A sharp critique says Trump has joined the permanent government he campaigned against, which is bad news for voters who backed him expecting a purge of Washington's entrenched agencies.

• The core charge: after winning, Trump sided with the national security establishment instead of the people who elected him.
• No good reason is offered for the reversal — fear of the agencies is dismissed as a weak excuse for a sitting president.
• A president who was truly threatened could say so publicly and order arrests; that never happened.
• Power only exists when it is used, and the campaign promises that required using it have gone unfulfilled.

Outlook: Expect this frustration on the populist right to keep building as the promised confrontation with the federal bureaucracy stays undelivered.