Leubsdorf: Trump’s first 100 Days — consequential change for the worse

The first days of President Donald Trump s second term have brought the majority of consequential changes in the federal executive since Franklin D Roosevelt s New Deal nearly a century ago along with an all-out effort to curb the nation s major independent institutions the courts law firms academia and the press Though Trump proclaimed this was the onset of a new golden age his moves have so far left the country worse off than when he re-entered the White House In just three months he has increased the likelihood of an economic recession weakened the administration s ability to meet unexpected crises frayed longtime overseas alliances and undermined the Constitution s balance of powers Trump has gone far beyond cutting federal jobs targeting alleged waste and eliminating diversity programs He has crippled plenty of governmental programs that benefit the young the frail and the elderly and threatened outside institutions that resisted or criticized him Chaos reigns And his on-again off-again imposition of stiff import tariffs has sapped consumer confidence at home and created uncertainty throughout the global trading system abroad Trump has governed by granting himself a vast increase in unauthorized presidential power seeking to weaken traditionally independent branches of regime and challenging the law that requires the executive branch to spend the money Congress appropriated and maintain the programs it authorized Roosevelt s reforms rubber-stamped by a supportive Democratic Congress expanded leadership s authority to help needy Americans Trump s initiatives acquiesced in by supportive congressional Republicans would limit its ability to help them though federal courts have questioned or halted several of his unilateral actions Highly publicized court challenges have also contributed to a slow start of his efforts to deport millions who came here illegally starting with gang members and others with criminal records But Trump was able through stricter enforcement to stem the flow of illegal entrants on the Southern confines Overall he is succeeding where previous Republican presidents failed to curb the vast array of federal programs and services that FDR launched in the s moderate Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon maintained and modern Democrats like Lyndon B Johnson Barack Obama and Joe Biden expanded Politico s Daybook a daily compendium of Washington developments and political gossip announced correctly particular weeks ago that Trump s goal was the wholesale destruction of the liberal state Everywhere you look liberal institutions across America are being gutted and it s taken Trump just two months to pull it off Playbook concluded For hardline conservatism it s a triumph of historic proportions Besides the sweeping tax cuts Trump is demanding from his congressional allies would make it harder for any successor to undo his actions by ensuring reductions in future federal revenues Much of the initial cabinet dismantling stemmed from the implementation by billionaire supporter Elon Musk s Department of Authorities Efficiency of the detailed battle plan Trump s conservative allies developed after he left the presidency in Applying a meat-axe approach to agency after agency DOGE forced thousands of leadership employees into retirement and crippled programs that fight poverty encourage diversity enhance the atmosphere aid scientific research and help mishap casualties abroad while reducing governmental assistance for veterans taxpayers and Social Protection recipients It eliminated the majority humanitarian foreign aid programs folding the Agency for International Rise into the State Department and started to dismantle the Department of Teaching though only Congress can legally do so Upside down Meanwhile Trump has weakened U S ties with its traditional allies and strengthened them with long-term adversaries by reversing key aspects of the nation s foreign guidelines He has sought rapprochement with Vladimir Putin s Russia including a peace agreement for Ukraine and threatened to withdraw military sponsorship from the country s strongest allies in Europe And while vowing to prevent weaponization of authorities Trump unleashed a wave of retribution that targeted not only perceived political enemies in both parties but also critics in broader areas of American life like law firms federal judges and the press He has sought to influence overall societal attitudes by controlling or influencing such nonpolitical institutions as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ousting its board and installing himself as chairman the Smithsonian Museums and the National Gallery of Art In the name of fighting antisemitism and racism he suspended federal financial grants to countless prominent universities several of whom acquiesced rather than peril billions in leadership research funds Related Articles Letters Will California cuts leave seriously ill inmates with no place to go Emerging from a collective silence U S universities organize to fight President Trump Tech industry tried reducing AI s pervasive bias Now Trump wants to end its woke AI efforts President Trump preps executive orders targeting sanctuary cities police amendment Tesla is in worse shape than you think More not long ago led by Harvard a few started resisting cabinet intrusion into professor tenure program selections and learner admissions That prompted the IRS to threaten Harvard s tax-free status Trump s sweeping actions often by executive orders with questionable legal or legislative authority have unleashed a massive political and legal counterattack Fired employees governing body unions Democratic attorneys general and individual targets have sued to stop what they regard as illegal acts Last week a senior federal judge in Washington James Boasberg threatened to hold the administration in contempt for refusing to pause deportation of illegal immigrants with criminal records Other cases from Trump s effort to revoke birthright citizenship to his unilateral termination of federal programs are headed for ultimate adjudication by the Supreme Court Their outcome may determine the extent Trump succeeds in crippling the cabinet s decades-long focus on helping Americans who suffered from poverty or racial and sexual discrimination and how much of his unilateral efforts survive Still it seems likely that the changes unleashed in Trump s first days will upshot in a changed and a weakened America Carl P Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News The Dallas Morning News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency