God moves in mysterious ways, the old saying goes, and that certainly appears to be true in the case of President Donald Trump.
Even the establishment media appears to be picking up on the fact that Trump losing in 2020 was a blessing in disguise in terms of how effective he is as a leader in his second term.
While appearing on “Washington Week with The Atlantic,” New York Times White House correspondent Tyler Pager said, “I think part of it is because he now knows how government works. I think one of the things that really is the key difference between the first term and the second term is that he had a whole host of characters in the government that were trying to stymie his efforts to radically change the country.”
“He’s now surrounded by people that are fully supportive of his agenda and helping him do it,” Pager added.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, noted, “It seems a very effective thing to do, to be president, and then be off for four years and plan the next four years, it turns out in retrospect.”
“Yeah, he is way more effective at accomplishing his agenda with having that time out of office because those — a lot of his aides, Russ Vought, those sorts of officials, spent their time out of government planning for this term,” Pager responded.
“And so what they’ve done is an onslaught of executive orders in the first six months that accomplished a lot of their goals very quickly because he knew what they wanted to do,” he said.
ABC’s @jonkarl: “He’s making more radical changes to the country and to the White House that’ll live well beyond his presidency.”
NYT’s @tylerpager: “He is way more effective at accomplishing his agenda with having that time out of office.”
🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/ZMWkpggZJ3
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 12, 2025
Did Trump’s four years out of office make him more effective now?
ABC’s Jonathan Karl argued that the changes that Trump is making to the physical White House during his second term are emblematic of a difference from his first term.
“I mean, he’s planning to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom,” Karl said. “That house there, that White House, is 55,000 square feet. So, I mean, he’s got big plans. And to me, it says something about the difference between the first presidency and the second Trump presidency.”
He contended that Trump’s first term “kind of came and went.”
“It was rather ephemeral in its effects on the country, despite what we all saw at the time. This one — he’s making more radical changes to the country and to the White House that’ll live well beyond his presidency.”
All this calls to mind for me, particularly as a West Point graduate and former Army officer, some scenes from the 1970 movie “Patton.” Trump is a great admirer of World War II Gen. George S. Patton.
In the film and in real life, Patton enjoys some early success during World War II with exploits in North Africa and Sicily, but his emotions get the better of him, and he slaps two soldiers he comes across in a field hospital who are suffering from battle fatigue, which we would call post-traumatic stress today. Patton saw it as cowardice and not to be tolerated among his ranks.
His superior, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, ordered Patton to apologize to the two soldiers and the medical personnel who witnessed the incidents, and then ultimately removed the warhorse from command for almost a year.
By July 1944, the 58-year-old Patton was like a highly taut spring. “I was obsessed with the belief the war would end before I got into it,” he wrote.
The actor George C. Scott — who won the Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Patton — told an aide in the film during this period of being sidelined, “The last great opportunity of a lifetime, an entire world at war, and I’m left out of it? God will not permit this to happen! I am going to be allowed to fulfill my destiny. His will be done.”
In late July 1944, Eisenhower placed Patton in charge of the Third Army, and the rest was history, as the general’s forces led the breakout from Normandy and across Europe, and ultimately into the heart of Nazi Germany.
In a letter to the Third Army following the Nazi surrender in May 1945, Patton recounted some of his soldiers’ astounding accomplishments.
“During the 281 days of incessant and victorious combat, your penetrations have advanced farther in less time than any other army in history,” he wrote. “You have liberated or conquered more than 82,000 square miles of territory, including 1,500 cities and towns, and some 12,000 inhabited places.”
At the end of the film “Patton,” Gen. Omar Bradley, portrayed by Karl Malden, told the general that he should go back and thank the soldiers he slapped for doing more than perhaps anyone else to propel the war leader to success.
It created such a drive in Patton that if he ever got the opportunity to command troops again, he was determined to make the most of it.
In his autobiography, “War As I Knew It,” Patton lamented the end of World War II. “It is rather sad to me to think my last opportunity for earning my pay has passed,” he wrote. “At least, I have done my best as God gave me the chance.”
Similarly, Trump seems determined to make the most of his second term.
Trump: “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission together.” pic.twitter.com/pijOl39nfy
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) November 6, 2024
On election night in November, he said, “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission together.”
“The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fight that I have in my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me.”
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