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Trump at 50 days: a grade of F [1]
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Date: 2025-03-12
In less than two months, Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again has revealed itself for the farce it is. His campaign of slurs, derision, hatred, and empty promises had no substance and no vision. There is nothing—NOTHING—that is better today than it was on January 19, 2025. In fact, his vision of American Greatness is an America diminished, isolated, weakened, and scorned. His theory of governance is nihilism: destroy what makes America great, destroy what makes America strong, in order to accrue power to himself. Like a mad king, he issues daily decrees to impose his dictatorial will on America. Like the ultra-rich in America—the oligarchs—Trump’s entitlement knows no bounds. Apart from his own self-enrichment, Trump has no vision for America. He has allowed the extreme right-wing enemies of America to implement Project 2025, making the country weaker in every respect. Republican ideology has become so bizarre that the military is the only segment of the government worthy of funding. If the military is not deployed against foreign enemies, you can be sure that it will be deployed domestically to impose Christian Nationalism, White Supremacy, and Plutocracy—a system where wealth, not the will of the people, determines political power. For these three ideological groups, Trump and those who voted for him have traded away life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—happiness, what a quaint idea. The idea of a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” articulated by Theodore Parker, memorialized by Lincoln in his Gettysburg address and practiced for more than 150 years, is about to “perish from the earth.” How long will America survive when the likes of Musk and Trump loot its vast, collective wealth? To all those who voted for Trump and for those who sat out the election, forfeiting their power, you are about to reap the whirlwind of destruction along with the rest of us.
The White House issued a press release on March 10, 2025, titled “50 Wins in 50 Days.” However, Mr.-Face-in-the-Camera-All-of-the-Time did not appear publicly on his 50th day—was he afraid to see his shadow like Punxsutawney Phil? Other report cards are not as optimistic. In fact, if you dig deep enough, you will easily unearth “50 Losses in 50 Days.” But consider the following:
Executive Orders: Through March 6, 2025, Trump has signed 87 Executive Orders, many of which have been met with lawsuits.
Lawsuits: By March 8, 2025, 114 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration.
Stock Market: The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 44,966.63 on February 6, 2025, the highest under Trump. On March 10, 2025, Day 50, it closed at 41,911.71, down 3,064.92 or 6.81%. On March 11, 2025, it dropped another 483.98 points, or 1.16%, to 41,427.73.
Consumer Confidence: All consumer confidence indices have declined under Trump. The Conference Board’s Expectations Index through February 19, 2025, dropped 9.3 points to 72.9. For the first time since June 2024, this Index was below the threshold of 80. This usually signals a recession ahead. When Trump was asked about a recession recently, he mumbled something about a mild disturbance.
Inflation: The annual inflation rate has risen 2.6% from before the November election to 2.8% in February 2025.
Jobs: In February 2025, 151,000 jobs were added, below the expectation of 160,000. In addition to this, all of the federal personnel cuts done by Hacksaw Musk will create a cascade of unintended consequences—more than Trump can count, ignore, misrepresent, pacify, or correct.
Presidential Approval: The Emerson College poll, the first out at 50 days+ for the President, indicates trouble. From day one to day fifty, his approval dropped from 49% to 47%, while his disapproval increased from 41% to 45%. This poll has consistently had the best numbers for Trump, but both numbers are moving in the wrong direction. If this rate of change continues, he will be underwater soon.
Tariffs: And then there are tariffs. Despite Trump’s “pretend CEO” success on “The Apprentice,” he is not an economic genius. He attended Fordham for two years and then transferred to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His transfer was helped by his brother Fred Trump, Jr., who had a friend in admissions at the school who interviewed Trump. While Trump brags about getting a degree in economics at Wharton, albeit a bachelor’s degree, he has refused to share his grades. No one believed that he was a good student. After all, his niece, Mary Trump, wrote that Trump had someone to take his SATs to get an acceptable score. Still, his convictions about tariffs go back almost 40 years. The topic came up on April 25, 1988, when he appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Trump complained about the U.S. being a “debtor nation,” i.e., having trade deficits with other countries, especially, at the time, Japan.
The U.S. has used different levels of tariffs passed by Congress continuously from 1789 until the replacement of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 by the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) of 1934, which removed the responsibility for tariffs from Congress and empowered the President to negotiate them. Since then, and especially after World War II, a system of mostly free trade has been established. This was the case until Trump, in general, and Trump 2.0 specifically.
At the Economic Club of Chicago on October 15, 2024, Donald Trump said, “But to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it’s my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm to help it. But to me, it’s the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”
In his first term, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum on March 23, 2018. At the time, he said, “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” While there were some modifications, notably lifting the tariffs on Canada and Mexico when the USMCA agreement replaced NAFTA, these tariffs remained in place through the end of his presidency. He also placed a 25% tariff on almost a thousand products made in China. The stock market took a major hit. Farmers of soybeans racked up losses because China began purchasing soybeans from other countries. Trump had to provide them a $12 billion bailout. While the steel industry saw an increase of jobs of between 1,000 and 2,000, job losses in the auto industry and manufacturing using steel experienced job losses of about 75,000. His major goal of decreasing the U.S. trade deficit failed since it increased. Trump lost his easy-to-win trade wars.
On February 1, 2025, Trump issued an Executive Order imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China. This was on all products imported from those countries. Déjà vu all over again. China still faced average tariffs from Trump’s first term of 19%, so this increases them to approximately 29%. While he has waffled ever since, Canada and China have responded with tariffs, and Mexico’s tariffs are pending. Today, March 12, 2025, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum worldwide.
Through tariffs, Trump is again trying to put America first by ending trade deficits with other countries. He is combining economic warfare with political warfare as he abandons—ALL—of America’s traditional allies to align America with Russia, a regional power with global influence. Is this America’s pathway to becoming a pariah state? Consider his comment that Canada could resolve the tariff issue by becoming America’s 51st state. This is economic terrorism, and it is hardening negative attitudes toward the U.S.
Trump is acting like the Great and Powerful Oz, but no country is going to sit back and allow Trump’s tariffs to go unanswered, in part because they no longer respect America or trust Trump. So, we will have economic warfare for the foreseeable future. It’s just another part of Trump’s agenda to make America great by destroying it.
Fifty days into his administration, Trump’s presidency has already proven disastrous. His policies have driven down economic confidence, destabilized markets, and alienated allies, all while empowering extremists and enriching himself. His authoritarian tendencies, combined with reckless governance, are not making America great but rather setting it on a path toward economic decline, social upheaval, and international isolation. MAGA BS!
Time left to January 20, 2029: 1,409 days
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