Are Trump's actions "democracy in action"?

My wife and I are regular readers of Politico's "Playbook," which appears in our email every morning. We particularly enjoyed the contributions of my former colleague Ryan Lizza. Lizza has, however, disappeared, and he and other "Playbook" authors have been replaced by someone named Jack Blanchard, who has been imported from England to tell us about what is happening in our country. This morning, after detailing Trump's funding freeze and other activities, Blanchard assured us that it is all in line with our country's democratic politics:

Amidst the liberal outrage, it’s important to remember that this was all spelled out by Trump long in advance. Throughout the election campaign, he told America repeatedly that he would reshape the federal government, root out (and even prosecute) his enemies, pardon supporters who were convicted of violent crimes, slash government spending programs en masse and ax huge numbers of federal jobs. And then he won 77 million votes to do exactly that. Those accusing Trump of being anti-democratic might note that this is largely democracy in action.

I thought I followed the 2024 campaign pretty closely, and I don’t remember Trump promising to "slash government spending programs en masse and ax huge numbers of federal jobs." He did threaten to move departments out of Washington, but not to eliminate jobs. If you look up his "budget" proposals, they primarily consisted of promises for tax breaks, not threats of spending cuts. All that came afterwards, and was voiced initially by Elon Musk not Trump. I certainly don't remember any campaign ads threatening to "slash government spending programs." And I remember Trump specifically denying any association with the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025," which lo and behold has turned out to be the guidebook for his administration. Maybe, sitting in Silver Spring, I missed this, or maybe this attempt by “Playbook” to tell us what our democracy is all about is crap.