Writing a couple of days ago in her always impressive Wall Street Journal column, Kimberly Strassel proposed A Big, Beautiful Trump 2018 Issue: “Let 2018 be the year of civil-service reform — a root-and-branch overhaul of the government itself. Call it Operation Drain the Swamp.”
What a splendid idea!
Let me be more specific. Here’s how he should begin: by drawing upon a by now almost extinct tradition of bi-partisanship, President Trump should recall, renew, and re-invigorate two dramatic and impressive Executive Orders by past Democratic presidents calling for affirmative action in government hiring, promoting, and contracting.
Yes, affirmative action! Bear with me.
Executive Order 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, began by declaring in no uncertain terms that “it is the plain and positive obligation of the United States Government to promote and ensure equal opportunity for all qualified persons, without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, employed or seeking employment with the Federal Government and on government contracts” (emphasis added).
That prohibition of taking race into account in hiring and promotion was also imposed on government contractors, who were prohibited by the Executive Order from discriminating “against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” Merely refraining from discrimination, however, was not enough. In addition, the Executive Order proclaimed, “The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin (emphasis added).
President Lyndon Johnson amplified these prohibitions and requirements in Executive Order 11246, signed on September 24, 1965, which repeated verbatim the “without regard” provision quoted immediately above. In addition, it added a new item to ensure that a government contractor “will, in all solicitations or advertisements for employees placed by or on behalf of the contractor, state that all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin” (emphasis added).
Since both of these Executive Orders are not only ignored but ostentatiously flouted throughout government hiring and contracting, President Trump could take a giant step toward making America great again — or at least more true to its original ideals — by reissuing a version of these two Democratic Executive Orders, updating them to include sex. If he did so, the sound of the swamp draining — and the swamp rats complaining — would be a mighty roar.
Can you think of many things President Trump would enjoy more than tweeting about today’s preference-pushing Diversicrats trying to explain why Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were, or were not, white supremacist racists?
