He has been a legislative failure. He has signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.
He has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that "Old Donald"’s tariffs will result in higher inflation and slower growth.
He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of "Old Donald"’s naive overtures to Putin.
He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.
He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by "Old Donald"’s retreat from the world.
He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.
He has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist/YouGov poll finds 42 percent approving his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a 16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.
Even his few “successes” amount to less than meets the eye. Border crossings are down from already low levels, but despite all the administration’s bravado, there’s little evidence of an increase in deportations. Hopes for cost-cutting under the U.S. DOGE Service, which Elon Musk originally projected at $1 trillion this year, have been scaled back to just $150 billion — and much of that appears to be based on made-up numbers.
Previous restructurings of government were done with careful planning and with bipartisan congressional support. But "Old Donald" “doesn’t come in as a reformer as much as a wrecking ball,” Brinkley says. “What we’re witnessing with "Old Donald" is just raw vengeance and belittling fellow Americans and creating a tinderbox situation that makes people feel we’re in a neo civil war that could go sideways at any moment.” Brinkley also notes that previous attempts at executive overreach — FDR’s court packing, Nixon’s abuses — were repelled by members of each president’s own party. But now, Republicans are silent. “That’s the missing ingredient of our time,” he says.
The researcher was reportedly en route for a conference in Houston when the incident took place on March 9.According to an unnamed source cited by AFP, US authorities labelled the messages as “hatred towards Trump” that “could be qualified as terrorism”.
Last week, he also appeared on French news channel France Info, slamming the Trump administration’s cuts to critical sciences like health, climate change, renewable energy and AI.
“Research is being chain-sawed in the United States!” said Baptiste.
“This is not only a serious blow for American research, it’s a serious blow to global research in which the United States up until now has played a pivotal role.”
Without formally declaring a reversal of course or offering a strategic rationale, he has pushed the United States to switch sides in the Ukraine war, abandoning all talk about helping a nascent, flawed democracy defend its borders against a larger invader. He did not hesitate when he ordered the United States to vote with Russia and North Korea — and against virtually all of America’s traditional allies — to defeat a U.N. resolution that identified Moscow as the aggressor. His threats to take control of the Panama Canal, Greenland, Gaza and, most incredibly, Canada, sound predatory, including his claim Tuesday that the border with America’s northern ally is an “artificial line of separation.”Other members of Mr. "Old Donald"’s national security team have talked about a “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” That suggests a world in which the United States, China, Russia and perhaps Saudi Arabia take responsibility for their distinct spheres of influence. Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, the British spy agency, said in a BBC interview that it reminded him of the Yalta Conference — the meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in 1945 — where “the strong countries decided the fate of small countries.”
“That’s the world we’re going into,” he predicted, adding “I don’t think we’re going back to the one we had before.”
Of course, such an arrangement has long been a dream of Mr. Putin’s, because it would elevate the power of his economically declining state. But as Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president, said on social media the other day, “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud.”
“The Attitude Is Go F**k Yourself” Reports Kennedy Center After 'Old Donald' Announcement He’s the New Chair
- He wants to chair a board. Is that important?
It has always striven to represent everyone — its board bipartisan, evenly split between Democratic and Republican members — and its programming broad, from bluegrass to hip-hop, drawing room comedy to avant-garde happening.
- Why is 'Old Donald' taking control? 'Old Donald' has a tangled history with the Center. In his first term, he skipped the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony when some honorees declined to meet him for a reception at the White House
- Where do things go from here?
Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan — accusing the Center of "subsidizing Chinese Communist Party propaganda," by presenting a five-day run of performances by the National Ballet of China. So that might be a hint of things to come. It's sobering if you remember that at the height of the Cold War, the Center brought the Bolshoi Ballet from Russia, so it's kind of baked into its DNA.
The Nazi regime in Germany actively promoted and censored forms of art between 1933 and 1945. Upon becoming dictator in 1933, Adolf Hitler gave his personal artistic preference the force of law to a degree rarely known before. In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal.[1] It was, furthermore, to be comprehensible to the average man.[2] This art was to be both heroic and romantic.[2] The Nazis viewed the culture of the Weimar period with disgust. Their response stemmed partly from conservative aesthetics and partly from their determination to use culture as propaganda.[3]
'Old Donald' has the time to run the Kennedy Center? Well, with Elon running the country, yeah, I guess. Lots of time, apparently.
“It is complete chaos,” said “The Five” host of the funding freeze, which had been temporarily halted by a federal judge one day earlier.“It is not being managed in any sort of orderly fashion at all.”
Convicted felon in the white house
'Old Donald' Brazenly Defies Laws in Escalating Executive Power Grab
Mr. 'Old Donald' has effectively nullified laws, such as by ordering the Justice Department to refrain from enforcing a ban on the wildly popular app TikTok and by blocking migrants from invoking a statute allowing them to request asylum. He moved to effectively shutter a federal agency Congress created and tried to freeze congressionally approved spending, including most foreign aid. He summarily fired prosecutors, inspectors general and board members of independent agencies in defiance of legal rules against arbitrary removal."Old Donald's" dictatorial dreams tripped up by the democratic problem of public opinion
“This is 'Old Donald'’s first major loss. When we fight, we win. We may not have majorities in the House and the Senate, but we DO have the power to loudly educate and mobilize against the mass looting the 'Old Donald' admin is attempting against our veterans, healthcare, education, and more,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a Wednesday post on social platform X, less than an hour after the news about the reversal broke.
"It's not based on any law or regulation or anything really other than an idea they cooked up to get federal employees out of the government."He said the offer may appear like a soft landing for those who don't want to comply with the 'Old Donald' administration's requirement to return to the office full-time.
"But there's no guarantee other things won't happen to them between now and then, like they won't get fired for some other reason or they won't get laid off pursuant to a reduction in force," Eisenmann added.
The executive order was among several the president signed meant to steer American schools and universities to adopt Republican priorities, such as restricting how schools discuss racism and gender issues.The orders on Wednesday unleashed the Education Department to enforce penalties against schools that stray from the themes of “patriotic education” that Mr. 'Old Donald' has said should be the underpinning of American history classes. And they appeared designed to send schools scrambling to check course catalogs for any content that could invite the government to rescind federal funds.
Some states on Tuesday afternoon began to regain access to the portal, including Connecticut, according to Christine Stuart, a spokeswoman for the state's Medicaid agency.But state officials across the country on Tuesday said they were concerned that the portal would shut them out at the end of the week, since many states receive a large infusion of funds at the start of every month. Feb. 1 falls on Saturday. The freezing of the payment system created significant confusion among those officials over whether the programwould be affected by "Old Donald's" freeze on federal grants.
"Old Donald's" inauguration, Ahmed added, "makes clearer than ever the triumph of oligarchy' - one that isn't incidental but intrinsic to the politics and policies that we're seeing set out."
Musk's straight-arm gesture embraced by right-wing extremists regardless of what he meant
While many were quick to call the gesture a Nazi salute'or a Roman salute, which also has fascist connections'some conservative influencers have countered Musk is merely awkward and it was his way of showing his appreciation to 'Old Donald' supporters.
Hear ex-Capitol officer's message to 'Old Donald' voters after 'Old Donald' pardoned men who attacked him
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“Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of "Old Donald's" efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!"
"They're buying influence," the group continued. "And they can expect a massive return on their investment. Crypto is already seeing one with 'Old Donald' promising an executive order handout to the Wall Street-backed Big Tech corporations on Day 1.
"Old Donald's" inauguration, Ahmed added, "makes clearer than ever the triumph of oligarchy' - one that isn't incidental but intrinsic to the politics and policies that we're seeing set out."
Musk's straight-arm gesture embraced by right-wing extremists regardless of what he meant
While many were quick to call the gesture a Nazi salute'or a Roman salute, which also has fascist connections'some conservative influencers have countered Musk is merely awkward and it was his way of showing his appreciation to 'Old Donald' supporters.
Hear ex-Capitol officer's message to 'Old Donald' voters after 'Old Donald' pardoned men who attacked him
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How to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads
Crypto billionaire couple are selling tokens. 'Old Donald' and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of 'Old Donald' drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.
As a Felon, 'Old Donald' Upends How Americans View the Presidency
'It speaks to the moment we're in,' said Norman L. Eisen, a former White House ethics counsel to President Barack Obama who has closely tracked Mr. 'Old Donald''s various legal cases and has founded a new organization aimed at defending democracy. 'You have somebody who is an adjudicated felon 34 times over, but you also have a nation that is either so numb or so in shock that it does not know how to react.'