When did conservatives last hear such widespread media opposition to a president nominating “unqualified, extreme, and controversial” appointees to high government positions? As a past Ronald Reagan Office of Personnel Management nominee, I can attest to the fact that he was rebuked as strongly as Donald Trump is today, including by old regime Republicans. 

In both cases, the correct response is that the country was in deep peril and the establishment figures who could easily pass the elite political correctness test were not nominated. These establishment figures had proven they were unwilling to take the heat necessary to make the necessary reforms. Many, indeed, were part of the problem, benefiting from their own policies that had caused the decline.
In both situations, the Washington government itself had become the major cause of the nation’s problems and required radical reform. As a Reagan agency head in his revolutionary administration, we cut domestic bureaucracy by 100,000, reduced its retirement and health benefits, and based pay on job performance rather than merely on showing up. Reagan slayed hyperinflation by working with a courageous Fed chairman. He block granted 77 Washington programs to states and won the Cold War without firing a shot. All of which was opposed by that day’s media and elite experts.
It is not unreasonable to argue that the crisis facing President-elect Trump today is even worse than it was back then, as has been demonstrated often by The American Spectator alerts. Sixty percent of Americans simply have little trust in how the national government is run. The Constitution itself is under fire. Defense and foreign policy are in crisis. Basic government administration, legal and FBI administration, the economy, and social life policies are all fundamentally flawed. And each failure will require tougher leaders.
The fact is that the country is in dire need of bold leaders, especially for defense and intelligence, those with the daring ...