof. Trump promised that energy prices would drop significantly, thanks to his "drill, baby, drill" policies. Yet since he has taken office, the average price of gas at the pump is up four cents a gallon. According to the most recent Consumer Price Index, the inflation rate has risen to 3%, a slight uptick from the 2.9% rate for 2024. That's not debilitating – yet – but prices are certainly not deflating. And with the impact of various tariff wars looming, many leading economists are bracing for an inflationary surge.
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration is hedging its inflation-busting claims. "it's going to take time," conceded Vice President J.D. Vance, who famously did a campaign stunt condemning soaring egg prices, while, comically, standing in front of a grocery shelf where the troublesome price he decried was contradicted by the price on the shelf. Meanwhile consumer sentiment has taken a 10% nosedive in February, according to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index – a decline that far exceeded the expectations of economists.
Persistent inflation and unhappy consumers – not exactly what the will of the people demanded. Nor is it anything that can be restored with puerile displays of chainsaw flamboyance.
Oliver lives in Warren.
