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A List of Trump's Epic Failures (and It's Been Less Than 100 Days) [1]
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Date: 2025-04-18
In 1933, FDR spent the first hundred days of his term doing as many things as he could to correct the economic mess he inherited. Some of them worked, some of them didn’t. But his 100-day blitz set a standard for future presidents: in their first 100 days (sometimes called their “honeymoon” period) they were expected to get a lot accomplished.
Trump’s hundredth day is still a few days away (April 30), but Dana Milbank is already saying that Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure:
He has been a legislative failure. (Only 5 bills signed into law, and they were minor.)
He has been an economic failure. (Stock market crash, etc. etc. etc.)
He has been a foreign-policy failure. (Reverse of any progress on Gaza or Ukraine)
He has been a failure in the eyes of friends. (Useless and destructive trade war)
He has been a failure in the eyes of foes. (China is getting bolder)
He has been a constitutional failure. (Contempt for the law, judges, Congress)
He has been a failure in public opinion. (Approval down 14 points or more)
Milbank adds that even his “successes” “amount to less than meets the eye” in border crossings (which were already going down) and in cost-cutting.
One thing Trump has succeeded at:
He has introduced a level of chaos and destruction so high that historians are hard-pressed to find its equal in our history.
Well, there is IMO one point in history that does come close: Trump’s first term. In sum:
We have been through ruinous periods before, but never when the president was the one actively and knowingly causing the ruin.
Trump’s actions have even disturbed conservatives who support(ed) him: Trump’s deportation of Maryland man divides conservatives. Another conservative, who is particularly disliked around here (for very good reason) is David Brooks. But now David Brooks is calling for a National Civic UPRISING...really he is.
Brooks wrote something not mentioned in ProLiberalDemocracy’s excellent diary that I want to bring up here:
These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. . . . We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.
Bluntly: Trump is leading a sustained and deliberate assault on the pillars of western civilization, and he is doing it for two reasons: first because he is an uncivilized brute who chafes against the restraints that civilized people accept as the price of living together, and second, I am convinced, because Putin (an uncivilized brute himself) wants him to.
One more commentary: Lee Hockstader writes in WaPo that What FDR built, Trump is tearing down. He is writing specifically about FDR’s famous four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Trump is bent on eliminating all of them:
Roosevelt’s greatness lay in his deep reserves of both toughness and compassion. For Trump, the first is a pose and the second a sucker’s game. Americans, whose fortunes soared on the deeply moral vision of their 32nd president, are now collectively victims of the depthless cynicism and value-free narcissism of their 47th.
This comes from Trump’s desire to control everyone else while he himself remains outside anyone’s control (Putin perhaps excepted, though even Putin is showing signs of getting exasperated with the monster he unleashed — Putin tests Trump's patience by slow-walking ceasefire talks).
Our modern western civilization, for all its flaws and mistakes, is in large measure founded on the understanding that reasoned debate should determine our course of action, that everything is open to question, that doubt is essential to progress. Trump (and Musk, not at all by the way) are repulsed by all of that.
As we fight back against the monster that has been foisted upon us and the world, we must also keep in mind that we are fighting not just for our freedoms, but for western civilization itself.
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