Trump, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Donald Trump addresses a crowd of his supporters at Turning Point USA in Arizona, looking smug. Photo courtesy of Garge Skidmore.
To most Trump-supporting Republicans, my Safari browsing history seems perfectly unsuspicious. My many visits to the White House and Project 2025 webpages might well conceal my liberal political inclinations and the fact that I watched absolutely none of the 2025 Inauguration. But in truth, I spent most of my time alternating between those sites trying to understand America’s new, perilous trajectory. Examining the primary text of President Trump’s Executive Orders while trying to situate them within the architecture of Project 2025 is a daunting task because each mandate is dense, stylistically mimicking formal legislation. They are carefully planned, provisioned, and executed to mimic the work of Congress, minus the hallmark consensus-building and parliamentary voting procedures therein. Trump’s sweeping anti-DEIJ, anti-immigration, and overtly anti-LGBTQ executive orders outline a startling, sinister reality of American governance concentrated almost exclusively in the White House. In this manner, several ironies, contradictions, and peculiarities emerge that are worthy of note.
The executive orders coming out of the White House are like none seen in Trump’s previous term. They are carefully constructed and effectively mimic formal policy that you might see out of the House or Senate. In that way, it is not difficult to see how Trump’s perspective on the White House has changed since he was last in office four years ago. It makes sense, perhaps, that given Trump’s new affinity for “Government Efficiency”—evidenced well in his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—he would seek to subvert the legislative branch by imbuing his executive office with a flavor of “proper policy.” Hesitant readers should look to the executive orders mandating a hiring freeze, eliminating birthright citizenship, repealing previous Biden-era protections, and attacking immigration as further evidence of Trump’s wave of new “executive legislations.” Trump’s overreach, underpinned by his new efficiency agenda, ironically creates more inefficiencies than shortcuts. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s attempts to stretch the powers of the executive branch might well break the functioning of his new administration.
In response to the dozens of new mandates from the White House, states, district courts, and corporations are pushing back in a substantial show of force. Attorneys general from 22 different states filed suit against the Trump administration in response to his executive order revoking birthright citizenship. A federal judge temporarily blocked the same executive order, citing its overt unconstitutionality. In total, the pushback amounted to a total of six lawsuits backed by expectant mothers and activist organizations which will be heard in District Court in a matter of weeks. Other executive orders by the Trump administration seeking to accelerate deportations are also facing mounting legal challenges across numerous states. Even legal scholars and litigators are preparing to defend sanctuary cities and city government personnel against possible federal prosecution for protecting undocumented immigrants. Major companies like Apple, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs are doubling down on diversity practices despite Trump’s attacks on DEI programs throughout the federal government. In aggregate, the immediate pushback against Trump’s executive agenda is unsurprising: the radical changes he has put forth are incompatible with certain institutionalized ideologies—like diversity and citizenship—that endure outside of, and often despite, partisan polarization.
The most dramatic of Trump’s new measures came on January 28 when the White House announced a freeze on all federal funding programs. Trillions of dollars in funding to small businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, social welfare programs, and other public assistance programs ceased, despite the vague information that accompanied the executive order. Only a few hours later, Federal Judge Loren Ali Khan of Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the order citing blatant violations of the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act that governs the executive branch’s rule-making powers. Coupled with the millions of dollars of payouts that the Trump Administration is offering for federal employees to resign, it is simply impossible—even for the most heartened Trump affiliate—to categorize his actions under the guise of “efficiency.” These attacks against the operations of the federal government grew from rapid-fire executive decisions to sweeping cuts to fundamental government operations. Their increasing severity catalyzes an era of unprecedented peril in the nation, one characterized by political and social uncertainty. Most significantly, however, it undermines the credibility of the Trump administration as it aims to implement strict cutbacks over the coming weeks.
In his quest to preserve the “essential” elements of the federal government and rid bureaucratic offices of any “wasteful” programs, Trump is entering a dangerous new territory that defies the logic established in his first week in office. Eliminating DEI government programs, attacking sanctuary cities, cutting down birthright citizenship, and slashing federal funding are questionable attempts at government efficiency. They disguise a more startling reality where, as Trump chips away at federal programs and officials, the quest for efficiency will give way to complete immobility. Birthright citizenship was the first domino; Trump overextended his executive powers by ignoring obvious constitutional guardrails, namely the Fourteenth Amendment. His attacks on federal DEI programs are deterring major companies from engaging with Trump’s economic agenda and inspiring fear among smaller companies who hesitate to fall in line. President Trump’s early executive orders are ideologically bound to essentialism, or the paring down of US involvement in programs and initiatives deemed invaluable and excessive to the new administration. Regardless of whether Trump’s new orders go unchallenged, they establish an early identity for his new federal administration characterized by volatility, isolationism, and anti-pluralism.
Beyond a chaotic first week in office, a staggering irony looms above Trump’s new administration. The President is following the Project 2025 playbook and ascribing to the type of conservatism it stands for without writing a single page. Authored by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 sells itself as a tool to make the “White House more friendly to the right” and realize “a vision of conservative success.” People familiar with Trump’s unsophisticated rhetoric will find it hard to place these platitudes within even his most abrasive tirades against the left. I strongly doubt that Trump has read more than a small handful of the 887 pages of the Project 2025 Playbook (available for free online). Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation maintain a death grip on Trump’s new administration because of the carefully deliberated policy solutions outlined within. It simultaneously influences and is affected by Trump’s continuing political trajectory, proving critical in the early days of his second term. The Trump we knew in his first term is, without a doubt, substantially different from the Trump of today. The difference? The four years he took to negotiate substantial swaths of Project 2025 into his platform while claiming his ignorance of it all the same. On the contrary, political experts have already drawn explicit parallels between Trump’s new executive orders and Project 2025. They have also highlighted the numerous positions—CIA director, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Federal Communications Commission to name a few—occupied now by Project 2025 authors and contributors alike.
How, then, are we to interpret the first weeks of Trump’s second term? Is there a single word that can describe the drastic changes to which the nation is bearing witness? Perhaps: gluttony. Trump is becoming insatiable as he returns to his position in the Oval Office. Desperate to deliver on his blind allegiance to Project 2025, his government efficiency agenda, and the promises of his campaign, Trump is rolling out policies that are ill-founded at best and grossly authoritarian at worst. He is consuming every non-essential federal program in sight, laying waste to American constitutional mandates, and pushing his executive powers right up against their breaking points. The quasi-dictator we thought we knew has transformed into the swelling insect from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. After the next four years, our new president might never be able to leave the White House. Not because he wants to stay or is unwilling to go. But because we will lack the federal personnel to squeeze him through the front doors.
Ishaan Barrett (CC ‘26) is a junior studying urban studies, political science, and Arabic language and culture. He can be reached at i.barrett@columbia.edu.
Edited by Lukas Roybal and Adam Kinder.