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As Theodore Roosevelt was launching his crusade to reform a stagnant government and corrupt business elite in the 1890s, he made it <a href="https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-Quotes?page=84" target=_blank>a test of national strength</a>: “Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world-powers? No. The young giant of the West … looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race.”

Roosevelt’s Progressive movement rescued “Gilded Age” America from a predicament a bit like what the country faces today. Freewheeling capitalism in the 1890s had created gross inequality, rising anger among workers and a swamp of political corruption. Though Roosevelt was a wealthy Republican, he admonished a friend, “I do not believe it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected.” He demanded change.

A recent Rand study argued that Roosevelt’s reform movement was a case study in how “<a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2611-3.html" target=_blank>anticipatory national renewal</a>” can avert decline. “That is precisely the challenge that faces the United States” now, the study argued, when the country’s “competitive position is threatened both from within … and outside.” People across America agree something is wrong, and this year, voting for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> was a way for millions of Americans to register their discontent.

The strongest message on Election Day 2024 was that American voters are fed up with the status quo. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0" target=_blank>Exit polls</a> found that 73 percent of voters were “dissatisfied” or” angry” when asked for their “feeling about the way things are going in the U.S.,” including 35 percent of Democratic voters. President-elect Trump narrowly won the popular vote, but there was an overwhelming bipartisan majority for change.

Yearning for change is one of the engines of American life. It’s what brought many of our families to this country. It powers the relentless innovation of our economy. It’s the quality that people overseas still envy most about the United States, even as they despair at some of the ways we waste our political and economic bounty. Now, like it or not, we’re at one of those American inflection  points where the hunger for movement has overwhelmed inertia — and brought a surprisingly strong election result.

My big worry is that many Trump voters want to move the country backward rather than forward. Exit polls found that 67 percent of them thought America’s best days were “in the past,” whereas 58 percent of Harris voters thought they were “in the future.” Rather than Progressive politics, Trump’s movement represents what might be called <i>Regressivism.</i> Or, as his slogan puts it: “Make America Great Again.”

Trump’s campaign had a dark side. “Revenge and retribution” is the opposite of the hopeful qualities embodied by two previous Republican reformers, Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. If this payback agenda overwhelms Trump’s other goals, it could plunge the United States toward catastrophe.

But Trump also had positive campaign themes. He argued that an interventionist foreign policy had created too many wars and made the world too dangerous. And he criticized a global trading system that has cost too many American jobs. The message could be summed up in a simple phrase: “peace and prosperity.” I’d disagree with many of his critiques, but any sensible person would wish Trump success on those goals.

What’s Trump’s pathway to change? Reading the government-reform manifesto published by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/musk-and-ramaswamy-the-doge-plan-to-reform-government-supreme-court-guidance-end-executive-power-grab-fa51c020" target=_blank>in the Wall Street Journal</a>, a big enemy is “unelected bureaucrats” in the federal government. I was reminded of Roosevelt’s language as he attacked government corruption and machine politics early in his political career.

TR began his political ascendancy by demanding reform of a bloated civil service. As Edmund Morris writes in his masterful biography, “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,” Roosevelt’s goal was to replace the patronage system with equal opportunity, merit-based appointments and a purge of political bias.

One target of TR’s rage was the corrupt New York police establishment. “From top to bottom, the New York police was utterly demoralized … venality and blackmail went hand-in-hand with the basest forms of low ward politics … the policeman, the ward politician, the liquor seller, and the criminal alternately preyed on one another and helped one another to prey on the general public.”

What targets will Musk and Ramaswamy choose as they seek to transform government in the 2020s? Their topline sounds reasonable enough. “The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long,” they write. Certainly, that’s true of the Pentagon, whose acquisition procedures are so cumbersome that they waste much of our swollen defense budget. And in many other agencies, a demoralized federal bureaucracy, saddled with outmoded technology, hobbles along as it tries to do the public’s business.

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If you doubt the case for reform, go back 31 years and read Vice President Al Gore’s preface to his 1993 “<a href="https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/stis1993/npr93a/npr93a.txt" target=_blank>National Performance Review.</a>” He proposed “a government that works for people, cleared of useless bureaucracy and waste and freed from red tape and senseless rules.” The problem is structural, Gore wrote. “Washington is filled with organizations designed for an environment that no longer exists — bureaucracies so big and wasteful they can no longer serve the American people.”

The civil service rules must be changed, Gore insisted. “Employees have virtual lifetime tenure, regardless of their performance. Success offers few rewards; failure, few penalties. And customers are captive; they can’t walk away.” Musk and Ramaswamy make similar arguments, if less elegantly.

The truth is that the federal government does need an overhaul, now as in the 1990s, or the 1890s. But the details matter. Will Trump and his team really have the guts to challenge the Pentagon budget and its massive misspending for legacy weapons systems? Will they prune special tax breaks for big companies and the wealthy, and put the interests of working people first? Or will they chase the perennial bogeymen of waste, fraud and abuse?

What frightens me about Trump’s Regressivism is that it seems likely to hurt those in American life who are most vulnerable. Trump’s big budget cuts will probably be in the civilian departments that provide social services, consumer protections, regulations that protect the little guy. TR truly was a “trustbuster,” taking on the most powerful economic interests and pushing them toward both greater efficiency and social justice. Trump, I fear, will continue to protect the privileges and power of the wealthy elite that supports him.

What will get axed in the Regressive agenda? A good guide is a list compiled by economist <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-administration-budgets-and-programs-for-people-of-limited-means/" target=_blank>Robert Greenstein</a> of the Brookings Institution of programs Trump tried to cut during his first term. He proposed slashing the food stamp program by $200 billion, or 25 to 30 percent, over 10 years. He wanted to cut the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and children’s health insurance by $750 billion to $1 trillion over 10 years. He wanted to chop housing and rental assistance, and cash grants for needy families or children with disabilities.

The list goes on, but you get the point. For all Trump’s talk about appealing to the forgotten middle class, his programs have focused on dismantling social programs, cutting taxes for wealthy people — and gutting the part of the budget that isn’t devoted to sacred-cow defense spending. Critics sometimes describe Trump as a person who lacks empathy for others. His supposed “reform” agenda may turn that characteristic into a guiding principle of national policy.

When Teddy Roosevelt, as a police commissioner in New York City, began to craft his movement for change, he used to make surprise “night patrols” to see how government power was used and abused. “These midnight rambles are great fun,” he wrote. “My whole work brings me in contact with every class of people in New York …. I get a glimpse of the real life of the swarming millions.” Roosevelt’s genius lay in that connection with real people.

We’re now beginning a new era of change — led by Trump but really demanded by the public. The question is whether it will go backward or forward, toward revenge or revitalization. Trump will be our nation’s president. But every citizen must struggle to make this transformation constructive for the country.

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David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “Phantom Orbit.” 

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