Jeffrey Blehar writes for National Review Online about the significance of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Janus was the Roman god of transitions — of beginnings and endings, whether they be seasons, wars, periods of religious observation, or the like. His transitional aspect was usually represented physically by doors and bridges, his essential duality anthropomorphized as a man with two faces and aspects. What one opens, the other closes. What one starts, the other stops. What one gives with his hand, the other takes away with his other hand.
In other words, Janus is quite a bit like Trump in all his uneasy complexity. How fitting then that in January — the month named after this double-aspected god of transitions — we have received the full force of Trumpism in both its good and dismaying aspects, with imperfectly balanced asymmetry. Just step back for a moment and ponder all the moves Trump made last week if you wish to become dizzy.
Trump’s executive order eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion and affirmative action in the federal government last week was a truly sweeping victory that promises to have a longer-term effect on our diseased civic culture. But in political terms, Trump’s decisive action — and yes, effective theater — on the border crisis has been even more important: The immediate resumption of deportations and ICE raids (about which more below) has galvanized his supporters, infuriated his enemies, and received a firm nod of approval from the minority voters who defected from the Democratic coalition to put him in office. I cheered particularly emphatically when Trump revoked the security clearances of all 49 living signatories to the infamous “Hunter Biden Letter,” men and women who prostituted their professional reputations for short-term political gain and in so doing severely damaged the public credibility of the American intelligence community.
