Yesterday marked President Trump’s first 100 days in office, a time period Americans have traditionally observed since Franklin Roosevelt’s first term in 1933. After World War I and the Roaring 20s, the nation turned to Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) to lift a weary people out of the worst economic calamity of the 20th century with a New Deal. Whether the populace knew or not upon electing FDR, he intentionally remade the presidency to address the economic crisis he inherited; starting with the Reorganization Act of 1939, his administration put forth the first ever presidential plan to reorganize the executive branch since the Constitution was ratified. Upon empowering the President to better function managerially, Roosevelt went on to form the Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate military strategy and would soon lead the nation valiantly during World War II. FDR’s time in office shaped the modern American understanding of the Office of the President of the United States.
At the inception of our nation, America had 8 presidents prior to George Washington. Under the original founding document, the Articles of Confederation, these individuals were referred to as President of the United States in Congress Assembled, which as the name indicates means the President led a legislative body as no executive branch existed in that founding document. For many reasons, the Articles of Confederation failed to hold the nation together, and a new constitution had to be devised and ratified. In 1789 under the Constitution of the United States, George Washington was elected the first President.
Noted American Revolutionary historian Joseph Ellis wrote the hagiography His Excellency about America’s first president. At the time “your excellency” was a common term for governors and in hindsight seems rather fitting for Washington given his venerated home in America’s historical pantheon. George Washington of course led the Revolutionary army against the powerful British empire to help forge a fragile Union, and he is renowned for having the dignity and modesty to walk away from high office after his second presidential term, which consequently cemented America’s demarcation from having a type of constitutional monarch and embracing the democratically elected presidential model.
Both Roosevelt and Washington redefined what it meant to be President in the United States. And in his own way so is Donald Trump.
Countless news articles and videos this week have described the stark contrast between Trump’s version of his dubbed Golden Age and the economic and constitutional quagmire to which he claims America mandated him to take the nation.
Ongoing wars, partisan disputes and bad polling are not new in modern America. Cronyism and blatant corruption to reward loyalty and oneself is always disgusting and unfortunately far more common than any citizen wants to admit. And a leader who lies so brazenly and fails to form a consistent and coherent plan of action would be concerning regardless of political allegiance.
Reshaping the executive branch so any potential political enemy can be legally persecuted, openly defying court orders and yanking the “power of the purse” designated explicitly for the House of Representatives is shocking.
Much was made about Project 2025, a plan to build for conservative victory, prior to the November presidential election. Its architect, Paul Dans, wrote a piece this week in the Economist entitled Trump’s revolution is the only way to save America.
Like FDR, Mr Trump entered the Oval Office with America on a collision course, his only option being to move quickly and forcefully..
The $7trn [budget] is not serving the American people, but rather those who serve themselves from government largesse, including many around the globe. To make America run again, its government needs to be restored to one of, by and for the people, not a cadre of unelected, revolving-door bureaucrats. A renovation of government in accordance with its original constitutional architecture is required. As Elon Musk remarked, Mr Trump is not a threat to democracy, but a threat to bureaucracy. The “threat” posed is the promise of transparency and accountability.
The author refers to the president as Trump the builder, no doubt to reflect the core messaging of Project 2025. In the entire article, Dans makes no mention that Republicans co-built the aforementioned bureaucracy and enriched themselves shamelessly as well as Democrats, that this administration has offered minimal transparency as it relates to Trump’s tariffs negotiations and that presently there has been an utter lack of accountability from any in this administration as they flout court orders and double down on gaslighting the public about their abject blunders.
Regarding “a renovation of government in accordance with its original constitutional architecture,” Project 2025 has an entire page on its website dedicated to telling The Truth About Project 2025. A few troubling assertions:
Terminate the Constitution: FALSE
Project 2025 actually represents an attempt to restore Constitutional governance, not terminate it. Bringing the administrative state more firmly under the control of the president, whose authority traces directly from the Constitution, could not be further from terminating this quintessential founding document.
Give the Government more power over your daily life: FALSE
Project 2025 aims to weaken the bureaucracy that churns out tens of thousands of pages of rules every year. A more restrained administrative state translates into less control over Americans’ daily lives, not more.
Gut democratic checks and balances on presidential power: FALSE
Project 2025 aims to protect democracy by restoring traditional checks and balances between the President, Congress, and the Courts. We advocate making the administrative state more accountable by restoring the president’s control over the bureaucrats in the Executive Branch.
Not every lie debunked on that page is necessarily disproven to date, but its architect and the “ government lies” listed are already dystopian in nature. The Constitution designates certain powers to reside explicitly in the legislative branch, has a Bill of Rights to ensure that free speech (among other rights) is protected and gives the judiciary the power to check any executive abuse of power. Each of those are being undone before our eyes in just 100 days.
To help put in perspective how lightening fast this administration is moving, the Federal Register lists all executive orders (EOs) for every president since FDR. Prior Republican presidents (including Trump’s first term) had the following number of executive orders in their first year in office:
Dwight Eisenhower had 80 EOs in 1953
Richard Nixon had 52 EOs in 1969
Ronald Reagan had 50 EOs in 1981
George HW Bush had 31 EOs in 1989
George W Bush had 54 EOs in 2001
Donald Trump had 55 EOs in 2017
In the first 100 days alone, Trump in his second term already has signed 139 executive orders! Congress as we know passes legislation far more slowly since more than 500 elected officials must vote on behalf of the American people; Trump intentionally continues to bypass the legislative branch and feigns ignorance about judiciary pushback to mold a new presidency to which he is openly discussing being elected again in spite of a Constitutional term limit.
The Financial Times (FT) in their 100 days of chaos article wrote something very telling about how Trump intends to continue operating:
“Flooding the zone” was a strategy devised by Donald Trump’s first-term adviser Steve Bannon to generate such a blur of news that the media could not keep track. Trump has elevated it in his second term to a method of governing.
Beyond domestic chaos at the FT puts it, Reuters detailed the foreign fallout on the global stage:
Trump's second-term "America First" agenda has alienated friends and emboldened adversaries while raising questions about how far he is prepared to go..
Debate has intensified in South Korea about developing its own nuclear arsenal. And speculation has grown that deteriorating relations could prompt U.S. partners to move closer to China, at least economically..
The administration's belittling of Europe and NATO, long the central pillar of transatlantic security but accused by Trump and his aides of freeloading off the U.S., has caused deep unease..
[Trump] has insisted that the U.S. will "get" Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish island. He has angered Canada by saying it has little reason to exist and should become part of the U.S. He has threatened to seize the Panama Canal, which was handed over to Panama in 1999. And he has proposed that Washington take over war-ravaged Gaza and transform the Palestinian enclave into a Riviera-style resort.
The world order, as we all know, was designed after humanity survived the terrors of fascism and found firmer economic footing post- Great Depression. If the courts are unable to effectively curb presidential abuses of power and the majority of Republican members of Congress refuse to rein Trump’s grand ambitions, America will witness in the next 100 days and more a new type of American president - an executive wholly unintended by the Constitution that expects undying faith from his citizens that he always does the right thing and that he cannot be subjected to “partisan” checks on power since he can not receive fair judgement from any but loyalists.