Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

“Central casting” is Trump’s criterion for appointing officials based on their physical appearance and how well they fit a preconceived, television-ready image for their respective roles. In the book, the frequent citation of the term reflects Trump’s belief that governing is a spectacle and that an appointee’s appearance—such as a CIA director who looks like Cary Grant—is a key qualification for a high-level position.

“Deep state” is a term used by Trump and his allies to describe a perceived conspiracy of career government officials, intelligence agents, and bureaucrats working to subvert his presidency from within. This paranoid framework views any institutional resistance or adherence to established norms as an act of deliberate sabotage by “snakes” and “traitors” who must be purged from the government.

DOGE was a temporary pseudo-agency led by Elon Musk, created to aggressively slash the federal bureaucracy and government spending. Named after the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency, DOGE operated with presidential authority but minimal oversight, attempting to dismantle agencies and systems with the speed of a tech startup, though ultimately leading to widespread chaos and conflict with cabinet officials.

The “Donroe Doctrine” is a term coined to describe Trump’s foreign-policy approach in the Western Hemisphere, characterized by the aggressive use of military and economic power to assert US dominance. A contemporary spin on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, it was used to justify actions like the “boat-bombing” campaign against drug smugglers and the covert operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

The Epstein Files are a collection of documents related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the potential release of which has become a central political crisis for the administration. Trump and his allies initially promised to release a “client list” to expose a conspiracy, but the administration’s subsequent failure to do so, combined with revelations about Trump’s own ties to Epstein, fueled accusations of a cover-up and badly divided the MAGA base.

The “fake OLC” was an informal group of MAGA-friendly lawyers assembled by Stephen Miller’s team during the transition to review the legality of planned executive orders. This ad hoc body was created to bypass the official Office of Legal Counsel, which Miller and his allies didn’t trust to approve their most aggressive and legally questionable actions, such as the order to end birthright citizenship.

“ICE Barbie” was a derisive nickname given to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem by online critics. The term referenced both her intense focus on ICE and the perception that her leadership style prioritized spectacle and public image, embodying the idea that governing in the Trump administration is a show staged for an audience of one.

Improper ideology is a vague standard used by the Trump administration to justify a crackdown on cultural and educational institutions deemed to be promoting “woke” or anti-American values. The term has been central to executive orders targeting museums; universities; and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, serving as a pretext for asserting federal control over artistic content and scholarly research.

The Insurrection Act is a federal law that allows the president to deploy the US military for domestic law enforcement, representing an extreme expansion of executive power. Stephen Miller and other administration hard-liners repeatedly pushed to invoke the act to quell protests and crack down on crime in Democratic-led cities, viewing it as a “break-the-glass” option to bypass legal and political constraints (283).

“J6 Hostages” is a term used by Trump and his supporters to rebrand the individuals arrested in connection with the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The term reframes the rioters not as criminals but as political prisoners or “patriots” justifying Trump’s decision to issue blanket pardons for them on his first day back in office.

“Liberation Day” is a recurring moniker applied by Trump to several different events, including his 2024 election, his 2025 inauguration, and, most consequentially, the April 2, 2025, launch of his global tariff regime. Its repeated use exemplifies Trump’s penchant for branding major policy actions as historic, transformative moments designed to reclaim America’s destiny.

“Malicious compliance” is a term used by White House officials to blame career government employees for policy failures, such as the chaotic rollout of a spending freeze. It refers to the belief that, rather than openly resisting, government bureaucrats would deliberately interpret presidential directives in an overly rigid or literal way in order to cause maximum disruption and public panic.

“One Big Beautiful Bill” is the nickname for Trump’s signature piece of domestic legislation, which bundled together border-security funding, tax cuts, and massive reductions in social programs like Medicaid. The omnibus strategy was designed to be too big to fail, forcing Republicans to vote for unpopular measures by packaging them with key conservative priorities and leveraging Trump’s personal power over the party.

“Pure Trump” is a term, first used by Steve Bannon, to describe the unrestrained, impulsive, and loyalty-driven governing style that Trump has adopted in his second term. This approach prioritizes instinct over process, retribution over decorum, and the assertion of raw executive power without the constraints of establishment advisors or institutional norms.

Retribution is a central, driving agenda of the second Trump presidency, focused on using the powers of the federal government to investigate, prosecute, and punish political enemies. Characterized by the motto “I am your retribution” (127), this campaign targets individuals and institutions—from former officials and rival prosecutors to law firms and universities—that Trump believes have wronged him.

Schedule F was an executive order designed to strip civil-service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees by reclassifying them as political appointees who could be fired at will. Championed by aides like Russell Vought, the policy was a key tool for purging the deep state and replacing career officials with loyalists to ensure that the bureaucracy would enact the president’s agenda without resistance.