I sat down last night to list several of Trump’s accomplishments in the first 100 days of his second term and it turned into an essay. It happens. I’m in a groove lately.
Some will read this and ask, “Where are the criticisms?” Seriously, are you really short on criticisms of this man? Nearly everything we hear from the media and progressives is criticism—unhinged criticism. (Did you witness Rachel Maddow’s nervous breakdown last night? I will share the video at the end of this post.) All the good stuff is ignored or warped to fit the media narrative, which is decidedly anti-Trump and anti-populist, and frankly anti-American.
This isn’t a perception. Content analyses of media accounts find that the coverage of Trump is over 90 percent negative. Even Fox News is down on Trump. The garbage polls—the same suppression polls that predicted a Clinton victory in 2016 and a Harris victory in 2024—etcetera. It’s a massive propaganda blitz.
This essay is interested in presenting a review of the facts that cuts through the propaganda.
The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been nothing short of a whirlwind, marked by bold actions and tangible results that have reshaped the nation’s trajectory. Populist-nationalism has globalism and progressivism on the run. Trump’s record is a model for rank-and-file Europeans to follow.
Despite a coordinated effort by the media to obscure these successes with negative spin, the facts—here drawn from widely available sources—reveal a remarkable period of progress in a short frame. I focus on the President’s decisive actions to dismantle bureaucratic overreach, secure the border, revitalize the economy, and restore cultural and national pride. While the list is extensive, it scratches the surface of what this administration has accomplished. I’m sure Trump and his associates can give you more.
Central to Trump’s agenda, and a key reason for my support during the election, was securing the southern border and addressing illegal immigration. I have written a lot about this, so you know how I feel about it. You also know that I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.
The results in this area have been staggering, with illegal border crossings plummeting to historic lows, with a 96 percent decline from the Biden administration’s peak. US Customs and Border Protection reports just over 7000 southwest border crossings in March 2025, the lowest on record. Construction resumed on the US-Mexico border wall, adding to the over 400 miles built during Trump’s first term. Yes, walls work.
These measures protect American workers by curbing corporate exploitation of cheap labor and thwart attempts to manipulate the Census for political gain, preserving the cultural and national integrity of the American Republic.
Trump achieved this not through contentious legislation but via executive action, declaring a national emergency to deploy the National Guard, Armed Forces, and Coast Guard assets to the newly designated Gulf of America. He ended catch-and-release policies, reinstated the Remain in Mexico program, rebranded the CBP One app as CBP Home for self-deportation, suspended the Refugee Admissions Program for 90 days, and terminated parole programs for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. We were told that we needed legislation to accomplish all this. We just needed a new president.
Within US borders, ICE arrests surged by over 600 percent compared to the Biden era, targeting criminal illegal immigrants like gang members and rapists, facilitated by an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations to combat fentanyl trafficking and violent crime.
Despite interference from rogue judges, Trump’s high-profile focus on this issue has set the stage for large-scale deportations once legal obstacles are cleared. Recall my recent essay showing that Clinton, Bush, and Obama deported some thirty million illegal aliens. If Trump can check the runaway judiciary, he can add another ten million or more to that number.
Economically, Trump’s “America First” policies have delivered impressive results. Over one trillion dollars in private sector investments have poured into the country, bolstered by deregulation that saved Americans billions by rolling back Biden-era appliance efficiency standards. A sovereign wealth fund was announced to fuel long-term growth, and initiatives to boost domestic semiconductor production created thousands of high-paying jobs in states like Arizona and Ohio. Small business optimism has surged, driven by promises of tax relief and reduced compliance costs. Trump is liberating American business—and that means more jobs for Americans.
The media is trying to avoid admitting how dramatically the situation for ordinary Americans has improved under Trump. Remember when they made a big deal over inflation and egg prices? “Trump promised to bring them down!” They repeat this without telling you that he did.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell in March 2025, the first monthly decline in nearly five years, with annual CPI dropping to 2.4 percent and core CPI to 2.8 percent, the lowest since March 2021. Gasoline prices fell more than 6 percent from February to March, wholesale egg prices dropped 44 percent by mid-March, and prescription drug prices for Medicare and low-income Americans were slashed with an executive order. Mortgage rates declined for seven consecutive weeks.
The elite do go on about Tariffs, don’t they? This is because they’re globalists. Democrats are the party of globalization. And the media is their propaganda mouthpiece. But tariffs and external taxation built the United States. That’s Alexander Hamilton’s American System. It’s what Republicans with Lincoln at the helm restored. And Democrats destroyed.
Trump’s tariffs on imports from China, Canada, and Mexico have sparked global negotiations, encouraged domestic manufacturing and protected and created opportunities for workers in the Rust Belt that Democrats and their RINO allies devastated with globalism. While critics claim tariffs raise costs, they overlook the long-term benefits of re-shoring high-wage jobs, decoupling from authoritarian regimes like China, and prioritizing American workers over transnational corporations. New data show that, far from being inflationary, tariffs are reducing commodity prices.
Trump’s commitment to dismantling the administrative state, another priority on my list during the campaign, saw significant progress through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk. Musk is loathed by progressives, but the reality is that DOGE achieved tens of billions in savings by cutting waste, fraud, and federal programs. This is why progressives loathe Musk so. A hiring ratio of one new employee per four departures was implemented, and the Federal Executive Institute (training ground for bureaucrats and technocrats) was shuttered.
These moves, executed through a slew of executive orders, memorandums, and proclamations advanced the deconstruction of bureaucratic overreach and technocratic control. This is democracy in action.
Those who have followed me know that I have a long history as an environmentalist. I still am, but I have learned a lot about energy and the environment since then and have come to realize much of what I believed was naïve and, frankly, reactionary. A decade ago, I might have cringed when Trump expanded offshore drilling, opened Alaska for exploration, and ended Biden’s electric vehicle mandate and inefficient 7.5 billion dollar charging program, earning praise from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and automotive workers for boosting energy production, economic growth, and protecting American jobs.
Why would I care that the API would support Trump’s policy? Because we cannot be energy independent or run our society without fossil fuels. I came to this conclusion before Trump was elected. The reality is that we can’t replace oil and gas with windmills. And, while solar is promising, without advancements in batteries, tapping the sun is impractical. It may shock you to learn that I also believe in nuclear power, but that’s a long-range goal. Those take time to build. In the meantime, we must rely on gas and oil.
I have become a global warming skeptic, especially the goal of carbon-neutrality (humans breathe, after all, and the Earth is greener than it was twenty years ago). What the focus needs to be on is clean air, soil, and water. We must get forever chemicals out of our environment, and with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the administration, we finally have the right focus.
Combating woke policies was a top priority for me, and Trump delivered by banning males from women’s sports and abolishing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, affirmative action, and critical race theory across federal agencies, fostering a merit-based, colorblind society. These reforms, alongside border security and economic revitalization, will be among Trump’s most significant accomplishments.
A big part of this is rededication to freedom of religion, speech, and the press. The reality is that, while Democrats have become ever more oppressive in these areas, the Republicans have become ever more devoted to the liberal principles to which I have always subscribed.
I confess, cryptocurrency is not something I’m up on, but like AI, I realize that the world is changing, and that instead of resisting the things we cannot reverse, it is better to lean into them and lead. In reviewing matters, I learned that, in the digital realm, Trump positioned the US as a global leader by lifting cryptocurrency restrictions, establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, creating a US Digital Asset Stockpile, hosting the first White House Digital Assets Summit, and forming a Presidential Working Group on Digital Asset Markets. This is the future, and I am impressed by how aware Trump is on such matters—at 78 years of age.
On a radical note, given that AI and robotization will in time replace human labor, if we can prevent the globalist regression into neofeudalism, liberation from necessary labor and the reorganization of society that will entail promises a new social order in which Maslow’s hierarchy becomes a reality for all. (To be sure, I have concerns, but as I noted above, that’s not the point of this review.)
And then there’s Trump’s cabinet, which was confirmed at a record pace with 11 nominees approved in just 16 days—including Marco Rubio (State), John Ratcliffe (CIA), Kristi Noem (Homeland Security), and Scott Bessent (Treasury). This is an impressive lot. Perhaps more impressively, Trump appointed prominent liberals like Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Health and Human Services) to major positions in his administration. Democrats tried to stop it, but Trump created a twenty-first century “team of rivals.”
Gabbard restructured the National Counterterrorism Center to target terrorists and drug-smuggling gangs, referring over 1,000 individuals for arrest and deportation, ended DEI in the ODNI, and exposed operatives undermining the administration. Kennedy launched the “Make America Healthy Again” commission to prioritize wellness, engaging senators in data-driven health policy reforms. And he is engaged in a comprehensive review of food additives and vaccines.
Attorney General Pam Bondi reformed the Justice Department to address politicization of government and facilitated the deportation of over 20,000 illegal immigrants. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth eliminated woke military policies, driving Army recruitment to a 15-year high, while supporting women in combat roles and outlining plans to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Also, veterans benefited from Hegseth’s efforts to streamline VA healthcare.
And did you hear? Rubio has announced the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) office, previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), because it censored Americans. The office, which cost taxpayers over 50 million dollars annually, had shifted from its original mission of countering foreign disinformation—such as terrorist propaganda from groups like ISIS or state-sponsored narratives from Russia and China—to targeting domestic speech. It did so through a network of NGOs. (Musk told us how the scheme works.) The program spent millions to censor and silence citizen’s voices—government-sponsored censorship that violated free speech principles.
The office funded organizations and technologies that blacklisted conservative media outlets, such as The Daily Wire and The Federalist, impacting their revenue by pressuring social media platforms to deplatform them or suppress content. This has been known for a while. A lawsuit filed by these outlets and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023 accused the State Department of funding censorship infrastructure (we need more Ken Paxton types in government). Mike Benz has been telling us about this for a long time. Finally we have a government in place that listen.
Additional achievements include releasing the JFK assassination files, restoring service members discharged over COVID-19 vaccine refusals, and designating English as the official language. Trump secured the release of American hostages from Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, and Hamas, and facilitated the arrest of the terrorist behind the 2021 Abbey Gate attack that killed 13 US service members. His transition team brokered a Gaza ceasefire with plans to rebuild the region economically. And progress is being made in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. China is being isolated, and this weakens Iran.
Contrary to the psy-ops being run by the media and the Democratic Party, Trump’s first 100 days have been a masterclass in decisive leadership, delivering on promises to secure the border, revitalize the economy by restoring the American System, dismantle bureaucratic excess, and restore national pride. When one says Trump is playing 4D chess, he is often mocked. But this is because Trump is precisely doing that. There is a method to his madness.
Are there criticisms of Trump that one might form? Sure. But over against the accomplishments, it is hard to imagine how they could negate a remarkable 100 days. One would in any case have to admit to the accomplishments I have identified. Of course, there are those who wish the accomplishments did not occur; these are things progressives oppose (in part because it’s Trump who is accomplishing them). But these accomplishments were what the majority voted for on November 5, 2024.
Trump voters knew what they were getting—and they’re getting what they wanted. They are frustrated by the determined resistance of the establishment (and they should be), but the rhetoric that Trump voters are experiencing “buyer’s remorse” is a myth manufactured by a corporate propaganda apparatus desperate to drive down support for the man. The elite want you to focus on the negative, while ignoring the fact that Democrats are more unpopular than they have ever. If the election were held today, the outcome November 24 would be the same. The media dare not admit this.
As I noted in a post this morning, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 47 percent of likely US Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-one percent disapprove. That’s just over half. Pretty normal given the political split in our country (and Independents tend to be volatile attitude-wise). Only last week Trump’s approval was over 50 percent. It will likely be that again. We’ll see.
I also point out this morning that, if you dig into the crosstabs, what you’ll find pulling down Trump’s numbers are college educated white women. It’s an interesting phenomenon in American society that working class people support a Republican president— and even college, educated white men, albeit not by much. But by double digits, college educated white women don’t like him. Who is more likely overrepresented in these polls? Even in Rasmussen polling? Who is more likely to take a phone call from a pollster? There is no buyer’s remorse.
It is important to ask whose opinion is more important. Professional white women and the credentialed class? Or working-class Americans? Trump represents the working class. Odd that he is so hated by those who claim the working class as their choice of comrades. I call bullshit on their announced sympathies. It’s just pretense. They think working people are hobbits. Deplorables. Mouth-breathers.
Oh, before I do, the matter of stock market volatility. Yes, it is volatile. Markets go up and they go down. Is the Wall Street crowd unhappy—the rich investors who control 90 percent of investments? Yes. They want a globalize economy. They hate the American System. That’s obvious; they’re the crowd that engineered free trade.
Yet we have the middle class throwing the stock market in our faces as Exhibit A in how awful Trump is. Yet another indicator that those who claim the working class as their choice of comrades don’t really view the worker as an ally. Manufactured working class affinity is a hegemonic strategy.
The credentialed class comprise the same strata that portrays working class resistance to lockdowns, mandatory mask wearing, and forced vaccination programs as backwards and ignorant. RFK, Jr gave children in Texas measles, you know. It’s the same strata that wants immigrants to clean their houses and landscape their lawns and babysit their kids. They don’t want a powerful industrial economy and safe neighborhood that benefit working families because they live in la-la land. Let them eat cake. They marvel at windmills. And virtue signal over race and gender. Trump is the embodiment of the thing they hate most: a rich man who stands with working class Americans.
* * *
This is the Rachel Maddow clip I noted at the outset of this video. This is a broken person talking. The Trump administration is not deporting American citizens. Yes, they arrested a judge—who broke the law. Nobody is above the rule of law. Not even judges. (I’d like to say especially judges, but that would suggest some degree of inequality before the law.)
Maddow has deluded herself into believing that the country is against Trump because paid protestors and lunatics are on the streets protesting him. Remember BLM? These days, there’s a mob looking for a reason to be seen. Narcissism is pathological in our society. TikTok. OnlyFans. “Look at me!” It’s the Century of the Self. These are the same people who celebrate Islamism and Hamas. The same people who think that through a kind of strange alchemy (slogans) men can become women.
Cluster B types and true believers now represents the American majority? I don’t think so. I think most Americans are grounded. God, I hope so. But an alarming number of them aren’t. Get ready to the threat to democracy those people pose. That’s the real peril we face.
You’re a “loser” if you don’t “stand up to Trump.” That’s what Maddow says. “You’re a loser.” How junior high. Apropos for the woman who likely sat at the mean girls table (at least I can picture her there). She thinks that lawfare is a barometer of justice. No, Rachel, thwarting the will of the people is antidemocratic. And Trump is doing what to Social Security?
Maddow suggests that the trans issue—which the majority of American agree with Trump on—will split the public from Trump. She thinks that immigration—which the majority of American agree with Trump on—will split the public from Trump. I don’t think so.
Maddow is nowhere near the real world. If you watched this and found yourself agreeing with Maddow, then bless your heart. Please come back to Earth. You’re leaving the planet. And you don’t have a rocket ship.
Meanwhile, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 48 percent of likely US voters approve of President Trump’s job performance, up from his low of 47 percent. This may surprise you that his low wasn’t so low. It might also surprise you that, in the most accurate polling, Trump has been above 50 percent most of the time. That’s because the media hammered an engineered poll into your head yesterday to crowd out accurate reporting on Trump’s first 100 days. To use Democrat talking points, the first 100 days were “chaos” and “confusion” and “corruption.” Ah, alliteration.
(Are these folks unaware that when they all come on X and use the exactly same words that they confirm it’s a coordinated propaganda push? It’s not as if all their posts don’t appear in our timeline.)
* * *
As a sociologist (with considerable training in psychology), it’s a fascinating thing to watch this Trump derangement syndrome. Knowing what lies behind it makes it even more fascinating. That’s me being the objective rational observer. But I’m also politically interested. Obviously.
There are essentially two positions with respect to America’s fate. One is Americanism, i.e., the vision of the founders (and Lincoln) and the desire to preserve and advance the vision. The other is globalization, which rejects the founder’s vision and seeks to deconstruct the American Republic for the sake of transnational corporate power, privilege, and profit. Globalists want to erase the modern nation-state.
Trump is with the founders and Lincoln. Obviously. So if you’re pro-America, then you support his agenda. If you’re globalist, then you have to find a way to undermine the restoration project—since globalism was well on its way thanks to Democrats and RINOs—and that means finding ways to delegitimize him. Lie about him. Incite mob violence (right JB Pritzker?). Prosecute him (700 years in prison). Groom assassins even. Whatever, you can’t admit to wanting the managed decline of the American Republic. You can’t admit to globalism because people love their country and the idea of America and they don’t want to lose their way of life to the totalitarian Chinese model of social control—or Islamism. As long as the legacy media controlled the narrative, most Americans didn’t know it was happening. Now they do. (Thanks, Elon.)
The globalists can’t admit their agenda precisely because Americans love their country and that’s a huge problem for them. They have to separate the people from the leader who represents their interests and sentiments. So they try to make Trump out to be an authoritarian who lies beyond the bounds of the acceptable—as a threat to democracy. Remember? He’s “weird.”
But the people aren’t buying it. Even if you suppose that only a minority of Americans support Trump, it will still be a sizable minority, tens of millions of people (77 million as we saw in 2024), and while you can fool some of the people most of the time, you can’t fool them forever. (Okay, you can fool some of them forever.)
The attempt to sustain the ruse has reached a crisis point because everything they try fails. But they can’t stop, since that would have them admitting to their ambitions. They’re in a real pickle. Many of us know what their ambitions are, but they depend on a significant proportion of the population not getting it. But persistence in the bamboozle clues more and more of the population into their ambitions everyday. At this point, everything they do is counterproductive—it exposes them. That they thought a blue suit would be a rallying point tells us how deluded they’ve become. Or maybe they’re bubblized. In their circles, they have convinced themselves that lies are truths. Whatever. It’s one panic after another. They’re wrecking themselves. And with every panic, more Americans are saying to themselves, “Wait a minute. What? A blue suit?”
Remember Chicken Little? That.
Trump is really just a businessman from Queens who loves his country and believes in the American System. He’s been the same ever since we’ve known him. I’m sixty-three years old. I’ve been watching this whole time. I was never in the globalist crowd. Trump has always worn a suit (usually blue) and tie. He’s always done his spaz routine (he doesn’t mock disabled people). He’s the same person to everybody. He doesn’t put on a flannel shirt to condescend to the ordinary America. That’s why the people like him.
In retrospect, of course he was going to be president. He had future president written all over him. He was fine with elites until he ran for the office. Then, what he always told us he believed, became a problem. Because he genuinely loves America. And now he’s president—again. The globalists threw everything they could at him and the people still elected him—twice. And when they try to say that’s because a majority of Americans are stupid, they lose their claim to representing the people—and democracy (which of course they don’t believe in). They just alienate the masses they thought they had under their thumb.
Hillary Clinton called working class people “a basket of deplorables.” Remember that? She said the quiet part out loud. That’s what the elites think of ordinary Americans. Trump doesn’t think that about the people. He’s an American along with the rest of us. Clinton’s not. She is a globalist. She’s with the oligarchs. She’s not like the rest of us. Neither is Biden. Nor Harris. Or all the rest of the globalists. They’re alien to the Creed.
In the end, the globalists are delegitimizing themselves, and their attempt to re-legitimize themselves—to cover their agenda—just delegitimizes them further. At this point, they look insane. If you read the constant X postings of the Lincoln Project you only see crazy people now. See above: Rachel Maddow looks like a person who’s lost touch with reality. The anti-Trump posts on X are completely unhinged. And it is the same crowd that believes in the craziest things, such as “transwomen are women.” It’s an insane asylum on that side. Not just the rank-and-file. The people running the asylum.
Remember what Nietzsche said about insanity? That.
We might be kind and say that they’re not insane, that there’s some method to their madness, and to some extent there is (which means they’re psychopaths), but at this point they’ve worked their way so far into a corner that they can’t get out. They’re now just clawing at the air like Melanie Daniels in Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds—albeit Daniels derangement was temporary. I don’t think Maddow is ever coming home. Or Joy Reid. (Maybe Reid was never hooked up right to begin with—which tells you a lot about the folks who hired her.)
Trump derangement syndrome is a very real thing. That clawing at the air makes people dangerous. For some, like Daniels, it’s not permanent. So perhaps there’s hope. On the other hand, it means they were predisposed to bamboozlement, like those who called for lockdowns and mandates during the last pandemic (trust me, they’ll be another coming along sooner or later). Some will never regain their sanity, and any Trump-like figure that comes along will find them clawing at the air again. And we will see it for what it is.
Either way, these folks do not have what’s best for America in mind. We need to keep the lot of them away from power. Vote Republican in the midterms like the future of your country depends on it. Because it does.
freedom and reason 