Introduction

In an earlier post titled “The Specter of Fascism,” I considered the fascist aspects of Trump’s rhetoric and plans (https://vitalissuesbobsheak.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=4124&action=edit). This was sent out on May 25, 2024. There I quoted  Federico Finchelstein, who has written extensively about fascism.

In his most recent book, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy (publ. 2024 by the University of California Press), he identifies “the four pillars of fascism,” including: (1) “violence and the militarization of politics; (2) “lies, myths, and propaganda”; (3) “the politics of xenophobia” and racism; and (4) dictatorship (pp. 16-17). He argues that Trump is not quite a full-blown fascist, but rather a “wannabe fascist because he has not yet become a “dictator,” or a leader with unlimited power.

“Well before January 6, 2021,” Finchelstein writes, “Trump had already established (to some alarming extent) three of the four pillars of fascism: violence and the militarization of policies, racism, and lies. The element that Trumpism was missing was dictatorship. And then the attempted coup d’etat happened….Had this attempt succeeded, Trump would have most likely become a dictator. In that scenario, it would have been more appropriate to think of him as a fascist. Because he wavered and failed, I [Finchelstein] calls him a wannabe fascist” (p. 18). This could all change if Trump wins the presidential election in November, 2024 (as he did). The plans of Trump and the Republican Party are clearly anti-democratic and revolve around the idea of Trump as the permanent leader, a “one-person [with] absolute and permanent rule” (p. 152).

As we all know, Trump narrowly won the presidential election in 2024 under extraordinary circumstances. The authors of the book 2024, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, document how Biden’s long delay in withdrawing from the presidential campaign, left Kamala Harris with too little time to mount an effective campaign. She almost managed to win the election anyway and would have won if not for so many gerrymandered elections and financial support from the rich and powerful, especially but from Elon Musk and other billionaires.

Now, well into his seventh month of his second term in the White House, Trump has striven to extend his power over more of the country’s institutions, advancing rightwing, often anti-democratic policies. His efforts are supported by his MAGA base, by the Republican Party, by many rich people and big corporations, by the Supreme Court, and by right-wing media.

In recent weeks, Trump’s popularity has been weakened by the economic dislocations and hardships on most citizens related to his firing of many thousands of federal workers and the related loss of services and jobs. These were exacerbated by Trump’s tariff policies, the arbitrary expulsion of law-abiding, employed immigrant residents, and the highly regressive tax policies in his Big Beautiful Bill. His low poll numbers now reflect how the majority of Americans are unhappy with what Trump is doing and attempting to do.

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Trump’s Tariff Debacle

John Feffer considers the effects of Trump’s tariff policies, August 6, 2025 (https://fpif.org/trumps-tariff-tsunami). He is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus. His latest book is Right Across the World: The Global Networking of the Far-Right and the Left Response. Here’s some of what Feffer writes about in the article.

It’s not difficult to imagine that seasoned trade negotiators are squaring off against Trump’s team, which includes the unseasoned and frankly incoherent Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, to make deals that contain holes big enough to drive a truck through (all the way to the United States). The early evidence is that Trump’s tariffs are backfiring in many ways, including the one statistic that obsesses the president. America’s trade deficit with the world is only increasing.”

China.

“Consider the administration’s approach to China, the third or fourth largest U.S. trade partner depending on the metric. In early April, Trump decided to apply tariffs of about 145 percent on Chinese products. The Dow tanked, and U.S. businesses freaked out at the prospect of huge price increases on components and finished products coming from China.

“Negotiations with the Chinese followed, during which Trump backpedaled like a prizefighter sustaining a series of body blows. The Chinese economy is doing pretty well, and they have natural resources like rare earth elements that the United States desperately needs. So, when China retaliated with high tariffs of their own and threatened restrictions on rare earth elements, Trump was forced to deal. He reduced U.S. tariffs to 30 percent (while China reduced its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10 percent).

“But here’s the kicker. Trump also approved the sale of sophisticated computer chips—Nvidia’s H20 chips, which are designed for artificial intelligence applications—that previous U.S. administrations had blocked. This kind of compromise has signaled to various economic actors that perhaps Trump is not so serious about his tariffs—or, at least, he can be negotiated with.”

The European Union

“Instead of fighting like the Chinese, the European Union accepted a 15 percent tariff rate. That’s ‘definitively better than the 30 percent threatened by Trump,’ writes Cecilia Malmström of the Peterson Institute. ‘But it is still a lot more than the status of trade before Trump’s second term, when the average tariff rate between the European Union and the United States was only a few percentages. Today we face the highest transatlantic tariffs in 70 years.’”

Canada and Mexico

Feffer: “Canada saw its tariffs rise from 25 percent to 35 percent, though this applies to a minority of goods crossing the border that don’t comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Trump was pissed off at the earlier reciprocal tariffs against U.S. products, which Canada hasn’t yet removed. A ‘Buy Canada’ campaign and a diversification of trade partners point to a longer-term reduction in Canadian dependency on U.S. markets and suppliers.

Hope that Trump will retract the tariffs

Feffer: “U.S. businesses are also hoping that Trump will eventually retract his tariffs. Although markets fluctuate with the same kind of volatility that characterizes Trump’s temperament, manufacturers don’t appreciate such unpredictability.

“They’ve responded by employing interim hedging measures that have so far not passed on the costs to consumers. One popular [but limited and short-term] tactic has been to stockpile.”

“Consumers, meanwhile, have adopted the tactic of hoarding: consumer electronics, auto parts, building materials, clothing. Even members of the Trump administration have been stocking up on bulk toilet paper in anticipation of price hikes. But pantries can hold just so many bags of Brazilian coffee beans. And worse is to come.”

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Mass Firing of federal workers

Lauren Kaori Gurley writes on the high unemployment in July

(https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/07/unemployment-claims-rise). She

is the labor reporter for The Washington Post.

Gurly cites a Labor Department report that “claims for unemployment benefits jumped to 1.97 million in late July.” That is the highest level since November 2021. “A separate jobs report released last week showed that employers are hiring at close to the slowest pace in more than a decade, excluding the pandemic.”

“Federal layoffs have also accelerated and will continue to rise this year, which could spill over to other industries. A Supreme Court decision in July allowed the Trump administration to proceed with job cuts.”

Gurley refers to a government jobs report released Friday [Aug. 8] that “showed a much slower labor market than previously recorded, with lower-than-expected job gains in July and far fewer job gains in May and June, 258,000 less than previously reported for those months.” Trump responded angrily to the report by taking “the unprecedented step of firing the top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, hours after the data was released. Trump claimed, without evidence, that jobs data had been manipulated for political purposes.”

Rather, Trump’s own tariff policy has negatively affected many retail, construction and manufacturing employers “who have paused plans for hiring and expansion amid the expectation of the higher import costs.” That same is true for hiring in white-collar sectors, which has been stagnant for many months. Gurly’s sources say that if economic conditions continue to deteriorate, employers will increase layoffs even more than they have.

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The Bleak Future of Trumponomics

Ryan Cooper writes on the likelihood of a bleak future with Trumponomics for the American Prospect magazine (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-06-bleak-future-of-trumponomics). Cooper is a senior editor at the Prospect, and author of ‘How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.’ His central point is that “Donald Trump is destroying the world’s faith in America and the dollar.” That will cost the country dearly in lost foreign investors.

Cooper continues. “On July 4, Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law. It’s a hyped-up edition of the same old Republican dogma. It contains the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits in history, which do not even come close to compensating for giant tax cuts, mostly for the rich. It would increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion by 2034; if we assume that all the tax cuts will be made permanent (a certainty if Republicans have anything to say about it), the total is over $5.5 trillion.”

The global importance of the dollar is now threatened

“Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, turbulent economic times have reliably led to a flight to the safety of dollars and U.S. government debt. That creates a consistent demand for dollar-based assets, so countries and businesses can settle international transactions, and build up exchange reserves to defend against potential currency crises.

“That assumption is now being called into question. Trump’s wildly erratic behavior, abolishing whole federal agencies by fiat and yanking up and down tariffs at random via social media post, has created vast turbulence in the international economy. But instead of a flight to dollar safety, since Trump has taken office, interest rates on 10- and 30-year Treasury bonds are up modestly, while the dollar’s value has fallen about 15 percent against the euro, and about 10 percent against the pound and yen.

This suggests that a new economic order is taking shape, “after the keystone nation of the global economy decided to elect an unhinged maniac, again. Absent some kind of reckoning with MAGA …America will never live this down, and all future administrations will be burdened with Trump’s legacy of lower growth, lower employment, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and a dramatically higher cost of financing the national debt.”

The dollar’s role as global reserve currency

Cooper continues, “as the issuer of the global reserve currency, America has an obligation to provide dollar assets. As Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein argue in their book Trade Wars Are Class Wars, if the government won’t provide them in the form of Treasury bonds, demand for other dollar assets will drive up its value, tanking American exports and widening the trade deficit.

Indeed, the dollar’s reserve status is partly to blame for America’s chronically large trade deficit. As economist Paul Krugman points out, much of these deficits have been financed by foreign investment in the U.S. If those investors lose confidence in America, they might pull back, similar to a “sudden stop” crisis that countries like Argentina and Portugal have faced.

“There are built-in shock absorbers in place for a country as critical to the global economy as America. But those guardrails are buckling under Trump’s leadership. Cooper elaborates.

“Trump has regularly attacked Powell for not cutting rates and might fill the Fed board with toadies to do the job. But rate cuts, combined with other factors, would boost inflation even more. Tariffs are already spiking some prices. New home prices are likely to rise as Trump is deporting so many construction workers. The enormous tax cuts will drive up borrowing, as will the cost of rolling over existing debt, some $14 trillion of which must be refinanced over the next three years. IRS cuts carried out by DOGE, with the obvious goal of preventing audits of wealthy tax cheats, will further cut revenue by an estimated $500 billion this year alone; that’s more money out there to be spent. As a result of all of this, either interest rates will have to stay high, or prices will keep rising.”

International faith in the dollar has been jolted

Withal, the unquestioned faith in the dollar has been shaken by Trump’s erratic tariff policies.

So, while dollars will continue to be used around the world, Cooper expect[s] a steady erosion in the dollar’s hegemonic status, with a greater share of foreign exchange using a basket of other currencies—the euro, the pound, the yen, the Swiss franc, and so on.

“Trumponomics, by contrast, will produce the opposite: a poorer, weaker America, with structurally higher prices, dedicating a large and growing share of its economy to financing debt created by Republican tax cuts for the rich. And it will all be entirely self-inflicted.”

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Trump’s Unforgivable Sin

Peter Wehner and Robert P. Beschel Jr. delve into this issue in an article for The Atlantic, Aug 10 2025 (https://theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/trump-incompetence/683779)

Voters have proved willing to tolerate corruption, but there’s one thing they won’t ignore.

“Tens of millions of Americans voted for President Donald Trump in the belief that he would be competent. They might not have been thrilled that Trump is a convicted felon or pleased with his role in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Many worried that he posed a threat to democracy. But enough were willing to overlook all that, because they convinced themselves that Trump would be an effective chief executive, that under his stewardship their lives would get better, and the country would prosper.

A little more than half a year into Trump’s second term, however, the public’s confidence in Trump’s skill as a chief executive is shattering. Wehner and Beschel cite a recent AP/NORC poll, which found that “only about one-quarter of U.S. adults said that Trump’s policies have helped them.”

“Roughly half report that Trump’s policies have ‘done more to hurt’ them, and about two in 10 say his policies have ‘not made a difference’ in their lives.

“Remarkably, Trump failed to earn majority approval on any of the issues in the poll, including the economy, immigration, and cutting government spending.

“As a result, a politically toxic impression is hardening. Trump’s approval rating in the most recent Gallup poll is 37 percent, the lowest of this term and only slightly higher than his all-time low of 34 percent, at the end of his first term. (Among independents, Trump’s approval rating is down to 29 percent.) Americans already understood Trump to be corrupt and proved themselves willing to tolerate that. But now they are coming to believe that he is inept. In American politics, that is an unforgivable sin.

Prices up, employment down

Wehner and Beschel continue. “On the economic front, Trump’s tariff increases—announced and then altered, often without rhyme or reason—are only now beginning to percolate through the economy, and the steepest hikes haven’t yet kicked in. The economy appears to be slowing down. Consumer prices are up 2.6 percent from a year earlier, which is keeping the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates despite intense pressure from Trump. The jobs report for July showed a gain of only 73,000, a sign that the labor market is weakening. Perhaps more significant, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the jobs totals from May and June downward by more than a quarter of a million. Unemployment ticked up to 4.2 percent. Consumer spending is well below what it was last year. More than half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a ‘major’ source of stress in their life right now. Many industries are postponing hiring, and the national hiring rate is near its lowest level in a decade. Customers appear to be holding off on large, long-term purchases. The Budget Lab at Yale University calculates that the American consumer is dealing with an average effective tariff rate of 18.3 percent, the highest since 1934, and it estimates that price increases will cost each household $2,400 on average this year.” General Motors reported last month that Trump’s tariffs have cost the company more than $1 billion. And the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement that Trump’s latest tariffs “would disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of businesses, consumers and patients on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Cut backs in the Social Safety Net

Wehner and Beschel point out that the number of Americans without health insurance is going up, increasing by more than 10 million in less than a decade, “with particularly devastating impacts for vulnerable rural populations.”

Delayed tax refunds from the IRS – “Eliminating a quarter of the IRS workforce may well undermine tax collection and increase the wait time for Americans to receive refunds.

“Slashing the Social Security Administration, which is serving more people than ever before, with the fewest workers in half a century, will increase wait times for those needing help. It will lead to field-office closures that will hit seniors in rural communities the hardest and may well delay the processing of retirement, disability, and survivor benefits.”

National Institutes of Health have been devastated  — “The Trump administration has devastated the National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s foremost medical-research centers and the biggest sponsor of biomedical research in the world. Nearly 2,500 grants have been ended or delayed, disrupting vital medical research, reducing the pool of available researchers, and compromising public health and disease prevention.”

Massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resulting in the loss of some of the weather service’s most experienced leaders and impeding the collection of data that are essential for accurate and timely weather forecasting, will place Americans at greater risk of experiencing extreme-weather events.

The upcoming elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “As The Atlantic’s David A. Graham has written, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray, headed by a person who is clearly out of his depth. Trump wants FEMA eliminated by the end of the year. It has already lost about a third of its permanent workforce, and its program dedicated to helping communities prepare for natural disasters such as floods and fires has been canceled.” What are the consequences?

“In the immediate aftermath of the recent Texas floods, FEMA’s earlier decision to lay off hundreds of call-center contractors resulted in thousands of unanswered calls for recovery assistance. (The administration dismissed reports about this as “fake news.”) FEMA didn’t deploy to St. Louis for several weeks after a tornado destroyed parts of the city, leaving people unable to apply for even basic payments for fresh food and medicine, let alone get help addressing uninsured losses from the natural disaster.”

Despite these cuts that national debt is expected to rise by over staggering $3 trillion, largely as a result of Trump’s tariffs and the reductions in federal government spending.

Concluding thoughts

Trump continuously claims that he and his administration are encouraging a strong economy, perhaps the strongest since the high-growth years of the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s. However, as the evidence considered in this post shows, the overall U.S. economy under Trump is doing poorly. It is not clear how this will impact the mid-term elections in November 2026, but poll data indicate that a majority of Americans are unhappy with Trump’s policies.

The future of democracy is in question. If the Republicans continue their control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, along with Trump in the White House and a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, then democracy’s future is dim.

Bob Sheak

May 1, 2025

Trump’s self-image

-Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer quotes Trump: “I run the country and the world” (https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/04/trump-second-term-comback/682573

Trump’s enrichment

New York Time’s journalist Steve Rattner writes on April 27, 2025, how Trump is the biggest beneficiary of his own chaotic economic policies (https://stevenrattner.com/article/new-york-times-trumps-biggest-beneficiary-himself). He’s worth citing at length.

“No presidential administration is completely free from questionable ethics practices, but Donald Trump has pushed us to a new low. He has accomplished that by breaking every norm of good government, often while enriching himself, whether by pardoning a felon who, together with his wife, donated $1.8 million to the Trump campaign; promoting Teslas on the White House driveway; or holding a private dinner for speculators who purchase his new cryptocurrency.”

Rattner delves into Trump’s motivation.

“In his trampling of historically appropriate behavior, Mr. Trump appears to be pursuing several agendas. Personal enrichment stands out: Imagine any other president collecting a cut of sales from a cryptocurrency marketed with his likeness. There is the way he is expanding his powers: He has ignored or eliminated large swaths of rules that would have inhibited his freedom of action and his ability to put trusted acolytes in key roles. And then there’s rewarding donors, whether through pardons or favors for their clients.”

Some implications

“The corruption of Trump 2.0 has not gotten the attention it deserves amid the barrage of news about Mr. Trump’s tariff wars, his attack on scientific research and his senior appointees’ Signal text chains. But self-dealing is such a defining theme of this administration that it needs to be called out. Like much that Mr. Trump has done in other areas, it announces to the world that America’s leaders can no longer be trusted to follow its laws and that influence is up for sale.”

Examples from Rattner of Trump’s self-dealings in the first 100 days.

1 – He Eliminated Guardrails

“He turned a legitimate federal employee designation into a loophole. By giving senior officials such as Elon Musk the title ‘special government employee,’ Mr. Trump avoided requirements that they publicly disclose their financial holdings and divest any that present conflicts before taking jobs in the administration.

“He ended bans that stopped executive branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists or seeking lobbying jobs themselves for at least two years.

He loosened the enforcement of laws that curb foreign lobbying and bribery.

2 – He Fired Potential Resisters

“He dismissed the head of the office that polices conflicts of interest among senior officials….jettisoned the head of the office that, among other things, protects whistle-blowers and ensures political neutrality in federal workplaces….[and] purged nearly 20 nonpartisan inspectors general who were entrusted with rooting out corruption within the government.”

3 – He Rewarded His Wealthiest Donors

“Rewarding donors is part of any presidential administration. Every president in my memory appointed supporters to ambassadorships. But again, Mr. Trump has gone much further.

“Jared Isaacman, a billionaire with deep tentacles into SpaceX, gave $2 million to the inaugural committee and was nominated to head NASA — SpaceX’s largest customer.

“The convicted felon Trevor Milton and his wife donated $1.8 million to the campaign and Mr. Milton received a pardon, which also spared him from paying restitution.

“The lobbyist Brian Ballard raised over $50 million for Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Mr. Trump handed major victories to two Ballard clients. He delayed a U.S. ban on China-owned TikTok his first day in office and killed an effort to ban menthol cigarettes, a major priority of tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, on his second.

“Mr. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire who spent $277 million to back Mr. Trump and other Republican candidates, requires his own category.

“As a special government employee, Mr. Musk is supposed to perform limited services to the government for no more than 130 days a year. By law, no government official — even a special government employee — can participate in any government matter that has a direct effect on his or her financial interests. That criminal statute hasn’t stopped Mr. Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency from interacting with at least 10 of the agencies that oversee his business interests.”

Rattner continues.

“As Mr. Musk’s political activities started to repel many potential customers of Tesla, his electric vehicle company, Mr. Trump lined Tesla vehicles up on the White House driveway and extolled their benefits. Then Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News viewers to buy Tesla shares.

“DOGE nearly halved the team at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that regulates autonomous vehicles. The agency has been investigating whether Tesla’s self-driving technology played a role in the death of a pedestrian in Arizona.”

4 – Trump went All In on Cryptocurrency

“Critics of crypto argue that it has demonstrated little value beyond enabling criminal activity. Despite this, Mr. Trump has wasted no time eliminating regulatory oversight of the industry at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, even as his family grows ever more invested in it.

“By enabling money to be delivered anonymously and without any bank participation, crypto offers the possibility for any individual or foreign state to funnel money to Mr. Trump and his family secretly. Moreover, Bloomberg News recently estimated that the Trump family crypto fortune is nearing $1 billion.”

5 – Money flowing into Trump’s political action committees

Mr. Trump is reportedly on his way to raising $500 million for his political action committees — highly unusual for a president who cannot run for re-election.

6 – Investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia

A new Trump Tower is underway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city, with plans for two more projects for the kingdom announced after Mr. Trump’s November election victory, all in partnership with a Saudi company with close ties to the Saudi government.”

Where Trump’s major campaign promises stand after 100 days

Brett Samuels considers this issue in an article published on April 28, 2025
(https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5267775-trumps-first-100-days).

Immigration and the border

“Through 100 days, he has delivered on a host of actions intended to ramp up deportations, clamp down on border crossings and close off pathways for refugees and asylum-seekers to enter the country.

“On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and began surging resources to the area, including from the Pentagon. The White House shut down the CBP One app, which migrants could use to make appointments at the border.

Trump signed an executive action aimed at ending birthright citizenship for children born to people who do not have legal status in the U.S. The matter is set to come before the Supreme Court in May, as critics have argued the move violates the 14th Amendment.

Trump paused refugee admissions and ended temporary protected status (TPS) for certain groups.”

“The president in March signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, asserting that any members of Tren de Aragua older than 14 years residing in the United States be ‘apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.’”

“While deportations have not quite reached the soaring levels Trump spoke about on the campaign trail, a White House official predicted the U.S. would set a record by the end of 2025 for deportations in a single year.”

Inflation and tariffs

Samuels writes: “Trump’s biggest problem on inflation and prices could come from his own hand.

“The president would often muse on the campaign trail that ‘tariff’ was one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary as he outlined his plans to aggressively deploy tariffs to reshape global trade, and boost manufacturing.
Trump so far has made clear his tariff talk was no bluff.

The White House has imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China over the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

The administration imposed a 10 percent tariff on all imports, as well as higher “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, including allies like Japan, India, South Korea and members of the European Union. In the face of skittish financial markets, Trump announced he would lower those ‘reciprocal’ tariffs to 10 percent for all countries for 90 days, except in the case of China, where he has ratcheted up duties on Chinese goods to a total of 145 percent.

“The president has imposed sector-specific tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and automobile imports. He has laid the groundwork to impose additional tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, critical mineral imports, semiconductor imports and copper imports.”

The war in Ukraine

“Trump made grand promises while on the campaign trail about ending the war in Ukraine, pledging at various points that he would be able to solve the conflict within 24 hours of taking office and at one point asserting he could broker an end to the war during the transition.” Yet to be achieved.

“Trump administration officials have met directly with counterparts from Russia and Ukraine, and the president has met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

“Trump has at times lashed out at Zelensky and at other times lashed out at Putin and Russia, placing blame on both nations as an impediment to an agreement. He has also in recent weeks sought to distance himself from the conflict, describing it as ‘Biden’s war,’ a reference to the previous administration.

Transgender issues

“One of Trump’s most consistent applause lines on the campaign trail came when he would tell supporters, typically at the end of rallies, that he would ‘keep men out of women’s sports.’

“Trump made good on that campaign rhetoric just weeks after taking office, signing an executive order to ban transgender women from competing in girls and women’s sports. The White House invited hundreds of guests for the signing, touting it as a major milestone early in the administration.”

“The Pentagon reinstated a ban on transgender troops serving in the military, a move that has been caught up in the courts. On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order recognizing only two sexes, male and female, and directing federal agencies to cease promotion of the concept of gender transition.
Pardons, DEI and more”

Pardons

“On his first day in office, Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The move surprised even some of his aides, who had suggested Trump’s pardons would be more targeted.”

“Another major culture war issue that Trump took on during the campaign was ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the government.
The Trump administration swiftly put federal employees in DEI roles on leave and moved to shutter DEI-related offices. The president has also signed orders directing the Pentagon and State Department to remove DEI initiatives.

Revenge

“The president has also followed through on what many of his critics feared, using the levers of government to directly target his political opponents.

“While Trump said on the campaign trail that ‘success’ would be his revenge on his opponents, he has cut off security details for former administration officials who had been critical of him.

“Trump has directed the Justice Department to investigate two former administration officials who crossed him. And he signed an executive order targeting ActBlue, a major Democratic fundraising platform.”

Trump is severing US from the world

Ben Rhodes reports that it only took a 100 days for Trump to sever America from the world (https://nytimes.com/2025/04/27/opinion/100-days-trump-world.html).

Mr. Rhodes is a contributing Opinion writer and the author, most recently, of “After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We’ve Made.”

“Consider the breadth of this effort. Allies have been treated like adversaries. The United States has withdrawn from international agreements on fundamental issues like health and climate change. A “nation of immigrants” now deports people without due process, bans refugees and is trying to end birthright citizenship. Mr. Trump’s tariffs have upended the system of international trade, throwing up new barriers to doing business with every country on Earth. Foreign assistance has largely been terminated. So has support for democracy abroad. Research cuts have rolled back global scientific research and cooperation. The State Department is downsizing. Exchange programs are on the chopping block. Global research institutions like the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Wilson Center have been effectively shut down. And, of course, the United States is building a wall along its southern border.”

The domestic economic impact

“If the current reduction in travel to the United States continues, it could cost up to $90 billion this year alone, along with tens of thousands of jobs. Tariffs will drive up prices and productivity will slow if mass deportations come for the farm workers who pick our food, the construction workers who build our homes and the care workers who look after children and the elderly. International students pay to attend American universities; their demonization and dehumanization could imperil the $44 billion they put into our economy each year and threaten a sector with a greater trade surplus than our civilian aircraft sector.

The outlook gets worse with time. Why would other countries choose to invest in a country where the president roils global markets through social media posts, profits from crypto schemes that fleece ordinary people and undermines the rule of law upon which commerce depends? It’s far more likely that nations will make trade deals and forge supply chains without the United States while China and its growing list of partners accelerate a movement away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”

“After 250 years of growing more diverse and more connected to the world, Mr. Trump and his cohort are imposing the staid insularity of self-imposed decline. The draining of democratic values from our national identity will leave America defined by its size, power and quixotic lust for profit: a place, not an idea. Roosevelt left us the inheritance of believing we were the good guys. Mr. Trump is eviscerating that pretense as cuts to U.S.A.I.D. have almost certainly caused more civilian deaths than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Polls reflect Trump’s inept economic policies

John Nichols delves into how Trump’s poll numbers have collapsed, The Nation, April 29, 2025 (https://thenation.com/article/politics/trump-polling-numbers-have-collapsed). Here’s some of what he writes.

“After the first 100 days of his second term, Donald Trump occupies the national stage as a historically unpopular president—a suddenly exposed and challenged commander in chief whose combination of scorching ineptitude and creeping authoritarianism has removed the veil of invincibility that Trump obtained in the period leading up to and immediately following his inauguration on January 20.

“Trump’s personal approval ratings are collapsing. So are the polling numbers that measure enthusiasm for his approach to issues that were once considered to be his strong suit. And so, too, are the numbers for his congressional allies, who now face the very real potential for defeats in the 2026 midterm elections that could leave Trump’s administration without the ability to govern in the last two years of his second term.”

“Media outlets released four major new polls today, all pegged to the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term, all with similar findings,” observed Stelter.

“The headlines:
Washington Post/ABC News: “Trump approval sinks as Americans criticize his major policies.”
CNN: “Trump’s approval at 100 days lower than any president in seven decades.”
NBC: “Americans vent disappointment with Trump ahead of his 100-day mark, especially on tariffs.”
CBS: “Trump’s first 100 days seen as bringing big changes, but still too much focus on tariffs.”

“Trump’s actual poll numbers are worse than those headlines suggest,” Nichols points out. He’s not just doing badly. He’s doing epically badly. Just 39 percent of those surveyed for the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll approve of how Trump is serving as president. The ABC analysis of that figure explained, “Donald Trump has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on many of his policies and extensive economic discontent, including broad fears of a recession.”

“Even supposedly conservative pollsters are suggesting that Trump’s in trouble, with Rasmussen Reports finding that, by a 51–42 margin, Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction under Trump. The overall pattern, as reflected in the Real Clear Politics survey of all recent polls, finds that voters believe, by a 51–39 margin, that the country is off course.

“An even more serious concern for Trump and his allies is the collapse in faith in the president’s ability to deal with what were considered to be his strongest issues.

“The new Associated Press/IPSOS poll finds that 53 percent of Americans now disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration policy, while just 46 percent approve. Independent voters, whose support is critical for Trump, disapprove of his handling of migrant and refugee concerns by a staggering 61–37 margin. And the trouble is not limited to that one issue. The new Fox News poll finds that just 38 percent approve of Trump’s approach to taxes and the overall economy, while an even smaller cohort—a mere 33 percent— backs his handling of inflation.

“For congressional Republicans who have stuck with Trump, the poll numbers have taken a major turn for the worse. The Fox News survey finds that, were the mid-term elections held now, voters would back generic Democratic candidates over Republicans by a 49–42 margin. That sort of split, were it to be reflected in the November 2026 midterm election results, would obliterate Republican control of the House.”

“Trump’s ability to intimidate and discourage those who disagree with him is crumbling, as mass demonstrations against his policies erupt across the country and critics are boldly speaking out in the bluntest of terms.”

Concluding thoughts

Trump is taking the economy on a precarious path that will likely isolate the United States from the global economy, create shortages of goods and services here, find ways to enrich himself and the rich, with attempts to make the U.S. an authoritarian state, dismissing due process at a whim.