Russell Vought, the man, the myth, the legend, the man running the White House Office of Management and Budget. Vought is the man behind the firings across the federal government, he is the person slashing budgets and I believe, we have found the most dangerous man in America.
Vought was one of the only people to carry over from the first Trump administration. He started on as deputy OMB director but was later promoted to director in 2019, according to the BBC. Vought picked up an interesting hobby when he was out of office; he helped write Project 2025.
Vought’s work is featured heavily across the 900 page document laying out a new ultra conservative vision for the government. Vought was the man who wrote the chapter on the expansion of executive power and used it to advocate for the conservative theory known as the unitary executive theory.
Vought is using the power of OMB to slash the federal workforce, cut agency funding and, in my opinion, erode whatever trust is left in federal institutions. The federal shutdown has just added more fuel to this already red hot fire.
Vought is using the shutdown as an excuse to continue slashing the federal workforce. He is attempting to lay off an additional 4,200 federal employees as a result of the shutdown. He has also closed off funding for major infrastructure projects around New York City.
The danger of Vought does not simply come from his bland mannerisms, or his former writings but from his fervent beliefs and the banality of his post as OMB director. The office has historically been seen as so boring that they never included it or its staff in the show “West Wing” except for some passing mentions, nor was it ever mentioned in “House of Cards.”
People do not know what OMB does or how vast its power really is. Vought will continue his campaign of slashing institutions that people rely on and that have served his country well. Vought will continue to push his crackpot theory that President Donald Trump has the ultimate authority in the nation and that any president is untouchable.
As anyone who has ever attended a middle school civics course should know, our constitution is built to provide checks and balances between the three branches of government. Vought believes that the executive branch is the most powerful of all three and should wield its power as if it were a king or dictator.
We do not elect a king in this nation, we elect a president. The title of president was chosen specifically for its boring nature. When the frames of the constitution chose title it was because it meant to show how little importance the office held in the grand scheme of the nation.
Vought’s danger comes from his ability to hide in his somewhat boring and innocuous office and in his reinforcing of Trump’s most dangerous delusions; the ones where he thinks he is a king and he can rule this nation however he sees fit.
