The pressures to change Washington and dismantle the left-wing establishment have been growing since 1964. That’s when Ronald Reagan gave his nationally televised “Time for Choosing“ speech on behalf of Senator Goldwater. Twenty years later, Reagan carried all but one state, having passed a three-year tax cut, stripped away regulations, and slowed down spending.

Washington rebounded after Mr. Reagan left, but in 1994 the Reaganite Contract with America led to the first House Republican majority in 40 years. After two government shutdowns and a huge fight over controlling spending and reforming welfare, the reform-oriented House Republicans became the first GOP to keep control of the House since 1928. 

The 1996 re-election led to the largest capital gains tax cut up to that time, substantial reductions in spending, dramatic economic growth, and the only four consecutive balanced budgets in a century.

Unfortunately, Republicans eventually forgot everything Mr. Reagan had taught. By 2010, a new tea party movement was growing in opposition to the Republican failure and the new growth of big, centralized government.

For the last nine years, President-elect Trump has been growing a movement of Americans determined to take on the establishment, dig out the left-wing radicals, and return to a balanced budget. They want entitlement reform, spending cuts, and dramatic economic growth fueled by the combination of tax cuts and deregulation.

It has been clear to world leaders that Trump is now the de facto president. President Biden is fading from the scene with each trip to Delaware. However, it apparently was not clear to the Congress that their world had changed. They agreed on a 1,500-page bill that included all sorts of pork and special provisions.

This continuing resolution would have been normal before the election. After all, House Republicans have a hardcore block who will never vote for spending. To get anything done, Speaker Johnson felt he had to turn to Democrats. Democrats, knowing they had Mr. Johnson cornered, cheerfully charged a lot of goodies for their vote.

No one had considered that the election of Trump and his recruitment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up a newly invented Department of Government Efficiency meant the world had changed.

Mr. Musk was apparently taking the idea of shrinking government seriously when he began a round of tweeting on Wednesday. He destroyed the bill’s acceptability on the right. Trump and Vice President-elect Vance piled on in support of killing the bill.

Traditional Washington saw this as horrifying and dangerous. After all, if your life is Washington government, then anything which threatens the continuity of that bureaucratic machine is terrible. 

This attitude of trembling in fear at the possibility that the government bureaucracy might be shut down is at the heart of Washington’s self-love. 

This is the beginning of a crossroads of historic proportion.

Implementing the dramatic changes on which Trump campaigned — and for which the American people voted — will require a sort of shock therapy. There is no soft, easy, pleasant way to drag the Congress, the lobbyists, and the bureaucrats away from their big spending, out-of-control ways without a huge fight.

Reagan undertook this fight. As he said in his farewell address in January 1989, with the help of the American people he changed Washington a lot.

In the 1990s, we undertook the fight with the help of the American people and changed Washington a good deal — even while negotiating with a Democratic President.

In Reagan’s case, the popularity of his tax cuts led 46 Democrats to vote with us against Speaker O’Neill. In our case, the popularity of welfare reform led the House Democrats to split 101 to 101. 

The current budget bill is a monstrosity of big spending masquerading as a continuing resolution. Congressional Republicans should not cave to the Washington interest groups. If Democrats want to force a government shutdown, let them try. I am convinced voters would prefer fighting for real change to surrendering to the establishment they just repudiated at the polls.

I believe Trump is serious in his commitment to change Washington. Therefore, I am certain there is a collision coming between the old order and the emerging movement to Make America Great Again.

As Prime Minister Thatcher said, “first you win the argument, then you win the vote.” A brisk publicity campaign explaining the 1,500-page bill will make it virtually impossible even for liberal Democrats to explain their support for it. We are at the brink of historic change — if we do not lose our nerve. The time to insist on real change is now.