By Barrington M. Salmon
(Trice Edney Wire) – The first 100 days of the second Donald Trump presidency is being lauded by many MAGA (Make America Great Again) loyalists because of Trump’s string of executive orders against civil rights and his Project 2025 blueprint to reorganize the entire federal government and “replace the rule of law with right-wing” ideals, as described by the American Civil Liberties Union.
But Trump — aided by far-right extremists, his MAGA supporters, and remnants of the Republican Party — is being surprised by rising opposition from unexpected places as he moves full-tilt to reassert racial and political dominance.
CNN reports that his low 41 percent approval rating in a bi-partisan poll is the lowest for any newly elected president at 100 days dating back at least to Dwight Eisenhower – seven decades ago – which includes Trump’s own first term.
“Approval of Trump’s handling of the presidency is down 4 points since March, and 7 points lower than it was in late February. Just 22% say they strongly approve of Trump’s handling of the job, a new low, and about twice as many say they strongly disapprove (45%),” according to a CNN report.
Project 2025 is the cudgel that the Trump administration is using to implement his strategy, which has largely been an attack on African-Americans and other people of color.
“The actions of liberal politicians in Washington have created a desperate need and unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought and build a better country for all Americans in 2025,” writes Harold Meyerson, editor at large at The American Prospect, quoting from the Project 2025 manifesto. “It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.”
On the other hand, civil rights leaders point to the dismantling of civil rights protections and the attack on laws written to protect historically oppressed people.
“It is no coincidence that since taking office on Martin Luther King Day, the Trump administration’s most aggressive actions have targeted historically marginalized groups. In fact, the many blatantly illegal, unconstitutional, and bizarre actions we saw during the first month of Trump 2.0 – during which we also observed National Black History Month – are specifically harmful to Black Americans,” writes The Center for Progressive Reform’s Catalina Gonzalez and Rachel Mayo. “Attempts by Trump to freeze federal funding, close federal agencies, curb the rights of workers, and dismiss federal workers, through illegal means and by Republicans using budget reconciliation to cut federal funding for Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food assistance, and public education, continue a shameful tradition in American history of systematically dehumanizing, disenfranchising, and stealing from Black Americans.”
Affected people have been fighting back against what is perceived as the administration’s crude and heavy-handed efforts to force perceived enemies of Trump to bow. In response, opponents and resistors are speaking out in the courts, filing lawsuits and also engaging in protests all over the country. Protests called “Hands Off” were held in nearly 2,000 cities and communities around the country April 5. More were organized for May Day on May 1 and sporadically throughout the year.
“If the Trump Administration will deport people without a hearing, without a trial, without explaining to them why they are being deported, what is to stop them from coming into your house? What is to stop them from arresting you? What is to stop them from arrested me for speaking out today?” Terrance Reshay Robinson, an attorney, asked a crowd during a “Hands Off” rally on the front steps of the Louisa Circuit Courthouse in Virginia. “It’s already happening,” he said. “I just saw on the news yesterday that an American citizen lost his protected travel status for speaking out against the Trump Administration. It’s happening in front of our eyes,” he said, illustrating that the Constitution’s First Amendment and due process protections are being lost.
Meanwhile, the administration continues its culture wars, which many view as poisonous, ramping up its retribution campaign against perceived enemies and grabbing more power. One example is the takeover of the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Institution and particularly the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where Trump in March, signed an executive order demanding that museum officials remove “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” from federally funded institutions and the African American museum by name.
The executive order also said: The Smithsonian has “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” and has “promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
“We do not run from or erase our history simply because we don’t like it,” U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York said in a statement to the news source, Capital B. “We embrace the history of our country — the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Meanwhile, Capital B New’s Brandon Tensley shared comments from Morehouse University Prof. Clarissa Myrick-Harris who told the Associated Press: “It seems like we’re headed in the direction where there’s even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred.”
The Smithsonian order is part of a broader attempt by Trump and his MAGA allies to so-called correct what they regard as widespread discrimination against white men. As he has done elsewhere across the federal government, Trump is using the withdrawal of federal funding and grants to coerce and terrorize these institutions in his effort to control all accurate public discourse around race.
House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, in a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, warned of “dangerous efforts to manipulate cultural and historical narratives”, which is what Trump and MAGA Republican leaders and policymakers are doing.
According to the ACLU, “the administration’s ultimate goal would be the eradication of all programs designed to address profound and persistent inequalities in American life — with the effect of further entrenching, and indeed worsening systemic inequalities in access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.”
Very little of American life has remained untouched by Trump in his first 100 days: the environment, the legal profession, the criminal justice system; federal government, colleges and universities, the judiciary, small businesses, corporations. Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk, who recently announced that he will soon leave the administration, have shattered federal agencies by shuttering some and slashing millions and sometimes billions of dollars from budgets.
Experts and pundits most aware of African American life, have reacted with alarm at the sheer scope, size and speed of the Trumpian strategy.
The administration is dismantling and neutering Civil Rights nationally; is in the process of shuttering the US Department of Education; has severely weakening the mandate of the US Department of Justice and its Civil Rights division; is attempting to disenfranchise millions of eligible Black voters; and has introduced sweeping provisions that would no longer recognize any plan or program to correct pervasive racism and systemic inequality.
National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial describes the work of the Trump administration in his weekly column:
“The first 100 days of President Trump’s second administration have been an unrelenting assault on civil rights, civil liberties, economic justice, the constitutional separation of powers, and the rule of law itself. His administration has upended the global financial system, alienated longstanding allies, and steered the United States rapidly toward autocracy. He has imposed a grossly distorted version of the nation’s history to justify the elimination of pathways to equity and inclusion, and appointed Cabinet members and staffers who have actively embraced conspiracy theories, bigotry and racism.”
