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Expect no end, no slowdown, in Trump’s non-stop offensive

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

For those like me who have been around for awhile, the present Trump administration is truly remarkable in that it harks back to an old, very fundamental American military strategy established by Ulysses S. Grant: Never stop your offensive, not for one instant.

When Grant won a battle he didn’t rest on his laurels. He immediately pushed forward because he knew he had his enemy on the run and at its weakest. When he lost a battle (which almost never happened) he didn’t pull back to lick his wounds, but instead re-configured his forces to push forward nonetheless, knowing that his victorious enemy was likely unprepared for a new assault.

Eisenhower demonstrated his understanding of this strategy during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. The Germans had surprised the Allies with their offensive, and thus had successfully pushed a major westward prong splitting Eisenhower’s forces in two. Rather than retreat, however, Eisenhower immediately went on the offensive, moving to pinch off that salient from the north and south and thus trap the German army behind enemy lines. That strategy ended up defeating the Germans, forcing them either to surrender or retreat.

This Trump administration is different from all other Republican presidents, including Trump’s first term, in that he is following this basic winning military strategy, keeping the pressure up continuously, with an enthusiasm that is breath-taking. There has not been one day since the November election that the media has not been filled with new Trump actions. Before his inauguration on January 20th he announced new appointments daily, all radical in many ways because his picks did not routinely come from the Washington crowd. Since his inauguration not one day has gone by without new stories from those radical appointees of new layoffs, firings, contract cancellations, and discoveries of corruption.

Trump is simply not allowing his opponents — the Democrats, the administrative state, and the old propaganda media — to get a breath and organize a well-structured counter-attack. Trump recognizes they have few options, being out of power and lacking in any reasonable policy positions. Why let them get a breath?

Trump 47 is also not like Trump 45 or any other previous Republican president for maybe a century in that he has no loyalty to the old administration state in Washington. He simply wants it gone, or so neutered it will not have the power to hurt Americans for many decades.

Finally, and most important, Trump’s aggression is shaped by his recognition that he won’t win every battle. If anything, this is the most important take-away from what we have been witnessing in the past six weeks. Trump has realized that it will take a long time to turn this lumbering corrupt machine around. There will be setbacks, such as hostile court decisions, or an inability to get real budget cuts passed immediately.

The lion now is roaring, quite loudly
The lion now is roaring, quite loudly.
Photo by Travis Jervey.

His response is simply to push harder, to make those setbacks mere pinpricks in the larger scale of the war.

For example, the court decisions against him have routinely been based on weak legal analysis. All of Trump’s actions have been very carefully crafted to follow the law, or to push it hard without breaking it in any fundamental way. Thus those losses have almost always be thrown out by higher courts upon appeal. Even in the few cases where he has lost in court, the losses have been of limited impact that they are going to be easily countered by his other larger actions.

We all must remember these facts when Trump’s effort does experience setbacks. Defeats are guaranteed to happen, but as long as Trump and his allies never stop pushing forward these defeats will merely be a retreating action by his opponents against his winning campaign.

Keep your eye to the larger target: A significantly smaller and less powerful federal government. It took almost a century to make it the ugly monster that it is today. It will likely take as long to either kill it or tame it into impotence. Freedom-loving Americans must all adopt Trump’s strategy. Don’t give up. Never surrender.

Or as a wise man said this past summer, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

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23 comments

  • Max

    The nation has hope again, and his enemies who thought they were safe from prosecution as the justice department looks the other way and goes after parents in “school board” meetings suddenly realize I that being in office making tens of millions of dollars from a job that pays 160,000 a year has a lot to hide… malfeasance of office becomes obvious and he’s not afraid to prosecute.
    Can you hear the shredders running day and night? As mitt Romney shows them how to hide their assets in offshore accounts in the Caymans? (Joe Biden‘s first speech in office said “he was going after all those offshore accounts”… But they cut him a deal, probably 10% for the big guy)

    They just recently learned that the “auto pen” that The administrative state used to forge Biden’s signature, used on every document throughout his entire time in office is not a legal signature, his only real signature was on the document of not going to run for office again. Every presidential order, law, pardon may be overturned.

    A short related skit, just for fun to make you laugh. 5min
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Ed6a6Oe1Q
    Better than the just canceled half a million study of men’s transsexual menstrual cycles.

  • john hare

    Overconfidence is dangerous. From military history. Fedderman, Custer, Dien Bien Phu, Stalingrad, Savo Island, Kabul 1842…..

  • gary

    I haven’t seen much sign of overconfidence, just focused aggression.

  • Ray Van Dune

    Aggression, and velocity. I was in middle age before I fully understood the value of velocity in development and production… and in battle!

    Of course, nobody does velocity like Elon!

  • Steve Richter

    Trump is turning out to be awful. Ok, closing the border has been great. And freeing the Jan 6 protesters. Empowering Elon is absolutely the best. But all this action and talk of tariffs on any country other than China is off the rails bad. The reason I think Trump wants tariffs so badly is because he knows he has to reduce the deficit, but he is not willing to cut entitlements or raise taxes. So he figures a national sales tax in the form of tariffs will increase revenue and not tar him as a tax increaser.

    The deal to cancel the trial of the corrupt NYC mayor was just sickening. Talk about government employees using government spending as a mutually beneficial slush fund. Supervisory employees of NYC and state are pretty much all thieves. An aggressive trial of the mayor could have exposed and punished that corruption. But Trump had to meddle.

    The UKR war is still unsolved. Trump said he would settle that war quickly. Well he hasn’t. And the settlement that is now likely, where the country is divided and carved up is not good at all. Splitting UKR could easily set the stage for future fighting as regions breakaway and form internal alliances.

    The bullying by Trump of our neighbors is setting the framework of large countries establishing themselves as hegemons in their part of the world. The US gets to control the Americas and even Northern Europe. But then China gets Taiwan and the Pacific ocean down to Australia.

    The Trump cabinet picks have been lame. Pam Bondi? Remember that she named the special prosecutor who went after George Zimmerman. Kash Patel is doing nothing to protect Tesla. The FBI and Justice dept should be bringing domestic terror charges against the individuals and organizations who are attacking Tesla owners and company property. Has RFK been heard from in the last month? And why does Elon and DOGE have to lead the way on government efficiency? That is the job of every dept secretary.

  • MDN

    The modern doctrine for this military strategy was formalized by Col. John Boyd (Whose autobiography “Boyd” is a ripping good read btw) and is known as the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) which stresses rapidly cycling through these actions faster than your opponent is able to react. Thus they are continuously held to REacting to your initiative instead of gaining any initiative of their own.

    I will add two additional observations as to why these recent events will be so enormously effective. First, they are not just targeting government efficiencies, they are targeting the industrialized laundering of government largess that have been perverted to funnel significant funding resources to the Democrat party and their close allies. THAT is coming to a screeching halt as is proven by all the screeching we are hearing.

    Second, the Trump Administration 2.0 via DOGE is able to exploit the power of modern AI to reveal that which has been hiding in plain sight all these years protected by the sheer scale, complexity, compartmentalization, and poorly systematized federal bureaucracy. Before it was a daunting task to attack the beast, but in their previous term they Observed closely how the swamp fought and protected itself, Oriented toward the monetary transactions that distribute the funding, do not lie, and have legal standing in court, Decided that aggregating a central data set from all government systems was the tool they needed, and conceived a plan of Action to access and data mine it to get a handle on what is REALLY going on. And all of the secondary and tertiary benefits that this will yield (mapping out the web of connections, who the organizations and principles are where these are improper, how funding has undoubtedly been pilfered from legitimate programs into who knows what black program slush funds the administration probably doesn’t even know about) are mostly yet to be realized.

    We live in exciting times and I am enjoying the show!

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

  • Zazu

    Trump has given American’s a new hope BUT the lack of action in many areas could rapidly erode that hope. Already, some people are starting to ask if America was played once again. Specifically, I’m referring to the lack of released information (the Epstein client list, the JFK files etc.) that was promised to the public, and I quote: “On day 1”. The massive deportations that were promised are NOT happening, Crooked politicians (BOTH Republicans and Democrats) are not being actively investigated and prosecuted by Bondi and Patel. A very watered down CR spending bill barely passed, kicking the budget can further down the road. The USAID fiasco continues unabated with activist judges openly defying the constitution and the president’s authority where funding is concerned, although DOGE is doing an admirable job in identifying fraud, waste and abuse, BUT AGAIN there are no investigations and prosecutions taking place. Sadly, even I am starting to think that this administration is 75% talk and 25% action. However I will be overjoyed if my complaints are addressed.

  • Andrew M Winter

    Nice One.

    But,….
    Ike had nothing to do with that initial counter Offensive. The Film Patton is remarkably accurate in this regard. The Scene: Bedel Smith is asking his combined commanders, Bradley, Montgomery’s people et al.

    What can you do? Each and every one of them said, “NOTHING” I have NOTHING to work with.

    The he turns to his most disliked general and asks, “George?”

    General PATTON returns, “I can have two divisions on the attack in 24 hours”. Bradley (Karl Malden in his Oscar winning supporting actor role), “I’d give myself a little leeway if I were you George!”
    Patton, “My staff is drawing up the details now Brad.”

    It was PATTON not Ike. Ike was SKREWED and he knew it. PATTON was the savior on that one. It was PATTON that knew the value of constant attack. Again from the film

    “I am not interested in holding onto anything except the ENEMY. We will hold him by the nose and kick him in the ass! We will kick the HELL out him all the time! We will go through him like CRAP through a GOOSE!”

    Ike was a fantastic manager. Ike was the one of the best diplomats of World War Two. That is where he SHINED. He was not the best general the US had. And he never “led” troops in battle, Patton did, In World War One and Two.

  • Andrew M Winter

    correction….. 48 ours. not 24.

  • wayne

    Who crushed the Bonus Army in 1932?

  • James Street

    Have you checked out the National Debt lately? $36 trillion. Biden was printing $3 trillion a year during his presidency to keep all the socialist countries around the world afloat.

    With Trump they’re screwed. That’s what Trudeau was talking about when he was caught on a hot mic. Canada and all its socialist goodies like “free health care” can’t survive on a level playing field.

  • Fen

    It’s good to see such aggression. The GOP is always erring on the side of caution, playing a prevent defended quarters. If we ‘re going to make mistakes (and we will) let’s make them going for the ball

  • Re the charge the Trump hasn’t instantly “fixed” the Ukraine-Russia war: Just yesterday Trump announced (browbeaten) Ukraine has now fully accepted America’s terms to participate in a forthcoming 30-day ceasefire in that war—whereupon Trump immediately resumed intelligence and materiel support for Ukraine. Now it’s Putin’s turn to “fully accept America’s terms” and join the ceasefire—making it real.

    Austin Bay in a piece posted today observes that Trump’s pressure on Putin has now begun, as a U.S. B-52 accompanied by Finnish Air Force fighters launched a JDAM at a Finnish firing range only 100 miles from the Russian frontier. As Bay writes: {quoting…}

    The Barents Observer reported on March 7 that on March 6, Finnish F/A-18 fighters escorted two USAF B-52s into the Arctic Circle on a so-called training mission. A video “by the Finnish Air Force, filmed from cockpit of a F/A-18, shows one of the B-52(s) releasing a guided JDAM bomb. Shortly after, a giant blast can be seen at a designated target in the taiga-forest within the Rovanjarvi firing range.”

    {/unQuote}

    Austen Bay notes that, due to Ukraine’s potent long-range drones, Russia’s strategic bomber force had previously been moved far away from Ukraine: up near the Barent’s Sea and east of the Urals, where they however remain extremely vulnerable to U.S. attack and destruction—if Putin doesn’t quickly also accept the ceasefire. Nothing had to be said publicly by the Trump administration for that message to be communicated loud and clear to Putin.

    We live in interesting times.

  • Related:

    SENATOR MARK KELLY (D) SWORE AN OATH, BUT TO WHAT COUNTRY?

    “And so, I ask again Senator Kelly (D): To what country did you swear an oath to? Maybe a different country when you were 22 years old? The Democrat party today is certainly not the Democrat party of yesterday, they have evolved fully into what they intend for America, its citizens and the world at large. Authoritarian one party rule dominated by a foreign Globalist agenda that must diminish America.”

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/senator-mark-kelly-d-swore-an-oath-but-to-what-country

  • Jeff Wright

    That’s all unfortunate.

    The stereotype was that the GOP was filled with Frank Burns type Hawks and that Democrats thought that–just maybe–demonizing the Russians wasn’t helpful. They would get called commie-symp’s

    Then, the GOP wanted baby Elian in America and Democrats wanted him punted back.

    How the script has flipped.

    Folks questioning each other’s patriotism just isn’t helpful.

  • “Before I continue, I am compelled to recognize that Senator Mark Kelly (D) is a fine man who has served his country honorably and with great sacrifice and this SIGMA3 panel in not intended to denigrate him in any way shape or form.”

    “There is now an ongoing issue between Elon Musk and Senator Mark Kelly regarding the Ukraine situation and it has spilled over onto social media. Elon Musk has called Senator Kelly a “Traitor”. This Ukraine issue is contentious, and the name calling is probably not productive. “

  • Lee S

    A view from the other side of the pond….

    Trump’s tarrifs have angered Europe ( and the UK ), there are not only counter tarrifs going into place, but the movement to boycott US goods in general is popular and has momentum. All this benefits no one.

    The general feeling over the whole of Europe is that the US is no longer a reliable partner in NATO. Perhaps Trump no longer wants the US to be the worlds police, but it will be interesting to see how the industrial military complex over there reacts… The European weapons industry has shifted into overdrive, rubbing their collective hands together… An EU army seems on the cards, and there it talk of the UK and France pooling and re-designing their nuclear deterrent. The whole EU area is talking about getting ready for a NATO without the US.

    I actually have admiration for many things Trump is doing, but his foreign policy risks isolating the US….

    Don’t jump all over me…. I’m just giving a boots on the ground of how it is over here.

  • Edward

    The way Trump spoke during his first campaign, I expected him to do what he is doing now. Instead, his first move was to take the weekend off. What a difference being on the receiving end of weaponized lawfare makes. This time around, it was very obvious that government has taken sides in politics, both on the national and the state levels.

  • pzatchok

    As for NATO.

    Exactly how many of them have met their financial promise to NATO?
    After years of falling short this is the exact thing they need to realize America is not supposed to be their protector but instead is their ally and friend. An equal.

    As for Americas military manufacturers. We will be fine. Just fine. In fact we will be better since we have scaled back or small arms manufacture we now have an excuse to ramp it back up. Which means more ammo for me to buy, even though I mostly reload now

    Any military equipment we buy off of Europe will just have to be purchased by Europe to bring their military spending up to what they promised or just not make the sales.

  • Understanding Trump and what is underway:

    Trump is transactional, Trump is a traditional patriotic American. Trump understands how the game is played and where the corruption and the threat of bankruptcy exists.

    Q: How do you build a building where one already exists?

    A building that is being run corruptly and is no longer sustainable.

    So, you raze what was, restructure and make a stronger foundation and you build the new bigger, better and improved building and run it under new management in the interests of those who live in the building.

    Out of chaos comes order.

    Now we all simply understand Trump what is under way in America and around the world. Long term things will be better.

    A bunch of American radical “progressive” Democrats, EU Socialists and Globalists are upset, and that is exactly the reason for the disruption and the short-term chaos.

    *AMERICA IS UNDER RENOVATION*

  • Renovation, indeed, Cotour …

    There are those who believe we can remedy our societal dysfunctions through the regular order of our existing institutions …

    … when they are as irreversibly corrupted as S.H.I.E.L.D. was in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and require the exposure and disruption that Nick Fury was so reluctant to support in that narrative.

    Before you can renovate a structure to restore its health, the disruption of demolishing the rotten parts is often necessary. Don’t necessarily have to EXIT the structure and take it all down, but some disruption – with its attendant noise, dust, and sweat – must be pursued to resolve the problem.

    “Nice” People who abhor noise, dust, and sweat in their environment, let the rot progress to maintain the status quo.

    Time to not be so “nice”, for our rights – and the well-being of the entire nation; perhaps even the world – are at stake.

  • pzatchok

    To correct our social system we just nee to bring back shame to the children.
    Public punishment for odd behavior is a time honored practice that works wonderfully.

    When someone says they do not care what anyone else thinks they lie. They care a lot but do not want anyone to know. If they have a hard time finding a crowd that will a accept whatever they do they will change.

  • Jeff Wright

    The best thing Trump has done so far
    https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/03/the-epa-is-scrapping-fuel-economy-regs-claiming-it-will-bring-back-us-jobs/

    I want catalytic converters illegal—that and diamond lanes.

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