Here is the bottom line: the Washington bureaucracies can be controlled only by one thing, which is budget cuts. Nothing else scares them. Nothing else affects them. Only if their budgets are cut will their influence be reduced. We will see with Trump's proposed budgets over the next four years how committed he is to changing the system. If there are no budget cuts, there is not going to be a revolution. It's very simple.
Ultimately, the Speaker of the House is the dominant figure with respect to the federal budget. The United States Constitution places initiatory authority over the budget in the House of Representatives. I realize that the federal government pays no attention to this any longer, but legally speaking, this is the law. Paul Ryan is the guy who holds the hammer. The Ways and Means committee is where the decisions ought to be made with respect to the federal budget. But, these days, the President of the United States is the one who submits the budget.
Donald Trump knows nothing about this. Hardly anybody knows much about this. This will determine what happens over the next four years. If he takes a blue pencil to the budget, he really can change the country. He is not going to do it. The powers that be, which this week are not yet the powers that be, will make sure that the flow of information to his desk is tightly controlled. Garbage in, garbage out. Keynesianism in, Keynesianism out.
All I know is that the alt-right, the conservative (both the neo and the paleo) the liberal and all their respective sub groups have guns pointed at me along with other real lovers of liberty. We'll see the anti-war left all of a sudden wake up, the Oath Keepers go to sleep, further eroding of whatever is left of the 4th Amendment, more police militarization and so-called "anti-war" "libertarians" make excuses for Trump's eventual Middle East warmongering to name a few.
In other words, 76 percent of eligible voters did not vote for the winner.
If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest? But no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too.South Park called it long ago in "Smug Alert".
Abandoned and without any party willing to champion their interests, people cling to candidates who, at the very least, are willing to represent their moral convictions. The smug style resents them for it, and they resent the smug in turn.