A catalogue of Trump’s 100 days of terrible horrible, no good actions

Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in office have been a blitzkrieg — an intense political campaign intended to bring about a swift victory.

He has managed to produce his own Jacksonian “Trail of Tears” by firing thousands of federal workers. He feverishly works to demolish the federal government and the rule of law in a frenzy of “burning down” the house of democracy akin to General Sherman.

Hiding in plain sight, Trump’s campaign of destruction displays an array of ideologies from white supremacy, nativism, hyper-patriotism, evangelical resentment, racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Just in case you cannot keep up with the daily deluge, I have catalogued many — but certainly not all — of the terrible, horrible, no good actions of the past 100 days. And for ease of reference, I’ve organized them in categories.

For cruelty’s sake

Some of Trump’s actions seem nothing short of cruelty. They serve no purpose other than hurting others. Adam Serwer of The Atlantic put it best, “The cruelty is the point.” Trump and his followers experience joy from the cruelty. It is the weird excitement of exercising power over others.

“The cruelty is the point.”

1. Suspended the refugees assistance.
2. Issued an executive order demanding a registry of sanctuary cities and states that will be targeted for the “suspension or termination” of federal funding.
3. Restored the actual practice of the federal death penalty.
4. Reclassified millions of undocumented immigrants with Social Security numbers as dead, seeking to “terminate” their legal and financial lives.
5. Slashed research into LGBTQ health.
6. Fired senior women military leaders from their posts at the Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Black man.
7. Rescinded a bedrock Civil Rights-era order from Lyndon B. Johnson barring discrimination among federal contractors.
8. Captured and sought deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who criticized Israel’s violence toward Gaza at student protests.
9. Threatened to arrest and imprison pro-Gaza participants of “illegal protests” at American universities.
10. Detained Rumeysa Ozturk, a student visa holder from Turkey studying at Tufts University, without charge, over her publication of a pro-Palestine op-ed.

Demolition

Robert L. Ivie, in Trump’s Unwitting Prophecy argues demolition is the “guiding trope of Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric”: demolishing funding, dismantling regulations, shredding trade agreements, disrupting the stock market, deporting immigrants.

Demolition is the “guiding trope of Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric.”

• Signed an executive order to “eliminate” the Department of Education.
• Attacked Harvard University as antisemitic and threatened to revoke its nonprofit status.
• Instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate ActBlue, the fundraising portal widely used by Democratic political campaigns.
• Cut thousands of jobs at the Forest Service and National Park Service.
• Rescinded Biden-era executive orders that would have dramatically lowered prescription drug prices.
• Declared a national energy emergency.
• Reinstated Schedule F. The order aimed to allow a number of career federal employees to lose their jobs without any protection and reclassify their positions as political appointments.
• Issued an executive order banning collective bargaining at many federal agencies, insisting that union rights are a threat to national security.
• Declared a freeze on hiring civilians.
• Signed executive orders eliminating DEI.
• Imposed sweeping tariffs on America’s trading partners, dubbing the move “Liberation Day” and insisting America “IS HEALING” as the markets crash before he hit the golf course. Trump’s nonsensical tariff plan calls for import levies on the Heard and McDonald Islands, an uninhabited Australian territory that’s home to penguins, but none for Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
• Jacked up the tariff on Chinese goods, exacerbating a trade war that appears destructive.
• Sided with Vladimir Putin by calling Ukraine President Volodymir Zelenskyy a “dictator.”
• Berated President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
• Asked the Justice Department to shut down an anti-corruption task force that went after oligarchs.
• Threatened withholding federal wildfire aid from California unless the state satisfies a series of his demands.
• Shuttered the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
• Allowed Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to fire tens of thousands of federal workers without any basis or orderly evaluation.
• Allowed DOGE to mine sensitive data the government holds on American citizens, from the Social Security Administration to the IRS.
• Attempted to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• Shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, leaving aid workers and recipients in the lurch.
• Reduced jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, while laying out plans to cut 80,000 more.
• Fired more than a dozen inspectors general, who offer oversight of executive agencies and actually prevent waste, fraud and abuse.
• Led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to slash $1 billion that helped food banks and schools buy products from local farmers.
• Oversaw the Food and Drug Administration suspension of milk inspections amid DOGE cuts.
• Allowed the USDA to pull the plug on a program to monitor the nation’s raw chicken supply for salmonella.
• Ordered a sweeping freeze of trillions in federal grants and spending, affecting programs including Meals on Wheels and Medicaid, as well as essential scientific and medical research.
• Pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Attacked key environmental regulations.
• Dismissed the authors working on the National Climate Assessment.
• Fired hundreds of staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• Gutted the National Environmental Policy Act.

Fulfilling evangelical dreams

Some of Trump’s actions are rewards for his evangelical followers. MAGA evangelicals are anti-woke, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-history, anti-global warming, anti-public education. Trump’s actions against education, schools, the arts, history and science are nothing but an attempt to excite the evangelical base.

“Trump’s actions are nothing but an attempt to excite the evangelical base.”

• Restored “names that honor American greatness” (such as renaming Veteran’s Day as “Victory Day” and overseeing the Department of Defense returning military base names to previous Confederate labels).
• Proclaimed an act on “Keeping Education Accessible and Ending COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in Schools.”
• Said he was “ending radical indoctrination” in K-12 schooling.
• Established a White House Faith Office catering only to evangelical Christians.
• Signed an executive order “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.”
• Signed an executive order on “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
• Signed an executive order on “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
• Signed an executive order on “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.”
• Refused to issue passports marked with X on the male or female line, cutting out the reality of transgender and nonbinary existence.
• Attempted to ban trans soldiers from the military, implying they are dishonorable.
• Removed gov off the internet, while removing every mention of “abortion” from the Department of Health and Human Services website.
• Pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists convicted of crimes of breaking into reproductive health centers, stealing fetal tissue and accosting pregnant patients outside.
• Attacked American history by ordering a crackdown on supposed “anti-American ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of African American History and the Women’s History Museum.

Trumpeting the gospel of revenge

An alarming number of Trump’s actions have no purpose except personal vengeance on his part. For a president to use the power of office to exact such relentless vengeance on his perceived enemies is a low point in American history.

“An alarming number of Trump’s actions have no purpose except personal vengeance on his part.”

• Issued executive orders cracking down on some of the nation’s biggest law firms, as retaliation for representing his political enemies.
• Issued executive orders directing the Justice Department to investigate former Trump officials Miles Taylor for writing anonymously about his first administration and Chris Krebs, a former Homeland Security official, for telling the truth about the 2020 election.
• Demanded an apology from Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde after her plea for mercy sermon at Washington National Cathedral.
• Asked Ed Martin, Trump’s loyalist prosecutor, to fire the Justice Department lawyers who worked on January 6 cases.
• Ended Secret Service security detail for loyalists-turned-critics including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
• Purged top staff of the National Archives in apparent payback for its connection to the criminal charges brought against Trump for taking boxes of classified presidential records.
• Pardoned loyalist in Nevada who fraudulently used funds meant to honor a fallen police officer for plastic surgery.
• Turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom.
• Baselessly blamed a deadly mid-air collision of a military helicopter and a passenger jet on DEI.
• Falsely claimed the U.S. spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza and falsely accused his predecessor of spending millions “making mice transgender.”

Attacking the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy

The most disturbing of Trump’s actions relate to his challenges to the rule of law, the courts and the Constitution. His unmitigated quest for power is peppered throughout his actions. These actions include his attack on the First Amendment and a free press.

“His unmitigated quest for power is peppered throughout his actions.”

• Signed an executive order expanding police state to “unleash high-impact local police forces.”
• Signed executive order to grant top security clearances without vetting.
• Signed executive order to eliminate federal funding for PBS and NPR.
• Deported hundreds of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process in defiance of a judge’s order.
• Confessed his administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a man without a criminal record — due to what it described as an “administrative error” and then refused to follow a Supreme Court order to return him.
• Deported U.S. citizen children.
• Ousted the Associated Press from White House briefings over its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” (The move later was ruled reversed)
• Asserted he is allowed to break any law he wants. “He who saves his country does not violate any law,” he said.
• Said he doesn’t know if he must uphold the Constitution.
• Said he wouldn’t “100%” agree that the U.S. should be governed by laws, not men.
• In his most horrible act, Trump pardoned his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, including those who assaulted cops.
• Arrested a sitting judge in Wisconsin, allegedly for helping a migrant avoid being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although that story later was shown to be false.

Bordering on the absurd

Some of Trump’s actions defy categorization and serve no useful purpose.

• Renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and restored “Mount McKinley” as the name for the Alaskan mountain, Denali.
• Dropped federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, while attempting to hold the mayor as “an ever-present partner,” under threat of future prosecution.
• Appointed and fired four IRS interim commissioners in an effort to gain control over personal taxpayer records to aid deportation efforts and threatened to revoke tax-exempt status of nonprofits Trump opposes.
• Made a joke of constitutional term limits by repeatedly discussing a potential 2028 presidential run, and his family business starts selling “Trump 2028” merchandise.
• Shared an AI video on Truth Social imagining Gaza as a glitzy beach paradise with a lavish “Trump Gaza” hotel. (Trump previously pledged a U.S. takeover of Gaza, insisting: “We will own it.”)
• Fired multiple national security officials a day after right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer recommended their ouster in a meeting at the White House.
• Denied Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for disaster relief as the state struggles to recover from a series of tornadoes.
• Began selling a “gold card” allowing a pathway to citizenship for just about anyone who can afford the $5 million price tag.
• Threatened to take Greenland with military force.
• Repeatedly pressured Canada to submit to becoming America’s “51st state.”
• Opened a snitch line for parents to rat out pro-diversity efforts in public education.
• Uselessly drained billions of gallons of water from California reservoirs in the Central Valley for a photo op, while claiming the water would help put out (already fully contained) Los Angeles wildfires.
• Posted an AI-generated photo of himself dressed as the pope.
• Staged a MAGA takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
• Oversaw a Pentagon anti-diversity purge that lead the Naval Academy to remove Maya Angelou from its library, while retaining Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
• Instructed the Department of Homeland Security to produce ads thanking Trump for closing the border.
• Said he’s made no mistakes in first 100 days.

 

Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.

 

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