Donald Trump’s election is going to usher in a renaissance like this country hasn’t experienced since the Framers signed the Constitution in 1789.
Compared to eight years ago, Trump is a completely different president-elect — more knowledgeable, more confident, more savvy. He’s got a more well-defined plan and a much stronger and more loyal team in place to implement it.
Donald Trump’s supporters on election night react to the news that Trump won on November 6, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This version of Donald Trump has spent eight years learning the ins and outs of Washington. He understands how the game is played and how viciously his opponents will resist his efforts to Make America Great Again. That institutional knowledge is going to be incredibly valuable.
Last time, Trump relied on the Republican establishment to staff his administration, forcing him to rely on people who did not share his vision and, in many cases, actively worked to undermine him. He’s not making the same mistake again. This time, he’s going outside the halls of government to find people with the skills and mentality to be successful.
Consider the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek is a personal friend and one of the smartest people I know, while Elon is one of the most prolific entrepreneurs in human history. They are the perfect people for this job.
President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk as he arrives to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Politicians always talk about cutting waste from the federal budget, but this is the first time anyone has ever made a serious effort to do so. Instead of assigning politicians or bureaucrats to the task – the very people who made the mess in the first place – Trump is turning to two of the most effective business leaders of this generation.
His cabinet, likewise, will be loaded with people who proved themselves outside of politics, such as Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon, and Chris Wright. These are people who succeeded because they know how to get things done, not simply because they schmoozed and bartered their way to the top of the political heap.
The talent that Trump is surrounding himself with allows him to avoid playing political games and focus on making America great again and doing what he promised to do.
His staffing decisions also represent a return to America’s roots.
Of the 38 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 34 were businessmen, farmers, shippers, and merchants who understood free trade. They didn’t view politics as a career, but as a form of public service. They reluctantly took time away from their enterprises, at significant personal cost, in order to build a government that would protect the God-given rights of the American people and provide the citizens with an opportunity to get ahead.
Trump’s team is animated by the same honorable motivations – much like Trump himself.
Bureaucrats who have never run a business don’t know how economies really work. When you’ve run a business that operates in more than 50 different national economies, like I did, you have to understand how both business and economics work.
I was enormously fortunate to start Papa John’s in 1984, during the Reagan Revolution. I never would have been able to build that business from a broom closet to a multinational corporation during the Obama or Biden administrations, and I’ve often felt for entrepreneurs who came along under those regimes, because they didn’t have the same opportunities I did and that’s not fair.
John Schnatter arrives at the 2011 American Music Awards on November 20, 2011, in Los Angeles, California. (JB Lacroix/WireImage via Getty Images)
But that’s about to change. Donald Trump is like Ronald Reagan on steroids, and he’s putting a team in place that will do amazing things for entrepreneurs and the American middle class – the two great pillars of the U.S. economy. Together, they’ll clean up a progressive mess that’s been 110 years in the making.
Sylvester Stallone recently suggested that Donald Trump will be as important a figure in American history as George Washington. Liberals scoffed, but I think Sly will have the last laugh.
Thanks to Donald Trump, America is on the brink of its greatest renaissance since the Constitutional Convention.
John Schnatter is the founder and former Chairman and CEO of Papa John’s International.
