Trump’s first 100 days: Chaos, mass firings, tariffs, and brute force | Editorial

President Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the term “first 100 days” as he moved with warp speed to lift the country out of the Great Depression.

As the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second presidential term approaches, he has moved with haste and brute force.

But instead of building up the United States, Trump is tearing it apart.

No elected official has done more damage to America in the half century or so since Watergate than Trump. In just a few months, his words and deeds have made the country weaker, poorer, and less stable.

Trump has inflicted pointless pain and suffering on individuals, families, and businesses. He has made America less free, less efficient, less healthy, less respected, and more lawless.

At every turn, Trump has created costly chaos for no good reason. Even worse, he has acted with a cruelty and vengeance that borders on pathological.

The blitz has been so relentless that it is hard to believe he has only been back in power for roughly 100 days.

Amid the tumult, one thing is clear: Trump is not making America great. In fact, his actions are un-American.

Each day brings a fresh new hell.

It started on Day One when Trump rewarded lawlessness at the highest levels by granting sweeping pardons to more than 1,500 of the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and assaulted police officers, defiled the building, and threatened to hang Vice President Mike Pence.

It continued with Trump’s torrent of executive orders that ranged from the ridiculous (renaming the Gulf of Mexico) to the unconstitutional (ending birthright citizenship).

Then it morphed into reckless attacks on government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

No doubt, the federal government could run more smoothly. But firing hundreds of thousands of federal employees with no rhyme or reason will make the government less efficient.

Elon Musk, the unelected point person overseeing the government purge at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, slashed jobs and issued ridiculous edicts, while accessing reams of private information on nearly every American.

Damage done, Musk will soon slink away to save his failing car company, while keeping the billions in corporate welfare his other businesses receive from the government.

But after all the upheaval, Musk said DOGE will only reduce spending by $150 billion. In a government that spends roughly $7 trillion a year, that’s 2% — far short of Musk’s initial claim of cutting $2 trillion.

Musk’s stated paltry savings can’t even be trusted since the reports are riddled with errors. One of DOGE’s biggest supposed savings involved a $1.9 billion contract that was canceled last fall by the Biden administration.

Unaccounted for is the damage to people’s lives and the hollowed-out departments Musk leaves behind. It is easy to criticize the government until you need a VA appointment, Medicare coverage, a Social Security check, or Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assistance.

Firing air traffic controllers amid a run of airplane crashes is depraved.

Closing embassies and ending foreign aid will destabilize hot spots around the world, turn countries against America, and lead to senseless deaths. One group estimated that 15,000 people have died from the administration’s immolation of the international relief group USAID. Researchers say that number could climb to 25 million because of cuts to global health funding.

Firing FBI agents, CIA spies, and U.S. Justice Department prosecutors benefits criminals and leaves the country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks and espionage.

Then there are Trump’s tariffs. Just check your 401(k) to see how that is going. Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have whipsawed financial markets, upended small businesses, and raised prices on consumers.

Over one three-day stretch, Trump’s tariff moves sliced $10 trillion from pension funds, investment accounts, and retirement savings. Trump inherited an economy that was the envy of the world. But in just three months, he made America 20% poorer, and likely headed for a recession.

Along the way, Trump has picked needless fights with our strongest allies in Europe, Canada, and Mexico. He’s threatened to take Greenland and the Panama Canal. It has been a disgusting display of arrogance, bullying, and imperialism that has made America less admired and respected.

Even worse, Trump has switched sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump is in war criminal Vladimir Putin’s pocket — where he has always been.

The selling out of Ukraine and its valiant President Volodymyr Zelensky will go down as one of the most disgraceful and costly foreign policy blunders ever by an American president — with a shameful assist from complicit Republican lackeys.

Then, there have been relentless broadsides aimed at ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Sadly, many support the end of DEI without understanding the benefits for everyone.

While perhaps imperfect, programs that strive for the fair treatment of all people, especially those who faced systemic discrimination for generations, are a worthy goal to live up to the founders’ vision of a more perfect union.

The selling out of Ukraine will go down as one of the most disgraceful and costly foreign policy blunders ever by an American president

Trump prefers to go backward, declaring, “Our country will be woke no longer.”

Note that the opposite of woke is lulled. And the opposite of diversity, equity, and inclusion is homogeneity, inequality, and exclusion.

In other words, Trump is at war with a bedrock principle in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”

He is also at war with higher education, science, public health, and the legal community — institutions and bulwarks that have long distinguished the United States.

Trump has spent the past few months threatening and bullying universities, law firms, and media companies. He appears to take sick pleasure in abusing his power, but the upshot of the attacks will weaken America.

Cutting off research funding will jeopardize public health, slow discoveries for cancer and other rare diseases, while leaving the country less prepared to combat the next pandemic.

Trump’s assault on higher education — despite his benefiting from an Ivy League degree — will result in higher tuition and fewer college graduates to fill jobs in fields that face shortages like engineering, nursing, and teaching.

It will lead to less innovation and more inequality, as only the wealthy will be able to afford tuition. Chasing away foreign students will also undermine America’s higher education dominance, while benefiting other countries like China, which will fill the void.

Trump’s roundup and deportation of migrants and foreign students — including many who are in the country legally — is perhaps his most un-American act.

Instead of trying to fix America’s broken immigration system, Trump assaulted human rights, trampled constitutional protections, and defied court rulings.

Many judges have done their job by applying the law and serving as a check on the executive branch — just as the founders designed the system. But the Republicans in the legislative branch have ignored their constitutional duty and enabled Trump.

As legal experts debate whether Trump has created a constitutional crisis, others say we have crossed the Rubicon.

Former Vice President Al Gore compared the Trump administration’s abuse of power and war on truth with Nazi Germany.

A Harvard professor who studies how democracies slip into authoritarianism said, “We are no longer living in a democratic regime.”

Much has been lost in Trump’s first 100 days. It will be up to voters, lawmakers, and the courts to stop him before there is no turning back.