Updated

We have a successful President-elect before he is even sworn in. We have 1,100 excited families looking forward to a happy Christmas when for weeks they had been sick with worry about their futures. And we have a news media unable to report on success.

How? President-elect Donald Trump convinced Carrier to keep 1,100 jobs in the United States. He was helped by Vice President-elect Mike Pence who had additional interest in and leverage over this decision because he is Governor of Indiana where Carrier is located.

The people employed at Carrier are ecstatic.

They were about to face a gloomy Christmas. Now they have their jobs and they are thrilled that the President-elect intervened decisively and successfully.

This was actually Trump's second intervention. (He earlier convinced Ford not to move one of its assembly lines to Mexico.) But because the media focused so much on the 1,100 jobs, and because Carrier's management had been so much more public about its determination to move to Mexico, the Carrier case has acquired much more intensity and importance than Ford.

There are several important points about this achievement.

First, this was pure Trumpism. Don't wait to be inaugurated. Don't spend a lot of time with staff studying the issue. Don't delegate to someone else and hope for the best.

Trumpism includes intuitive decisions followed by rapid, personal intervention to force success. Its clearest predecessor in style was President Theodore Roosevelt. Trump is similar to Roosevelt in the sheer exuberant energy with which he lives out each day.

Winston Churchill had slips of paper in World War II that read “Action this Day”. He clipped them to important items in an effort to force the bureaucracy to move faster. Trump is a living example of “Action this Day”.

Second, Trump understands that winning the right symbolic victories early can have very big consequences. Scott Adams wrote brilliantly on this technique. Millions of Americans who worry about their jobs feel better today knowing that Donald Trump cared enough to act before he was even sworn in. While the propaganda media (formerly the news media) and the critics may think this was a small achievement, it was symbolically and emotionally a big achievement.

Third, Trump understands that winning is always better than losing. Americans have watched Barack Obama fail to save jobs. In fact, he mocked Trump and publicly asked if he was going to wave a “magic wand” to save jobs at Carrier. Now it is Obama who looks impotent and incompetent – and Trump looks like maybe he has a magic wand.

In history, winning increases the likelihood of winning. Losing increases the likelihood of losing. Today, President-elect Trump looks like a winner.

Finally, Trumpism is transforming the roles of our two political parties. While Democratic elitists are mocking the Carrier achievement and minimizing its importance, millions of blue collar Americans are glad someone finally cares about them. The isolation of the Democrats into a left-wing club of clueless and out-of-touch elitists continues. The transformation of the Republican Party into the party that cares about families and jobs moves forward.

Eleven hundred happy families at Christmas is a big deal.

This year it is Donald Trump's deal. It is quite an achievement seven weeks before being sworn in as President of the United States.