Trump 2.0 and the 'Opposition' Plot
Trump's Latest Interviews Show a More Focused Figure
In this community, we sometimes get lost in the minutiae of deep politics to inform our speculations, and why shouldn’t we? After all, it is the deep politics that are truly of consequence, but sometimes you can have just as profound a realization while watching CNN, MSNBC, or reading TIME magazine, as long as you look at it through the proper lens.
I noticed two things worthy of commentary while consuming mainstream media last week:
First, I noticed that Donald Trump’s rhetoric has become much more focused, sincere, and unrestricted compared to the more vague, contextless, party-pleasing statements of yore. I believe there are several reasons for this shift in tone, and I will lay them out in this piece.
The second thing I observed might have been a brief glimpse at one of the deep state’s primary strategies against Trump 2.0, and they may have even given away the moment they intend to greenlight the op.
Trump 2.0
Since his victory, Donald Trump has given two lengthy interviews: an hour-long sit-down with Kristen Welker from Meet the Press and then another printed interview with Time Magazine after it named him “Person of the Year.”
To me, the version of Trump we’ve seen since the election is different in several respects from the one we saw during the campaign trail. This highlights not only something important about Trump himself, but also about campaign rhetoric in general and how politicians have to be selective about what they say.
Anyone who follows politics is likely aware of how a politician will make all kinds of promises on the campaign trail, only to do the opposite once they’re in office. With Trump, it’s not so much that he doesn’t keep his promises; it’s that he’s dropped the safe, cookie-cutter responses and is now willing and able to say whatever he really feels without fear of who will be offended or what vote he might lose.
Obviously, a huge part of Donald Trump’s appeal is that he tends to let his authentic self show far more than any other politician. Despite this, there have still been significant limits on what he can and cannot say, particularly when it comes to campaigning, as you have to play into the party politics to maximize voters, and you also have to appease the donor class, the Miriam Adelsons of the world. Now, for the first time ever, he has nothing to lose by being completely forthright with his thoughts. There’s no third election that he has to keep people happy for; he is now able to do what he wants and to be who he is.
When it comes to almost every other politician in the United States, their public stance on most things—whether it’s abortion or transgenderism or whatever—must conform to the party standards to win elections. This causes Democrats and Republicans to remain perpetually at each other's throats, bickering over issues that are much less consequential compared to the rampant overspending, wars, surveillance, general overreach, and the overwhelming corruption in Washington D.C.
Donald Trump is not completely different in this regard; he had to toe the line to a certain extent, but compared to the rest of the country’s politicians, he tends to deviate from the party orthodoxy quite frequently. This was the case with his support for exceptions on the abortion issue; where Republicans have typically supported a hardline stance, Trump was more flexible and believed in a compromise.
This supports my opinion that Trump is actually more concerned with cleansing institutions, uniting the country, and getting people’s attention on the deeper issues rather than traditional party politics. In fact, Trump could be considered the ultimate RINO, as he is leveraging the Republican party to gain access to the Oval Office and implement these changes, a strategy he could never have implemented within the Democrat party.
One example that came up recently, in light of the first trans person being elected to Congress, was his stance on men using the women’s bathroom.
You may remember the campaign ad attacking Kamala for supporting tax-payer-funded sex-change surgery for prisoners and illegal immigrants. The ad’s tagline was something like, “Kamala’s for they/them; President Trump is for you,” which the media immediately seized upon as some kind of promise of a transgender holocaust.
Just to analyze why I think this ad works so well, it’s not that Donald Trump is going to be discriminatory against trans people—he’s already expressed his opinions on the issue in the past, as we’ll show you—it’s successful because it highlights how glaringly out of touch the Democratic Party is with the priorities of the American people.
It's important to note that the majority of the public holds diverse opinions about the allocation of their tax dollars. Sex-change surgeries for inmates, I would wager, are not on the top of most Americans’ lists of immediate concerns.
Similarly, it’s actually a small amount of individuals across the country who will ever be affected by trans people using different bathrooms, though it has been sensationalized by the Daily Wire and the conservative outrage mob. Donald Trump expressed how marginal an issue this was to him back in 2016 during an interview on the Today Show.
It really shouldn’t surprise people. Trump spent his entire adult life as a Manhattan billionaire and has also worked in showbiz for many years; he’s likely no stranger to the variety of personalities and lifestyles that exist in that city and that echelon of society.
Of course, in 2016, it hadn’t become as pervasive an issue as it is today. It was only once it was forced into areas that would predictably cause strife, like women’s sports and the pushing of puberty blockers for children, that it became such a heated topic. Despite this, Trump sees himself as their (people with gender dysphoria) president too, and he wants the country to not be torn apart by the wedges that have intentionally been driven into the population for decades.
The trans issue is one of the primary things keeping the country from coming together. Bad actors, bots, and dubious content creators will focus on this and other more divisive aspects of the culture war, but Trump isn’t here to win the culture war, he is here to make America great again by eliminating a deeply entrenched Deep State. That is the signal; the rest is noise that can be resolved once we’ve taken back the country.
During his TIME Person of the Year interview, they asked Trump about this ad. I presume that during the campaign his response would have been different, but as I said, this is a more cogent, focused, unrestricted, and sincere version of Trump.
First, this is how TIME started the piece:
For 97 years, the editors of TIME have been picking the Person of the Year: the individual who, for better or for worse, did the most to shape the world and the headlines over the past 12 months. In many years, that choice is a difficult one. In 2024, it was not. — (TIME. December 12, 2024)
You can’t really argue with that, but at the same time, it’s pretty much been that way since 2016.
Anyway, the interviewer brought up the trans issue, and his answer was a callback to 2016, when he admitted that he really didn’t care about what restroom somebody uses, and that the issue is fueling greater social strife than it merits when compared to the more pressing problems our nation faces.
Interviewer: Can I shift to the transgender issue? Obviously, sort of a major issue during the campaign. In 2016, you said that transgender people could use whatever bathroom they chose. Do you still feel that way?
Trump: I don’t want to get into the bathroom issue. Because it's a very small number of people we're talking about, and it's ripped apart our country, so they'll have to settle whatever the law finally agrees.
Interviewer: But on that note, there’s a big fight on this in Congress now. The incoming trans member from Delaware, Sarah McBride, says we should all be focused on more important issues. Do you agree?
Trump: I do agree with that. On that – absolutely. As I was saying, it's a small number of people. — (TIME December 12, 2024)
What he's saying is: look, this issue of transgender people using the bathroom is not an issue we should be focused on right now. I tend to agree.
I know many conservatives and Trump supporters disagree with this and think we should focus on it. It is particularly noteworthy that Trump chose not to exploit the polarization or demagogue this issue; having won the presidency, he knows that a partisan issue is secondary to the real fight.
When the people know what’s really been going on in this country, in the NGO world, and in the big social-engineering think tanks over the last however many decades, they may be more open to delving into the history of transgenderism and coming to a more grounded understanding, but for now, the focus needs to be on justice and transparency.
Another thing that I found very interesting in this article is that there's a lot of confusion among some people on what exactly Trump wants in Ukraine.
There’s the uniparty position, a position held pretty much across the board by Democrats and also by many Republicans, including those who claim to be MAGA and some who will even hold consequential positions in this administration. These same individuals have criticized Joe Biden for not doing more and sooner, including allowing American long-range missiles to be used to bomb Russia, which is what Joe Biden announced he would do just about three weeks ago.
The reporter asked Trump the following:
Interviewer: … the question people want to know is, Would you abandon Ukraine?
Trump: And I had a meeting recently with a group of people from the government, where they come in and brief me, and I'm not speaking out of turn, the numbers of dead soldiers that have been killed in the last month are numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians, and the amounts are fairly equal. You know, I know they like to say they weren't, but they're fairly equal, but the numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering. It's crazy what's taking place. It's crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. — (TIME. December 12, 2024)
You shouldn’t need me to tell you that there are going to be plenty of folks in both parties who disagree with Trump when he says, “I don't want to escalate this war.”
Unlike most politicians, he’s speaking from the heart here in terms of what he really thinks, not what he thinks the party wants to hear. It’s really not something you almost ever see in government, especially regarding war.
When you hear a politician talk about war, you hear words like “strategic” or “national security,” but when Trump talks about war, more than anyone else in government, he focuses on reality—the spilling of blood and the ending of life—and he is almost completely unique in that regard.
One of the intriguing aspects of his adamant opposition to the use of long-range missiles in Ukraine is the stark contrast to the positions held by many of his cabinet members and supporters.
Just a couple of weeks ago, General Keith Kellogg was on Fox News, and here's what he had to say on that same issue:
This is the perspective of the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which includes Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, and other individuals whom Trump has selected. Their criticism of the Biden policy toward Ukraine is not that we have become excessively involved, that we have escalated the conflict, or that we have taken too many risks; rather, they argue that we have not done enough.
For Trump to just come out and say, “It’s crazy to send missiles into Russia,” is indicative of a split in ideologies between him and the people who will be working for him. This is why I say we need to wait to see what the Trump administration is actually going to be and not judge based on the people he's choosing, because this seems to me like a very engaged Trump, a very determined Trump, intent on making sure that this time, his policies are the ones that end up shaping his administration, and not people who are supposed to work for him.
On that note, TIME also asked Trump about the conflict in Israel and Gaza:
Interviewer: You mentioned the Palestinian people. In your first term, your administration put forward the most comprehensive plan for a two-state solution in a long time. Do you still support that plan?
Trump: I support a plan of peace, and it can take different forms.
Interviewer: Do you still support a two-state solution?
Trump: I support whatever solution we can do to get peace. There are other ideas other than two states, but I support whatever, whatever is necessary to get not just peace, but a lasting peace.
Interviewer: The real question at the heart of this, sir, is, do you want to get a two-state deal done, outlined in your Peace to Prosperity deal that you put forward, or are you willing to let Israel annex the West Bank?
Trump: So what I want is a deal where there's going to be peace and where the killing stops.
Interviewer: Would you tell Israel—that Bibi tried last time and you stopped him. Would you do it again this time?
Trump: We’ll see what happens. Yeah, I did. I stopped him.
Almost no one in U.S. politics—barring Thomas Massie and a few former members of Congress who AIPAC had replaced—would DARE say anything like this! These are not the words of a man who is primarily focused on his career in Washington D.C.; this is somebody who is genuinely seeking a peaceful resolution and speaking from the heart.
Then came the real highlight of the interview.
Interviewer: Do you trust Netanyahu?
Trump: I don’t trust anybody.
Amazing. Good luck finding anyone else in D.C. with the balls it takes to make such a statement.
During his appearance on "Meet the Press," Trump was questioned about whether he would permit RFK Jr. to ban pediatric vaccines or to otherwise formalize the notion that vaccines cause autism; here was his response:
IInstead of making some vague, provocative statement, he gave a very reasonable and nondogmatic response, where he neither agrees with RFK’s assessment nor detracts from it; he approaches the topic in a very rational and even scientific way.
And then there was a rather dramatic example of a rhetoric shift when pressed about the mass deportations.
This is the same man who we’ve been assured hates all brown people, saying that he would like to make a deal with Democrats to do something for the Dreamers in yet another example of his willingness to transcend the endless partisan bickering that has basically enfeebled the Federal government.
A healthy U.S. government is never going to be purely Democrat or Republican; there will always be partisan differences, and instead of perpetually feeding the divide—which ensures no progress is ever made— what Trump is offering is a respectful exchange of ideas and discussion to come to reasonable and fair compromises on certain issues. As is, the power players in the ruling class depend on these divides and hardline stances on certain issues to ensure the two sides never come together against a common enemy.
This shift angered some of his supporters, but again, in my opinion, it shows an ability on his part to be more nuanced and granular with his responses than he was on the campaign trail.
His current engagement, focus, and eloquence impress me the most, as this was his biggest weakness in his first term. Trump 1.0 spent a lot of time and energy fighting allegations and focusing on vendettas rather than policy—and who could blame him in the wake of Russiagate and everything else they threw at him—but this time around he seems much more focused on the plan, and almost unmoved by the noise.
It is my hope that these interviews and the deftness with which he handled them are indicative of how a second term will focus on the tasks and objectives at hand while gracefully sidestepping the media’s attempts to make him seem like some kind of monster.
The Opposition
In 2017, after Trump was elected and inaugurated, the term “resistance” began to pop up in headlines and quickly became part of the corporate media’s lexicon to describe anyone—from celebrity to NGO grunt—who was actively participating in the blob’s shadow network of tax-exempt entities and activist groups.
At the time, there were many well-meaning liberals who were radicalized by the ceaseless barrage of anti-Trump propaganda and then sucked into this movement because they genuinely thought that they were fighting against autocracy.
The Resistance was billed as a natural reaction to Trump, but it was anything but; it was birthed from the NGO world, and everything about it was organized. While I cannot definitively prove that intelligence agencies coordinated this through various cutouts, I am confident that they did.
There was even something called “The Comedy Resistance” (TCR), which I had personal connections to at the time, as I was living with one of its members in Hollywood. My roommate was working as a video editor for TCR alongside its founders: the filmmaker Stephen Kessler and Heather Podesta (former wife of Tony Podesta, and one of the most successful lobbyists in D.C.), so you could say that I had a front-row seat to this organization’s creation.
They roped in comedians like Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Mike Birbiglia, Patton Oswalt, Reggie Watts, etc. to do a variety of tasks and photo ops, including registering voters at comedy shows and handing out masks during COVID.
TCR was an extension of the Resistance movement; it was a project of the left-of-center Action Network, a “tool” that was a creation of Ivy League globalist John Kerry and Brian Young in 2012. The Action Network was behind many of the protests against the policies of Trump’s 1st term, from the Dakota Access Pipeline to the Women’s March, utilizing an infrastructure of apps and websites to communicate and coordinate on the fly.
In the wake of Trump’s resounding victory in November, many people were wondering, ‘Where’s the resistance?’
The answer is that many of the individuals caught up in the Resistance current after 2016 are burnt out from the last 8 years and are tuning out of politics altogether, but those who cannot afford to relent—the Norm Isens and Marc Elias’s of the world—have formed what is colloquially referred to now as “the Opposition.”
Here, written by Marc Elias for the Democracy Docket, is his explanation and rally cry for the Opposition:
After the 2016 election, a movement that would become known as “the resistance” quickly emerged to protest and confront Donald Trump and his incoming administration. The hope was that if Trump could simply be held back — resisted — for four years, politics would go back to normal. A Democrat would retake the White House and Trump would be viewed as an unfortunate aberration.
Since Election Day, it has become fashionable in some circles to view that effort as a failure. The cynics dismiss the grassroots energy and the hard work of so many as naïve and without impact…
As we head towards January, it is our turn to use this period productively. Hoping that Trump fails is not a plan. We must develop and foster new movements, structures, tactics, platforms and leaders to oppose Trump and articulate a positive vision.
…In most democratic political systems, this is referred to as the opposition. Rather than a resistance, the concept of an opposition is more comprehensive and durable. It recognizes that there are no time limits to the effort.
In some systems the opposition entails an entire shadow government, in others it focuses on specific platforms. I don’t pretend to know the exact form it will take in this country, but I do know some of the basic principles it must embrace.
While those who were part of #Resistance for shallow reasons, like posting Instagram pictures of themselves at marches or tweeting hot takes at milquetoast Republicans can simply walk away or dissociate from politics, operatives like Marc Elias, Norm Isen, and even David Brock cannot retreat.
So they’ve dug their heels in and are warming up the wretched engine they’ve used to shape consensus by force for years—an engine comprised of some of the most notable and effective NGOs, like Media Matters, ADL, SPLC, and the ACLU.
The primary pundits championing these institutions and keeping the opposition’s morale up are Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. I watch their programs to understand what “the opposition” is plotting because, while they won’t always come out and say it, they do drop a lot of hints and have on guests who are deeply involved in that world.
Most recently, I had the pleasure of observing a conversation between Maddow and the executive president of the ACLU, Anthony Romero.
The segment included a variety of insightful nuggets.
Of course, Romero opens by stating they’ve dedicated “thousands of staff hours studying project 2025,” which this audience should know has absolutely nothing to do with a second Trump term and was concocted by the deep state think tank Heritage Foundation. Despite this, the mockingbirds regularly invoke its name as if it were the roadmap to Trump’s second term, which it is not.
The Heritage Foundation is part of the very same spook-infested NGO network that the ACLU is part of. We outlined the Tax-Exempt aspect of the deep state in previous pieces like Men Behind the Curtain - Part 7, the George Soros Shadow Network, and Charitable Devils: Philanthropy and the Deep State; suffice to say that this network of institutions is the most important tools in the shadow government’s kit. If the big international think tanks are the head of the monstrosity, then the NGO’s are the arms and legs that facilitate the will of the brain.
In the interview, Romero says, “clearly we can’t run the same playbook,” but that “litigation is going to be key,” essentially saying that they do intend to use lawfare against Trump 2.0.
But the most tantalizing nugget from this segment was something he referred to as the “firewall for freedom,” and he even teased that the mass protests many expected from a Trump victory are not only still on the table, but are being saved for an opportune time:
Romero: Local governments, you know, the State Attorneys General, the Governors, the Mayors… we have this whole plan around a firewall for freedom we call it. This idea that these local officials can really play a role in stopping the worst of the Government abuses.
Maddow: How so?
Romero: Well, for instance, when they try to deport all these hundreds of thousands, up to a million people, that’s an operation that they have the legal power to do, to do the raids, but the logistics. And they’re going to need Mayors and Governors or city council to give them access to police officers or not. Jails. Where are you going to house these folks?
And so part of what we’re doing is we’re preparing executive orders and we are organizing our folks to put pressures on elected officials so they don’t roll over. They should severe these relationships that they have with the Federal Government on immigration enforcement
He’s saying that the NGO blob is “organizing its folks” to put pressure on elected officials, encouraging them to make prisons and jails off limits and to even come up with ways to “pardon illegal immigrants.”
Maddow also mentioned the fact that there haven’t been large-scale protests like the ones in 2016, to which both Maddow and Romero assured their viewers that the “American people”—or in this case the “rent-a-riot” personnel—are “marshaling their resources” for the most opportune time: when they begin the mass deportations.
If Romero's words hold true, we can only surmise that they have been strategizing and establishing the necessary infrastructure to execute large-scale protests, similar to their actions in 2016 and 2020.
I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise coming from a man who started his career at the Rockefeller Foundation, then the Ford Foundation, and eventually landed at the ACLU. He has some pretty intense deep-state credentials, so when a man like this makes a grand statement about strategy, I tend to listen.
Unsurprisingly, they are going to try to leverage the fact that portions of the public still think that Trump is a bigot in their attempts to thwart his policies. When you consider this and Trump's answers in the TIME and Meet the Press interviews, it was almost as if they were trying to get something out of him to fuel outrage, whether it was a misrepresented statement about transpeople in bathrooms or deporting Dreamers. If that was indeed an intention, then Trump brilliantly sidestepped the pitfalls that were set up for him.
So, all that’s left is to see how Trump 2.0 will handle the opposition’s plotting. The first 12 months are going to be the most consequential, and we are less than a month away from when the real fight begins.
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Thanks Ryan I really appreciate the effort at research you put into your work.
I believe Trump has set the example for citizen/public servant. There should be no class of Politicians. Come from the private sector, serve a short period of time and then go back into the private sector. Although this is just one small portion of the problems we face in the world run by DS Rat Bastards in the Cabal.
The noise coming from the likes for Rachel Madcow et.al. will be cleared out as we move into the justice phase which should begin very soon.
We are living in Biblical times. I tell everyone who asks to 1) Get right with the Lord. It is a great time to be alive,
God Wins!
God Bless!!!
Interesting article. This Romero guy is clearly planning on running more of the same Alinsky plays. People like him are the true enemies of America. Personally, with the mandate that Trump received from the people, I am not willing to put up with just more of the same, more putting up with the efforts to derail justice. I want things accomplished, even if Trump has to take drastic measures, like using a State of Emergency. We should not have to put up with Romero's coalition of anti-American AG's and mayors trying to prevent mass deportations.
And I guess I am behind on the learning curve when it comes to the Heritage Foundation. I was not aware they were deep state. I did know that their Project 2025 was not Trump's agenda, and was used by the left to smear his actual plans.
As for Ukraine, I doubt Trump will ever tell the American people that it is a proxy state of the CIA, and that Russia was doing America a favor by its military operation. The enemy is within our own government.