Something profound is occurring, unnoticed. On July 1, 2025, the first day of the second half of this year, as we begin the year-long countdown to celebrate our semi-quincentennial and enter the second phase of our history, House Speaker Mike Johnson released a statement:
The House will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump’s full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay.
Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first.
This bill is President Trump’s agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump’s desk in time for Independence Day.
“This bill is President Trump’s agenda.” Johnson acknowledged surrender and the developing political reality remaining operative for the remainder of America’s history. The legislature is now under executive control. With Congress somewhat paralyzed, executive orders currently exceed legislative output by orders of magnitude. This isn’t a congressional bill, but a presidential one, something furthest from the Founders’ design.
In the final days of 2024, Johnson’s prospects appeared grim for reelection as House Speaker. The House GOP’s RINO and MAGA wings were unhappy with him, fallout from Trump’s hostile takeover of the party. Half-lives of Republican speakers occupying that radioactive seat have lately been brief. Kevin McCarthy, after requiring five days and 15 ballots to be elected Speaker, lasted 269 days. Johnson appeared about to suffer a similar fate. After McCarthy’s ouster, House Republicans were speakerless for over three weeks until Johnson finally prevailed. With the deck stacked against him, late last year Johnson made the Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage over the holidays, emerging with Trump’s endorsement. The order issued forth from Palm Beach: Johnson will be reelected speaker and party infighting will cease. Trump undoubtedly extracted concessions from Johnson in exchange.
The only Washington job worse than Johnson’s is the House Minority Leader position. Poor Hakeem Jeffries now commands one faction of a party engaged in a cat fight between traditionalists and young Turks. The party that fired on Fort Sumter now turns its guns inward. The world’s oldest political party, founded to support slavery and evict Native Americans from their homelands, won’t survive long into America’s second act. Only last month Jeffries managed to evict DNC Vice Chair David Hogg. Now he faces the Mamdani curse, the second coming of the Sanders curse. Republicans are unifying while Democrats implode. Michael Goodwin points out Mamdani represents Democrats’ perfection of the art of losing by winning.
Article. I.
Section. 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
The above is quickly becoming a quaint relic. Legislation is increasingly drafted in the White House, then sent across town to be rubber-stamped. This evolving reality represents the initial phase of rolling back Washington's endemic corruption. We are transitioning from legislation drafted by lobbyists, often covertly, with passage 
required before we learn the contents. That Pelosian construct is dead. Democrats, desperate for relevance, are now relegated to pathetic, performative displays of stalling, including demanding Senate clerks read the entire bill into the record before the vote. They’ve gone from concealing legislative contents to revealing them; not because this accomplishes anything, but because it’s all they can think of.
Congressional input into legislative composition is by no means over. But the process of shifting that burden to the executive has begun. This will intensify as Republican presidents acquire larger congressional majorities. As wholesale deportations accumulate, and urban residents increasingly flee blue for red states, after the 2030 census we’re looking at permanent GOP majorities in the House and the Electoral College. We’re transitioning to one-party rule. Paradoxically, this diminishes that party’s power relative to the executive. Washington warned in his farewell address (principally authored by Hamilton, with assistance from Madison) of the corrupting potential of partisan parties. They were proven correct.
The ongoing transitional phase may accelerate with the 2026 midterm elections, providing Republicans gain sufficient congressional seats. Lobbyists will remain in the mix, but their influence is declining. The focus of their affections will shift from Congress to the White House, a welcome development. Rather than 535 individuals and their parochial (often corrupt) interests deciding legislative priorities, only one person, placing the overall national interest uppermost, will make these determinations. Don’t underestimate the potential this holds for swamp drainage.
The BBB battle yielded one casualty, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, not the sharpest tool in the drawer. If you’re seeking the great principle Tillis fell on his sword for, you’re not alone. His departure potentially paves the way for a Senator Trump, perhaps eventually leading to our first female president.
Meanwhile, back in America’s largest city, Democrats’ internecine disintegration proceeds on schedule. Mamdani (pronouns: “Masculine”) provides Trump the whipping boy he’s always dreamed of. Your Favorite President can’t wait to “have a lot of fun with” the clown. He’s just getting started. Jeffries has his hands full with that piece of work. Someone, perhaps his mentor Barack Hussein Obama, should clue in Mamdani: after winning a primary you must pretend to move toward the center, not double-down on extremism. Obama concealed his radicalism. Mamdani broadcasts it.
At some happy future date, it isn’t inconceivable that Congress may resume the original conception of its role as a part-time body, with members engaged in actual productive activities the rest of the year. Our Founders designed a republic, not a democracy. America eventually devolved into a democracy anyway. Democracies were universally considered by the founding generation as tyrannical. The Obama/Biden years reiterated those lessons. H.L. Mencken suffered no illusions: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Trump, as did Augustus and other epochal leaders before him, is cobbling together a principate, retaining the outward constitutional forms, but consolidating power into a single individual. For now, this represents a welcome development. Scoundrels will inevitably ascend to the presidency, creating new problems, as they did under the republic. For now, there’s but one way forward. We tried three co-equal branches, reaping wholesale corruption and a mountain of debt. More recently, judicial tyranny reared its head. The ball now bounces into the president’s court to begin America’s second phase.
Douglas Schwartz (pronouns: dude) blogs on history and gaslighting at The Great Class War.
Image: AT via Magic Studio