After 100 days of Trump, the resistance is building

After 100 days in office, Donald Trump is in command, but out of control. America is no longer the leader of the free world because the world is no longer following America. Trump insisted on Canada’s election day that the NATO ally should become the 51st US state. Canada emphatically rejected Trump by voting Mark Carney in as prime minister.

Canada emphatically rejected Donald Trump by voting in Prime Minister Mark Carney. Credit: AP, Bloomberg

Trump has forged a new American imperialism to project US interests and secure strategic assets. He wants to also take over the Panama Canal and annex Greenland. With every major US industry and trading partner the target of Trump’s tariffs, the global trading system that has been in place for 75 years has been crippled, if not destroyed.

The US economy is on the verge of crashing due to Trump’s chaotic management of the trade wars, inflation spikes and his attacks on the chair of the Federal Reserve.

On his inauguration last January 20, Trump declared to the American people, “My fellow citizens, the golden age of America begins right now.”

It has not arrived. At 100 days in office Trump’s standing is poor. Trump’s approval is at 44 per cent, the lowest of all presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, and is slipping further.

Trump does have a degree of vindication. Forty per cent of voters believe the country is moving in the right direction, an uptick vote of confidence on how the county is faring, in sharp contrast with the Biden years.

Trump is in command, but out of control.Credit: AP

Trump’s rough handling of immigration is popular. A total of 54 per cent of voters approve what he is doing to protect the border. But on how Trump is managing tariffs, the economy, and foreign policy, less than half of Americans support Trump’s policies. With fears of inflation and recession building, consumer confidence is the second-lowest since 1952.

Trump is not governing by legislating but by an unprecedented exercise of executive power. Trump has signed fewer bills into law than any recent modern president. His 100 executive orders have triggered a tidal wave of new policies to change what the government can and cannot do, especially on equity and diversity issues.

Trump’s style of political power is marked by decrees coupled with complete domination of the airwaves for several hours each day, from greeting world leaders in the Oval Office to his televised cabinet meetings. For Trump, it is all streaming, all the time.

But the grandmaster of The Art of the Deal is flailing. Trump promised big, early success on the world stage. But he has to date failed to end the wars in Ukraine or Gaza or come close to a nuclear deal with Iran or settling the dozens of trade wars he launched against his allies, including Australia. Trump is chaotic, with constant reversals in tactics and rhetoric.

Together with Elon Musk, Trump unleashed Project 2025’s sledgehammer to the bureaucracy. There is wanton dismantling of agencies and programs with mass firings, loyalty oaths, and seizure of databases. Trump and Musk have overridden acts of Congress to close down agencies and programs. Trump and Musk have ended the projection of US soft power overseas by terminating foreign aid, vaccines and food programs.

Trump is exacting vengeance on his enemies – exactly as he promised his voters (“I am your retribution”). Trump wants his enemies prosecuted. Trump has called on judges who have ruled against him to be impeached. Trump has blacklisted law firms that worked with Democrats. In a speech at the Department of Justice, Trump said his enemies were “scum”, that the cases brought against him were “bullshit”, that the judges who ruled against him were corrupt, his prosecutors were deranged, and that those who came after him should be imprisoned. For his war against the nation’s most prestigious universities, Trump is demanding their leftist woke elitism be expunged, or else research dollars and tax-free status will be eliminated.

Trump continues to target the media as the enemy of the people. The Associated Press has been excluded from presidential events. The Voice of America has been shut down. Trump has asked the regulator to cancel the broadcast licence of CBS. Trump is moving to defund public media’s NPR and PBS.

The Democrats in Washington are adrift. Without control of the House or Senate, Trump dominates everything in the capital. The force and scope of Trump’s actions are so intense that the Democrats cannot respond effectively. The party now has the lowest favourability since the 1990s.

Trump poses with Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni (left) and player Lane Johnson at an event welcoming the 2025 Super Bowl champions.Credit: Getty Images

What happens from here? History can illuminate the future. Trump’s presidency increasingly evokes the 1930s, at home and abroad. Then, Republican Herbert Hoover was president. Wall Street crashed in 1929. The Depression began. Republican tariffs and refusal to stimulate the economy sent the country reeling. Authoritarians seized territory in Europe and Asia.

But America’s voters fought back. In the November 1932 election the Republicans were run out of town, losing 100 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate. The US was saved at home by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal – and ultimately by the defeat of fascism.

If the protest movement continues to grow, Trump’s golden age could “die before its birth”.Credit: AP

Every weekend, people are flooding the streets in cities across the country. That movement is growing. If all that Trump has spawned comes into full force but does not deliver the American miracle he promised – with recession, inflation, and chaos taking hold across the land – the midterm elections next year could be a turning point, as was 1932. The Democrats are in striking distance. If so, Trump’s power will be checked by Democrats in Congress. Trump’s golden age will die before its birth.

Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.

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