Have We Improved Under Trump?
The chaos and recklessness of the second Trump administration have hardly made things better for Americans. Next time that world-wide rankings are conducted, just where will the U.S. find itself.
(click on headings to get more information)
👎 The Threat to Democratic Institutions and Values (ongoing)
👎 Grifter-in-Chief. Hawking Bibles, memes, cryptocurrencies, sketchy family deals in foreign countries.
👎 Executive Order to fundamentally change rules for voting (March 2025)
👎 Thousands of experts leaving federal government, causing an unprecedented “brain drain.”
👎 Trump wants to banish mail-in voting (August 2025)
👎 At Trump’s urging, Texas Republicans carved out new congressional districts (August 2025)
👎 Federal troops, with guns, camp out in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Not invited to come in by city or state leaders. Unprecedented intrusion of the military in civilian affairs.
👎 Continued assault on the media, pressure to toe the Trump line or have their licenses revoked. Stephen Colbert, then Jimmy Kimmel, and who knows who’s next?
👎 Going after perceived enemies. Indictment of former FBI director James Comey on specious charges; who’s next?
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
👎 Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord (January 2025)
👎 “Drill, Baby, Drill.” (January 20, 2025)
👎 Opening up Alaska lands for oil drilling (March 20, 2025)
👎 EPA administrator Lee Zeldin: “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion” (March 21, 2025)
👎 EPA plans to stop collecting greenhouse gas emissions data from most polluters.
👎 Hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s major report on the impact of global warming were dismissed.
👎 Withdrawal from the World Health Organization (January 20, 2025)
👎 Medical Research in Peril (March 2025)
👎 Abrupt cuts of billions of dollars for state health services (March 2025)
👎 Termination of dozens of COVID-related research studies and studies on potential future pandemics (March 2025)
👎 20,000 jobs (about one-quarter of workforce) eliminated by Health and Human Services (March 2025)
👎 BBB: Massive cuts to Medicaid, 17 million fewer people will have subsidies under the Affordable Care Act; rural hospitals will be in dire financial straits.
👎 Imminent collapse of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); thousands of scientists and other experts fired.
INFRASTRUCTURE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION
👎 Rescinding Biden Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence (January 20, 2025)
👎 Removing tax incentives to purchase electric vehicles (January 20, 2025)
👎 Cutting and Threatening Academic Research and Development (March 2025)
👎 Federal funding for scientific research, especially basic research, to fall by one-third.
👎 Mass firings in Federal Homelessness Program (March 2025)
👎 Social Security Administration makes it much more difficult for citizens to gain information; closing offices, firing staff (March 2025)
OBESITY, HUNGER, AND ADDICTION
👎 Feeding America estimates that in just the first few months of 2025, the Trump administration has cut about $1 billion in federal aid to anti-hunger groups.
👎 Hunger in America? Food insecurity? Nah, let’s just not issue any more reports, and by the way, put on administrative leave the researchers who wrote the report. (September 2025)
The unprecedented assault on America’s most prominent private universities
👎 Trump Withholds $400 Million in federal funds from Columbia University (February 2025)
👎 Johns Hopkins University was compelled to lay off more than 2,000 workers (February 2025)
👎 Trump administration withholds $175 million in federal funds from University of Pennsylvania. (March 2025)
👎 Trump administration threatens to withdraw $2 billion in federal monies from Harvard University; Harvard sues the administration; Trump threatens to withdraw tax-exempt status from the university.
👎 Trump signs Executive Order to close down the Department of Education (March 20,2025)
👎 Trump takeover of Kennedy Center; attempted whitewashing of history at the Smithsonian (February, March 2025)
👎 Public school systems threatened with withholding of federal funds unless they rid themselves of DEI programs (April 2025)
👎 The BBB: Increase taxes on university endowments, roll back student loan protections, and cap the amount students can borrow in graduate programs.
BUDGET, TAXING, TARIFFS, SPENDING, AND PRIORITIES
👎 Elon Musk and his DOGE operatives promise $2 trillion in federal savings (January 2025)
👎 House Republicans plan for funding tax breaks for the richest Americans: cut out Medicaid funds for the neediest and those who provide for them. (March 2025)
👎 Tax revenue could drop by 10 percent in 2025 thanks to DOGE firings and disruptions. (March 2025)
👎 Trump tariff wars: threats, reprisals, counter-threats (January, 2025-present)
👎 BBB adds at least $4.1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND FIREARMS
👎 Trump Department of Justice dismantles Biden-era gun policies, rescinding “zero-tolerance” policy aimed at firearms dealers who don’t comply with federal gun sales laws, and cutting a deal to allow sales of trigger mechanisms that modify semiautomatic guns to fire more rapidly. (April, May 2025).
AND THIS IS HOW WE MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?