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100 Days of Madness: How Donald Trump Divided a Nation and Shook the World [1]
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Date: 2025-05-05
It took less than 100 days. That’s all Donald Trump needed to fracture a nation, tarnish a global reputation, and embolden a new era of political cowardice in the United States.
In that short window, fewer than four months, Trump delivered on exactly one promise: chaos. His administration's opening salvos weren’t policy-driven; they were culture-war declarations, aimed not at unifying a divided country, but exploiting it. And while Trump unleashed his barrage of executive orders, conspiracies, and nationalist rhetoric, a chilling truth revealed itself: he wasn’t doing it alone.
He had help, eager, complicit, and power-hungry help.
Let’s go back to the day the veil dropped. On January 20, 2017, Trump took the oath of office and delivered an inauguration speech so dystopian it alarmed allies and adversaries alike. He painted America as a nation on the brink, and vowed to bring an end to the “American carnage.” In reality, he was the carnage.
Within days, he signed Executive Order 13769, infamously known as the “Muslim ban,” sparking mass protests in airports, legal chaos, and global condemnation. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned, “The necessary fight against terrorism does not justify a general suspicion against people of a certain origin or a certain religion.” British lawmakers debated banning Trump from visiting the UK altogether.
The U.S. was no longer a symbol of liberty, it had become a cautionary tale.
Bring in the enables, the cowards in power. But Trump didn’t seize democracy by himself. He had willing collaborators in Congress—career politicians who knew better and chose worse.
Senator Mitch McConnell beamed with approval, saying, “Our new president has made an outstanding beginning,” even as Trump bulldozed norms and peddled lies.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, who once joked that Trump was on Putin’s payroll, suddenly developed amnesia when it mattered.
Senator Lindsey Graham, who once declared Trump would “destroy conservatism,” morphed into one of his most loyal lapdogs, praising him as “a consequential president.”
Representatives Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz, ever-thirsty for camera time, became Trump’s street-level , baseless conspiracies, undermining the FBI, and torching whatever remained of institutional trust.
Their motives? Fear of Trump’s base. Lust for reelection. Obsession with power. Whatever it was, it wasn’t patriotism.
In just weeks, lies became policy as Trump rebranded reality as fake news. He claimed, without evidence, that millions of illegal immigrants voted in 2016. He insisted, absurdly, that his inauguration crowd was the biggest in history. He accused President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower. All lies. All repeated endlessly. And the louder the truth screamed, the more his supporters in Congress shoved it into a closet and locked the door.
Even Senator Ted Cruz, once scorched by Trump on the debate stage and accused of being the son of a JFK assassin, swallowed his pride and hitched a ride on Air Force One. The dignity of the office became a photo backdrop for opportunists.
And the world watched and laughed. The global reaction was swift and scornful. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He alienated NATO allies. He praised authoritarian leaders like Putin, Erdoğan, and Kim Jong-un, while mocking democratic norms and international cooperation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned, “We can't pretend the rules don't matter, rules matter now more than ever.” French President Emmanuel Macron openly rebuked Trump’s nationalism, adopting the slogan “Make Our Planet Great Again.”
And former Mexican President Vicente Fox didn’t mince words: “Trump, when will you understand that I am not paying for that f---ing wall?”
America wasn’t feared or admired. It was ridiculed. And it still is.
And they are still following him. Why? The terrifying truth is this: Trump didn’t corrupt these people. He revealed them. Their loyalty was never to democracy, it was to control. Trump gave them a license to lie, legislate cruelty, and villainize the press. And they embraced it, because accountability was no longer required, only allegiance.
Even now, after a failed coup attempt and multiple indictments, many of these same enablers are still publicly supporting his return to power. They aren't patriots. They’re pyromaniacs in tailored suits.
This is the aftermath before the aftermath. America is still reeling. The insurrection on January 6 wasn’t a surprise—it was the culmination of everything Trump modeled from Day One. That madness began in his first 100 days. And like a virus, it mutated, infected, and metastasized. The country hasn’t healed. The world hasn’t forgotten.
The question now isn’t how we got here, we know that story. The question is whether we have the courage to confront those who pushed us to the edge, and the will to stop them from dragging us off the cliff entirely.
Because if Trump’s first 100 days showed us anything, it’s this: democracy isn’t destroyed in a single act. It’s sold off in pieces by those who were sworn to protect it.
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