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ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW than you were 100 days ago?
It’s the classic political question on hyper-fast speed—because the predictable disaster of President Donald Trump redux has torpedoed the American economy and our reputation not in four years but less than four months.
America has become “20 percent poorer” since Trump’s tariff taxes were announced, declared hedge fund titan Ken Griffin, a GOP megadonor, while slamming the president for alienating our allies and trashing the American brand in the eyes of the world. “It can be a lifetime to repair the damage that has been done,” Griffin added.
Griffin was one of Trump’s biggest boosters in the election, insisting that he was a more mature and responsible man this time around and that his tariff threats were just negotiating bluster. Now reality is setting in—for him and many others. But it is too late to save America from the chaos, cruelty, and corruption. It might have been just one hundred days, but the damage will be lasting.
Perhaps worse, it is all self-inflicted. The S&P 500 had gone up more than 23 percent in 2024. Unemployment was at a sustained 50-year low. After a global pandemic that shattered supply chains, America was seen as a stable nation with a strong dollar and an economy that was declared “the envy of the world.”
In 100 days, Donald Trump has destroyed all of that. The dumbest trade war in history, to quote the Wall Street Journal, is not only decimating people’s 401ks but damaged America’s reputation as a strong and reliable nation.
Recall that Moody’s downgraded U.S. debt during the Tea Party paroxysms of 2011 because of “America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.”
Trump offers that on steroids, with looming cuts to Medicaid, on top of current cuts to the VA, education, and scientific research.
Our allies no longer trust us because the Trump administration has been reflexively hostile to them, belittling Canada and threatening to annex Greenland, all while siding with an autocratic aggressor over the democracy it had invaded. It is stomach churning to say that we are not seen as a beacon of freedom and democracy.
All this is an insult to the idea and the ideal of American exceptionalism. It is also entirely predictable. I am surprised that so many successful people are surprised by the destructive chaos Trump has unleashed on American democracy and the economy. He campaigned on overruling the courts, arresting domestic opponents and imposing tariffs. No one should have willfully ignored the fact that he tried to overturn an American election on the back of a self-evident lie that led to an attack on our Capitol. But many people did ignore just that; or, worse, actively voted for it. He broke it and they bought it.
HISTORY IS CLEAR THAT CHARACTER is the single-most important quality in a president. The absence of character and integrity is doomed to end in disaster and tears. That’s where we are just 100 days into this administration. The downstream effect of Trump is that American greatness has been diminished in the eyes of the world. There is now a great danger that this century will witness a profound retrenchment of America, from autocratic forces undermining our democracy to the weakening dollar harming our economy. It will all have a cataclysmic impact on Americans’ daily lives.
So spare us the whataboutism. Don’t reach for false equivalence. America is objectively worse off than we were 100 days ago. The blame should be placed directly at Trump’s feet and those of his apologists and enablers.
We will have to soldier through the next 1,400 days. We will have to find silver linings. We need to build a broad-based, common-sense movement that is patriotic, positive, and inclusive. We will need to dedicate ourselves to an effort to strengthen American democracy for the 21st century by focusing on policies that can reunite the nation, rebuild the middle class, and advance political reforms that take power away from the extremes and towards the vital center, where most Americans live. Those bold goals should animate us moving forward, but they should not—must not—distract us from confronting the disastrous decision our nation made.
Great Job John Avlon & the Team @ The Bulwark Source link for sharing this story.
