Explained: How Trump's plan to 'crush' the government might actually succeed

Trump's effort to tear down the independence and powers of the federal government and reshape it to be weaponized against his enemies is proceeding apace — and while previous Republicans were either unwilling or unable to make these dramatic changes, the Wall Street Journal warned Monday that Trump might actually succeed if he is able to win the presidency again.

"In campaign speeches and statements, the former president has promised to eliminate the independence of key federal agencies, reduce protections for civil servants, deny citizenship to tens of thousands of people born in the U.S. and wrest control of some authority over spending from Congress," the WSJ article warned.

"If implemented, those measures and others Trump has proposed would amount to the most sweeping overhaul of the government in modern times, legal scholars said."

Trump has the backing of far-right think tanks like the Heritage Foundation in this endeavor, which are even starting up a recruiting drive for right-wing civil servants to take over for a future Republican administration. They are pushing fringe legal theories like that of the "unitary executive," which holds that the president's powers cannot be meaningfully checked by other branches so long as the president is kept within the scope of their responsibilities.

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The last time Trump tried to enact some of this agenda, it failed in the courts, particularly ambitions like attempting to use the Census to interrogate people about citizenship or quash investigations into himself.

But a big reason the push could succeed this time, the WSJ wrote, is that the Supreme Court has three of his appointees on it this time. "Conservative justices have signaled support for the unitary executive principle and repeatedly espoused skepticism of federal agencies, signaling they could have sympathy for Trump’s contention that the federal bureaucracy must be reined in," according to the report.

The plan is the culmination of decades of frustration from Republicans, dating back to the Reagan years, that they could not implement policies to reduce the overall size of federal spending or the federal workforce.

“It’s been hard to make progress on this front,” said George Mason University Mercatus Center researcher Veronique de Rugy. “At its core, the incentives within government are for more spending, more growth, more intervention.”

Under a second Trump term, however, the GOP has more ammunition — and a plan, the WSJ concluded.