Many were looking for signs at Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday, desperately searching for some indication as to what his second term might look like. They pored over his inauguration speech. They dissected his comments at Capital One Arena. They studied his executive order marathon from the Oval Office.

They were all looking in the wrong place.

The inaugural events were important, and they certainly merit our attention. But the inauguration was pretty much what everyone expected. The day is, almost by definition, fairly well-scripted.

If you want to know what Trump 2.0 will look like, the better place to have been looking over the last few weeks was the Senate confirmation hearings. Because what we have been seeing there is a dramatic departure, not only from “typical” Senate hearings, but also from what the hearings looked like back in Trump 1.0. And how they are different speaks volumes about what the second Trump administration will look like.

Back in 2017, I was nominated as director for the Office of Management and Budget, a Senate-confirmed position. So, I had to endure the humiliation masquerading as the “advise and consent” clause of the Constitution. While the confirmation process hasn’t changed much since then — indeed, it may even have gotten worse — how the people now up for confirmation have responded has changed dramatically.

In 2017, Trump nominees were essentially told to grin and bear it. If some........

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