Trump is getting more of a honeymoon in Term 2 than in Term 1, and while part of it is due to the shock of the 2024 win, a lot of it has become tactics. The first stage of the plan is to infiltrate his decision-making loop and to make his various policies backfire.

That’s why it’s helpful to understand what malicious compliance is.

The last ‘resistance’ movement among federal employees focused on more direct sabotage, at least initially this time they’re using malicious compliance, that is to say they’re implementing executive orders in the most destructive fashion. And then of course leaking the results to the media. These manufactured scandals consist of federal employees ‘following orders’ with a view to causing problems and then reporting the problems they caused as if they were actually the result of the executive orders rather than their own actions.

The developing media narratives over the course of the next weeks and perhaps months will focus heavily on this, blaming the Trump administration for what is really the malicious compliance of federal employees.

The feds will break things, including the things they care about, in order to blame Trump.