President Trump began a recent 90-minute speech at a Michigan rally: "We're here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and that's according to many, many people," Trump said, "This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it. We've just gotten started. You haven't even seen anything yet."
He went on to tout his accomplishments in deporting undocumented immigrants and closing U.S. borders, imposing tariffs on imports to return manufacturing to the U.S., reducing bureaucratic waste and fraud by closing government agencies and firing federal workers, demanding proper respect from other world leaders, and claiming credit for reducing inflation. He blamed today’s economic and immigration problems on the Biden administration and criticized the federal court system for blocking him from accomplishing even more. He has ruled by presidential orders and has signed only three bills in three months.
Franklin Roosevelt coined the term "first 100 days" in a July 25, 1933, radio address to the nation. Roosevelt began his address: “Looking back, we all wanted the opportunity of a little quiet thought to examine and assimilate in a mental picture the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal." He then began to recount the accomplishments of his first 100 days of his presidency. Since then, the first 100 days of a presidency have been considered a measure of the early success of a president.
Roosevelt had begun his presidency very differently from Trump’s promise to rule by decree. Roosevelt said, "I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require." The nation was in the depths of the Great Depression. Roosevelt worked with Congress to enact a bold legislative agenda. He successfully guided 15 major bills through Congress in a special three-month session. Congress passed 77 bills during his first 100 days, helping to revive the economy, including several public works projects.
Congress rejected some of Roosevelt’s policy proposals, including the expansion of the Supreme Court. The Court had ruled that some of the laws passed by Congress, including the first Agricultural Adjustment Act or Farm Bill, were unconstitutional. Roosevelt proposed adding more liberal Justices, but Congress and the judiciary insisted that the courts must not be politicized. Unlike Trump, Roosevelt prioritized the will of Congress and the rule of law over his presidential ambitions.
Looking back over the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, only one word seems adequate to describe his actions and ambitions. That word is “dictator.” His success in establishing a dictatorship remains in doubt, but his first 100 days have left little doubt regarding his ambitions. A dictator is a political leader who has absolute political power. Donald Trump wants absolute political power to rule the United States of America. He wants to be respected and feared by friend and foe alike as the most powerful political leader in the world.
His leadership style doesn’t fit that of an oligarch or autocrat, such as a monarch or king. An oligarch is a very wealthy leader who relies on other wealthy individuals and corporations for political power, such as Putin in Russia. Trump doesn’t rely on billionaires or corporate leaders, such as Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, for his power, but expects them to be subservient and bend to his wishes.
An autocracy is a form of government that grants absolute power to one person, as in a monarchy. A monarch has a legal and moral responsibility to serve his or her subjects. Trump accepts no legal or moral responsibility for anyone other than himself and perhaps his family. Fascists are typically motivated by a strong political ideology. Trump has no ideology other than whatever works for him at the time.
Dictators typically come to power through force, coercion, or by exploiting political opportunities to take control, regardless of the previous form of government, as with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. The dictator seizes authority and sustains control by suppressing dissent, controlling information, and deploying various forms of propaganda to maintain dominance. Dictators are typically impulsive and expect everyone to respond accordingly whenever they change their minds. During Trump’s first 100 days in power, he has exhibited the pathological psychology of an aspiring dictator.
His plan for resolving the Russian invasion of Ukraine apparently was to force Ukraine to surrender to Russian demands. He cut off military aid to Ukraine, ending the long-time military commitment to help defend Ukrainian sovereignty. Trump has abandoned long-time mutual defense agreements with NATO allies. He has ignored the international consensus prohibiting forceful acquisition of territory and upholding the principle of national sovereignty encoded in the United Nations Charter.
He talks about a “New Global Order,” with regional spheres of influence, perhaps with Putin ruling Western Europe, Israel and Saudi Arabia dominant in the Middle East, India in South Asia, and ceding East Asia to China. His threats to annex Canada as the 51st state and take over Greenland and the Panama Canal suggest he sees himself as the supreme ruler of the Americas and ultimately the world.
Trump’s arbitrary, on-again, off-again tariffs are attempts to express economic dominance of the U.S. in the global community. If the tariffs were actually about restoring manufacturing to the U.S. economy, they would have been targeted and selective from the beginning. If they were about addressing the U.S. trade deficits, they would have been negotiated with trading partners in advance, not arbitrarily imposed and accompanied by threats. Trump’s tariffs and trade war do not reflect the “art of the deal” but the tactics of a gangster or bully, as China and Canada have suggested.
Trump has shown contempt for the U.S. Constitution by threatening any Republican in Congress who opposes him with political retribution. He never suggested during his campaign that he intended to serve anyone who voted against him, and he expects Republicans in Congress to do the same. He has gained sufficient control of the Republican Party to replace any Republican opponents with Trump loyalists in their next primary elections. The increasing militancy of the MAGA movement, including January 6 felons freed by Trump, adds risks of intimidation or even physical harm to anyone who opposes Trump’s agenda.
He has defied federal court orders and ridiculed federal judges who have ruled his executive orders and actions illegal or unconstitutional. He has rounded up and deported supposed illegal immigrants to foreign prisons, providing no opportunity for denial or defense, in defiance of court orders. He has threatened to do the same for U.S. citizens. When ordered by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” the return of a person deported by mistake, Trump did nothing, even though he recently admitted that he could easily have the person returned to the U.S. His Attorney General has arrested one federal judge and one former judge on charges that they interfered with efforts to deport illegal immigrants. He now appears to be mounting a campaign of intimidation against the federal judiciary similar to that he has used successfully against Republicans in Congress.
Thus far, Trump has relied on presidential powers authorized for times of “national emergencies,” granted during times of war, to rule by executive order or decree. The only national emergency the U.S. currently faces is a crisis of leadership—a threat to our constitutional form of government. The only requirement to serve as a Secretary in Trump’s Cabinet or other positions of leadership seems to be loyalty to Trump. Trump has replaced all Inspectors General, those responsible for rooting out fraud and abuse, with Trump loyalists. Trump’s claims of removing waste and fraud from government by shutting down programs and firing workers are nothing more than attempts to intimidate or remove anyone from the federal government who might oppose his dictatorial agenda.
In his first-100-days speech, Trump indicated that he is counting on the Supreme Court to grant him the constitutional power to rule the nation as he sees fit. The Supreme Court fulfilled its responsibilities during the Roosevelt presidency. That Court forced Roosevelt and Congress to link farm price supports to domestic food security by restoring soil fertility and conserving natural resources. The Constitution prevailed, despite the popularity and persuasiveness of the President, and the nation thrived. The integrity of the current Supreme Court, when defied directly by President Trump, will be the supreme test of the resilience of our democratic republic.
If the Supreme Court fails to uphold the constitutional separation of powers, it will have given Donald Trump the power to rule the nation as a dictator, rather than president. This would be the end of Democracy in America and the beginning of the second American Revolution. Once a dictator gains control, the only means of restoring a constitutional form of government is through a civic uprising, a revolution. Let’s pray that the Supreme Court Judges have been searching their souls as well as stretching their legal minds as they contemplate their forthcoming decisions. Will they uphold their constitutional responsibilities as a co-equal branch of our democratic republic, or will they turn this still-great nation over to a dictator?
John Ikerd
Notes:
https://open.substack.com/.../heatherc.../p/april-29-2025...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-100-days-speech-detroit/
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../First_100_days_of_Franklin_D...
https://bestdiplomats.org/autocracy-vs-dictatorship/