A specter haunts a second Trump administration, and it has a name: Boris Johnson.

As everyone knows, Johnson and his party won a historic landslide in 2019—the Tories’ largest in 70 years—and then squandered their mandate so badly that they were wiped out in the recent election, leaving them with the fewest seats in their long history. While Johnson did finally come through on his Brexit promise, he sold out to the conventional (meaning leftist) positions of the British establishment on everything from climate change, immigration, and the National Health Service to housing, education, and on and on.

Donald Trump is highly unlikely to sell out like Boris Johnson, but there are two hazards in the way. First, Congress, the courts, and the bureaucracy will throw up countless roadblocks, not to mention subterfuges likely more outrageous than the Russia Hoax of 2016. This is to be expected, and Dan McCarthy lays out a strong grand strategy to overcome this predictable opposition.

The second hazard to Trump is not getting off to a fast start. One of the mistakes of the Reagan Administration, which got off to a comparatively fast start and achieved significant results, was that it was in retrospect neither bold enough nor fast enough. At the end of Reagan’s two terms, one senior official reflected that the failure to achieve some of their fundamental goals of shrinking government, cutting the welfare state, and reining in regulatory power was that “it required…boldness, more boldness, ever more boldness. This boldness was not always in evidence.”

If Trump wants to put the forces of the swamp on the defensive, he should forget the foolish 100-Day agenda borne of the FDR/New Deal myth. Instead, he needs to start with some bold hammer blows on the afternoon of Inauguration Day. Here’s a list:

1. Suspend all U.S. funding for the United Nations until the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees is disbanded entirely. It has been proven that UNRWA became a willing adjunct to Hamas in Gaza. Demand not only that UNRWA be disbanded, but that all of its personnel be dismissed and banned from further U.N. employment. It would be nice just to cut off all U.S. funding for the U.N. permanently, but the carrot of resumed funding might be leveraged for further deserved humiliations of that insidious organization. (Relatedly, the U.S. may have limited power to restrict or discipline U.N. diplomats, but we ought to find out which U.N. personnel abuse their immunity to flout New York parking rules, and direct U.S. Marshals to tow their cars to the most remote impound lot in Trenton, New Jersey, for non-payment of parking tickets.

2. Following Saul Alinsky’s advice to make your opponents live by their own rules, install an acting deputy secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education on January 20 (I nominate Edward Blum). Have that person send a “Dear Colleague” letter (similar to how the Obama and Biden Administrations imposed their Title IX rules) to the president and trustees of every college and university in the country, declaring that it is the legal opinion of the Trump Administration that every DEI program is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act—and that all federal funds, including student loans, will be suspended until all DEI offices are closed and their personnel dismissed, not merely transferred to some renamed job. Within weeks, even Democrats will want to abolish the Department of Education.

3. Indict Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine for conspiracy and obstruction of justice for “her” role in getting age requirements dropped for transgender surgery on minors and for interfering with the litigation currently under way regarding these rules. (See the astounding and devastating amicus brief of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, which has the goods on Levine’s unethical—and likely unlawful—interventions.)

4. Pardon every person convicted of a non-violent charge (like trespassing) for January 6. Send federal marshals to spring anyone still in federal prison, and add to that insult a declaration that we need to free up federal prison space for the violent leftists who trash our cities and flout our laws. Also, if Trump pardons himself (a totally reasonable thing for him to do), he should issue a pardon to Joe Biden on the grounds that we shouldn’t hound our ex-presidents, and maybe pardon Hunter Biden on the grounds that Joe Biden has made him suffer enough. The Left’s confusion will be delicious.

5. Given the recent disclosure that Israel’s battle plans against Iran were immediately leaked by someone in our national security apparatus, along with the scandal of the State Department’s pro-Iran envoy Robert Malley sharing classified material with Iran, the Senate and House (assuming they are in Republican hands) should move immediately to revive their committees on internal security and conduct intensive investigations into Iranian penetration in or influence over our government. The Left will howl “McCarthyism!” but, like racism, that overused charge has lost its sting. The original Mandate for Leadership the Heritage Foundation produced in 1980 called for reviving the committees on internal security that had been abolished in the 1970s in our fit of anger at the CIA and FBI—and maybe it isn’t too late to add them to Project 2025 just to give the Left one more source of heartburn.

6. With excessive government spending having reached a crisis point, President Trump ought to mount a frontal challenge to our profligate Congress by impounding some spending in defiance of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. (For starters, I nominate impounding State Department grants for gender studies programs in Pakistan—such a grant was actually included in the COVID relief bill of 2021.) This act opened the floodgates to uncontrolled spending and expanded the power of the administrative state; even Congress itself seldom complies with its terms. There is a good argument that the act is unconstitutional, but even if Trump loses a legal fight it is a great public battle to pick and a means of putting Congress on the defensive.

7. Civil service reform allowing for the wholesale dismissal of career Democrats in government will take time, but in the meantime Trump ought to have his cabinet officials determine who is useless or obstructive and order them to work from home. Then cut off their email and access to department computer servers the next day. Paying destructive bureaucrats to do nothing is indeed a waste—but in the larger scheme it’s a bargain for taxpayers. Send out some of these de facto pink slips to a handful of bureaucrats on January 20.

8. Announce a new executive policy of quotas for hosting migrants granted asylum requiring that Martha’s Vineyard, Marin County, and similar environs take in their “fair share.” Cut off any federal funds for any jurisdiction that refuses to comply or implements roadblocks. So many houses on Martha’s Vineyard are vacant so much of the year—it’s time to put them to humanitarian use. All Trump needs to do is threaten such actions and support for a border wall will soar.

Just think of the apoplexy this will cause at the New York Times. There won’t be enough stuffed animals and grief counselors to cope with the anguish. And then on Day Two…