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I think this is wrongheaded way to think, for one big reason, is I wish a lot of it were true, but it simply isnt. If Trump can't shrink the federal workforce, there is not going to be a deterrent effect. Federal employment isn't some high-prestige-low-pay proposition anymore. Its Mid-Mid. If you threaten the stability levels you aren't going to run out of candidates. In fact, most the lawyers and engineers I know that work for the feds basically got a huge pay bump and a lifeline out of failing careers in private practice to go federal. Those people aren't deterred by a few weeks or even months of interruptions so long as the civil service protections get them their back pay. If the AOC administration wants to hire 5000 new lawyers for the EPA to write crushing green regulations it will easily find 30,000 "underemployed" zealots to fill those positions, that, even if fired 4 years later, will have had 4 years where they made 30% more while working 50% less than they did at some PI or SSDI mill that advertises on billboards on the side of the highway.
The migrants issue is a little rosier from my POV. The fact that no laws were changed, and the border was significantly sealed AND people are getting deported I think does have a real incentive effect. But that is not some wrecker thing, its just actually following the law as written, and particularly with regards to border security, its what Americans have been asking for for basically 40 years at this point. The deportations are occasionally uglier, but that is just how its going to be when the majority of corporate media is hostile to any sort of action. I could, as a police chief, run an operation where my goal is to confiscate firearms from convicted felons, and the public perception of it would be largely determined by how the 3-4 local tv stations cover it. If they like me I'm making the streets safe, if they don't I'm racistly putting minorities in prison, and they will pick the appropriate video footage to so portray me (angry man with a gun vs. graduation picture of a guy whos now 29).
I do wish we could scare the Euros straight as well, I think they are too foolish for it though. They wont figure out self defense. They will continue to jail people for teaching their dogs to salute, or for complaining about their daughters being raped in impolite ways. Even the financial sanctions on the international court people wont get them to change their ways (just like the federal employees, its again a cadre of mediocrities making lots of money for doing little at all).
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