Well. Things are certainly moving fast now. USAID basically shut down. (Except for the shredding, apparently). Almost half of the Department of Education staff laid off by the end of the week. Reports of mass layoffs at the EPA legal offices and elsewhere. (The Trump Administration has ordered agencies to identify hundreds of thousands of potential layoffs, due Thursday, March 13.)

It's all happening fast, as Trump, consistent with my pre-inauguration advice, moves fast and comes on like a wrecking ball.

So far he has the left on the run, and so far the left hasn’t seemed able to coalesce around a plan to respond. Staking all their political capital on defending a pro-terrorist immigrant from deportation seems an odd choice, but that’s the one they seem to be making. Some have suggested that they fear that his deportation will set a precedent that will deter others from coming here to play a similar role. Maybe so, but I don’t think it will play well.

As I write this, Democrats in the Senate are also planning to block the continuing resolution and trigger a government shutdown. This also seems unwise. First, shutting down the government is kind of consistent with Trump’s goals. Second, the “shutdown” that this sort of thing produces is pretty mild: We’ve been through several and nobody noticed, except for a few dumb attention-getting stunts like closing national parks or monuments. Third, a shutdown will give OMB head Russell Vought, a Democrat bête noire, extra power to close things and reallocate funds. It’s easy to lay people off and establish that they’re not essential, when they’re not working anyway because the government is shut down and they’re “nonessential employees.”