Trump promised great things on Day One.
And he certainly delivered.
The past 24 hours have been a flurry of patriotic fervor, celebration, and executive orders – all of which were a definitive “you’re OUT” to the Obama-Biden era of big government, political persecutions, and woke ideological takeover.
History will not be kind to the departing Bidens, whose final official acts included pardoning his whole family, Anthony Fauci, and congressional members of the J6 committee. Trump’s second inaugural address condemned the Democrats’ entire project of the last quarter-century (he’s already rescinded almost 80 Biden administration orders).
But yesterday didn’t seem to me like a 2017 repeat. There was very little “American carnage” talk… and plenty of hope, determination, and an eagerness to get to work.
And work he did.
Trump broke FDR’s 1937 record for most executive orders signed on Day One – and he’s still going.
Most important to Catholics?
Trump’s executive order ending the weaponization of the Department of Justice. For the past four years, Americans have been intimidated, their homes raided, their resources frozen, and their taxes audited at the direction of a corrupt DOJ under Merrick Garland. No more.
Trump also directed the incoming Attorney General to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for actions like the Richmond memo that targeted traditional Catholics, the outrageous raid on Mark Houck and his family, the imprisonment of peaceful protestors under the FACE Act, and the labeling of parents as “domestic terrorists.” Remedying these injustices is what we fought for.
We also have decisive action on the southern border. Trump has declared a national emergency. Immediately, the port of entry in El Paso was closed. The vicious cartels will now be treated as the foreign terrorist organizations that they are. Immigrants must remain in Mexico again as they wait to go through the legal process of applying.
The deportation of violent criminals who are here illegally is already underway. President Trump has unleashed border czar Tom Homan and ICE on the human smugglers who in the last three years were allowed to traffic and “lose” 300,000 children over the borders and into our cities.
We pray that the enforcement of immigration laws will bring every one of those kids to safety soon.
There’s so much more – and new orders are breaking by the hour:
- Protecting free speech against censorship and government collusion with Big Tech
- Establishing in our federal government that there are only two sexes: male and female
- Abolishing all DEI programs in every federal agency
- Eliminating radical social policies in our military
- Freezing all federal employee hiring and rules-making
We’ll keep you updated as more news breaks, but this is an amazing start.
And I wanted to remind you: this is what we fought for.
The nightmare of the last four years is over. By the grace of God, we have been given an opportunity that’s been vanishingly rare in modern history: to bring our Catholic political worldview to the halls of the world’s greatest power.
Trump won because of the Catholic vote.
And as we celebrate his first actions, we also hope they are only the beginning of restoring an America that defends life, true freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.
An America where Christ’s “truth is marching on” in the hearts of her people.
Like Trump, CatholicVote is hitting the ground running – this is an opportunity we cannot waste.
Let’s do this.
Josh Mercer
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what we hope will happen on Day Two.
21 pro-lifers are in federal prison, unjustly sentenced to years of incarceration under the FACE Act for peaceful protests at abortion mills. Let us pray (and urge our president) to remember them, grant them pardons, and bring them home to their families.