Once upon a time, Donald Trump became the GOP standard bearer by indicating he would be a different kind of Republican. He broke with the GOP’s obsession with shrinking government and cutting entitlements, rejected party orthodoxy on trade deals, and generally ran against and defeated the Republican establishment and their “donors and special interests” who, he said, hated him because he rejected their money, and whom he later blamed for sabotaging his presidency.

Yet ironically, the man Trump has tasked with running the essential machinery of his presidency — the man who, by his own admission, is the shadow architect of his entire second term — is the living embodiment of the Republican Party Trump once ran against.

That man is Russell Vought, the longtime radical anti-government ideologue who, as Trump’s recently confirmed director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is now poised to see through the cause of his life: dismantling as much of the federal government as possible and handing the rest over to big business.