Let’s join the chorus and take a look at President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office (I’m confident that you’ve been able to maintain a steady pulse despite my delay 😉 ).
Let’s start with foreign policy.
Since Mr. Trump returned to office, pundits have repeatedly intoned that Mr. Trump’s grotesquely destructive behavior on so many fronts is diminishing our allies’ confidence in America. I beg to differ with these optimists: Mr. Trump’s actions over his first one hundred days in office have destroyed our allies’ confidence in America. I do not believe that America now holds nor for the rest of my Medicare-aged lifetime will hold the esteem of free peoples or the standing on the world stage that it has held for over a century. While any student of foreign affairs is well aware that America has always – as it should – looked out for itself, there is likewise no question that this country has done more good for more people than any other nation in history. Now, we’re just another country. Mr. Trump made clear during the 2024 campaign what he intended to do if reelected (which our allies correctly understood to mean that he intended to turn his back on them). (There will be no mention of Ukraine here, which I defer to a separate future note.) For the remainder of my lifetime, our allies will set their own course. (One need look no further for confirmation than the recent Canadian and Australian national election results, clear repudiations of Mr. Trump.) I concede that if we ever regain our democratic footing, there may be advantages to this shift that a shrewd president might be able to exploit, but we will still be maneuvering in a literally new world.
One can make a credible argument that it is not Mr. Trump, but the majority of American voters who have turned their back on the world; after all, they elected him. That said, I am reminded of an observation made to me by a colleague years ago: “You value what you know.” Citizens of the European democracies have lived with the threat of brutal aggression from the east – Germany, then the USSR, now Russia – for over a century. The threat is engrained in the psyches of Western Europeans. No matter how bad economic times get, a Western European knows that there are greater terrors. Americans have never experienced brutal political subjugation, or felt it close at hand; the Western European’s visceral political fears are not part of our DNA. These Americans naturally focus on the challenges that are real to them. Those who feel that they have been deprived of their share of the American Dream are more interested in disrupting a system that they believe – in some cases, correctly; in other cases, perhaps not — hasn’t given them sufficient opportunity. They seemingly don’t have much conception of what the overall consequences of that disruption might be, or that tyranny could be the result here or elsewhere; those fears don’t compute. (Sadly, I suspect that such is now computing for some Latino Trump voters.) While these Americans’ focus may be understandable, it is just as understandable that their priorities might be considered shallow by Western Europeans who recognize that Mr. Trump’s obvious autocratic sympathies literally endanger their freedom.
On to the home front.
Despite Mr. Trump’s and his MAGA zealots’ repeated claims that Mr. Trump received a “mandate” in the last election, I am confident that they recognize that only half the country supports him on his best day, and that given the American cultural dynamic, they are employing the Nazi model of the 1930s to quickly consolidate their control to reshape America to their vision – an American Apartheid – rather than follow the approach of gradually undermining democracy more recently adopted by Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Erdoğan in Turkey and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. They have accordingly fashioned an Administration consisting almost entirely of previously-identified true believers. They have moved aggressively to silence, intimidate and quell voices that oppose them and institutions that facilitate critical thought (e.g., the Smithsonian); they understand that the more Americans hear only MAGA propaganda, the greater the percentage of Americans who will come to believe it.
Akin to my frustration with foreign policy commentators who imply that America has not already lost its unique standing in the world is my exasperation with legal commentators who are debating whether, given the Trump Administration’s actions, we are merely approaching a Constitutional crisis, or we have reached it. Really? We have passed it. We need look no further than Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a choir boy. An existing court order forbid his deportation to El Salvador; he was nonetheless deported to El Salvador by the Trump Administration; the United States Supreme Court has ordered the Trump Administration to “facilitate” his return; Mr. Trump has refused to do so. It has always been blatantly obvious – even before Mr. Trump recently acknowledged it in an interview – that El Salvador would return Mr. Abrego Garcia if Mr. Trump asked. Mr. Trump doesn’t care. Mr. Abrego Garcia still sits in El Salvador. The President clearly abides by no higher principle — and there is certainly no physical force — to make him do what he doesn’t want to do, or to prevent him from doing what he wants to do. Look up the definition of the word, “dictatorship,” and compare it to the behavior we’ve seen in the last 100 days. Ask yourself whether the fact that the Trump Administration hasn’t yet wielded its power against some of its perceived adversaries doesn’t mean it won’t, or doesn’t feel it can.
Let’s move on to tariffs, from a different perspective than expressed in a recent post. TLOML spent most of her career in rehabilitation services, which often serve the needs of relatively-older individuals. Years ago, she made an observation certainly proving true in my case: that it is a myth that one’s less desirable characteristics soften as one ages; that in fact, as one ages, it becomes more difficult to temper one’s regrettable tendencies. In her introduction to Fascism: A Warning, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted, “[Mr. Trump] conceives of the world as a battlefield in which every country is intent on dominating every other; where nations compete like real estate developers to ruin rivals and squeeze every penny of profit out of deals. Given his life experience, one can see how Trump might think that way ….” Although I am reluctant to tread on the territory of two learned psychologists who read these notes, I will nonetheless venture that I think Mr. Trump is regressing to his core. He will turn 79 this year. He has believed in tariffs for the last 40 years, has focused on them throughout his public career, and has ignored all sound economic advice regarding their overall efficacy. His recent comment about American children having to make do with “two dolls instead of thirty dolls” and that “maybe” the two dolls “will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally …” demonstrated an uncharacteristic political obliviousness; one of his political strengths has been a savviness about “ordinary” Americans’ sentiments. As he redecorates the Oval Office in gold, he seems blithefully unconcerned that the voter segment that put him over the top in 2024 due to inflationary fears will desert him if tariffs either increase inflation or cause a recession. It is obviously hard to judge the mental degradation of a figure who has acted so outrageously throughout his political career, but one can credibly wonder whether the President of the Unites States himself isn’t … losing it — a scary thought with over 1,300 days left in his term. (For those that might feel glee at the possibility of Mr. Trump’s divestiture due to infirmity, I would caution: Watch out what you wish for. I actually consider the notion of Vice President J.D. Vance succeeding Mr. Trump an even more alarming prospect than Mr. Trump himself, with a rationale best expressed if at all in a separate post.)
So what’s the 100 Day Scorecard? That in such a short period of time, the amount of destruction that Mr. Trump has wreaked on the American way of life and the level of additional enmity he has reaped are both truly remarkable. I would wager that if the presidential election was rerun tomorrow, Mr. Trump would lose the popular vote (if not the Electoral College) to former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Obviously, the election won’t be rerun tomorrow. So what happens during the next 200 days, the period that will end about a year before the 2026 midterm elections?
If Mr. Trump’s tariffs do indeed cause product shortages, increase inflation, and/or cause a recession, or the DOGE-driven federal layoffs adversely affect service levels for programs Americans rely upon (Elon Musk has proven to be as inept as he is dastardly), or the Republicans cut Medicaid or Veterans benefits (received by many Trump voters), there will be a ferocious response. The resistance of those who have heretofore opposed MAGA aims will coalesce with the outrage of the pivotal segment of Trump voters who will feel betrayed. Although Mr. Trump is already trying to blame any future economic woes on former President Joe Biden, polls indicate that all but the most gullible MAGAs will hold Mr. Trump responsible. Anti-Administration rallies and demonstrations – already begun in at least our part of the country – will grow and intensify. It seems likely that the next 200 days will heavily influence the 2026 midterms and it also seems probable, given Republicans’ extremely thin margin in the House of Representatives and historical precedent, that Democrats will take control of the House if there are free and fair elections in 2026. In normal times, this would largely strangle the last two years of the second Trump term.
These aren’t normal times. I’ve previously mentioned here a maxim I employed during my career: when setting strategy, assume that the other side is at least as bright as you are, and knows at least as much as you do about the matters at hand. If one applies that approach to this context, it seems reasonable to assume that Mr. Trump and his MAGAs understand that their ability to maintain an American Apartheid will depend upon their willingness to manipulate and exceed the boundaries of American law. (This past weekend, the President indicated that he didn’t know if he had to enforce the Constitution. Someone should tell him – not that he would care — that he has taken an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”) Although the Trump Administration currently appears to be primarily identifying those it considers undesirable by ethnicity and immigration status, at bottom Mr. Trump and MAGAs consider all who oppose them, regardless of ethnicity, sexual preference, religious persuasion, or citizenship status, to be undesirables. One can anticipate that Republicans will seek to pass laws and Mr. Trump will issue Executive Orders which limit the participation of likely Democratic voters. One can anticipate that ICE will make clear that it will be standing near polling places with heavy Latino populations, purportedly to ensure that no “illegals” vote, but in fact to intimidate American Latino citizens from voting, so as to avoid being “accidentally” swept up in an ICE raid. One can anticipate that if anti-Administration rallies and demonstrations become sufficiently vocal and widespread – even if peaceful — the Administration will invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy armed federal troops against demonstrators. One can anticipate that if the Trump Administration believes that Republicans are going to experience significant reversals in the midterms, Mr. Trump will at least consider declaring Martial Law and suspending elections, although no such presidential power is set forth in the Constitution.
So what do we do? Since Mr. Trump took office I have at times reflected about my father, a decorated WWII Marine veteran of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal who enlisted immediately after Pearl Harbor, willing to give his life to defend his country. Aside from paying taxes – to which I’ve always considered it churlish to object, given the opportunities this nation provides — I’ve had to do virtually nothing to avail myself of the blessings of American citizenship. I’ve recently been devoting significantly more time to meetings, rallies and demonstrations expressing opposition to what the Trump Administration is doing to our country. (Since I don’t speak Spanish, I can’t exactly interpret about half of the chants at some rallies; but as I listen, I’m acutely aware – even if many Trump supporters appear to have forgotten – that at past points in our history, similar cries for freedom and peaceful opportunities were undoubtedly expressed in German, Italian, Polish, and a myriad of other languages; if alive then, as an Irish Papist I wouldn’t have known their words, but I would have understood them, too.) I’m not sure whether these activities have any impact other than to show others participating that they’re not alone, but showing up has been something I can do.
What you wish or are able to do — if anything — is up to you; everyone’s life circumstances are unique. But if you’re feeling safe because you don’t fit the current profile of those being targeted by MAGAs, get over it, my friend. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably not Mr. Trump’s biggest fan. In this digital age, he knows it. If tomorrow the Trump Administration changes focus, authorities under the President’s command decide to pick you and me up, and they ultimately plunk us down in Alcatraz (which Mr. Trump wants to reopen as a prison 😉 ), who’s going to stop them?
We’ll see what happens.
McCoy's Noise 