The first 100 days of Donald Trump's second term have been defined by a whirlwind of executive action, sweeping policy reversals and a confrontational style that has left both allies and opponents reeling. Among his most notable actions, there have been mass firings of federal employees, the targeting of immigrants, aggressive tariff hikes and the rollback of international aid.
On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, 100 days ago, RFI asked a Trump voter and a supporter of the Democratic Party about their expectations for Trump's imminent second tenure.
“He’s going to restore faith in the government,” predicted Jeff Wilford, a pro-Trump ceramics salesman who came to Washington DC to witness the inauguration and attended a pro-Trump rally on 19 January.
“He is going to secure our borders. He is going to make sure that our economy flourishes. He is going to usher in a Golden Age of a New America," he predicted.
A day earlier we spoke to Bill, who took part – alongside tens of thousands of others – in the anti-Trump People’s March on 18 January.
Bill, dressed as Uncle Sam with a giant hat in the colours of the American flag, said that his “biggest concern is that [Trump] will dismantle the civil service as we know it – it's easier to tear something down than to put it back again".
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Rapid purge
Fast forward 100 days... “We have not secured the border. The economy sucks. And faith in the government has dropped,” says Herman Mark Schwartz, a political science professor with the University of Virginia.
Furthermore, he believes Bill was right to fear for the civil service, as evidenced by the rapid purge of tens of thousands of federal employees, via executive orders actioned by the hit squads of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“If you fire people, they'll go looking for other jobs,” said Schwartz. “And to the extent that people don't come back to their original job, organisations lose the institutional memory that makes those organisations work.”
Schwartz’s concerns are echoed by many Democrats, who see Trump’s early actions as a direct assault on the pillars of government and democracy.
On 24 April, Trump signed a staggering 137 executive orders. In comparison, his predecessor Joe Biden had signed just over 40 in his first 100 days in office. In Trump's first term in 2017, he signed fewer than 40. Barack Obama signed only 19 in his first 100 days.
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“The single biggest difference with the first term is that many of these executive orders are simply illegal and being enforced through intimidation and basically force majeure, disregarding existing procedures for firing people, and disregarding existing procedures and constitutional authority around appropriations," Schwartz told RFI. "This is a breakdown of democratic and constitutional order."
Other orders facilitated the arrest of people accused of being "illegal immigrants" or "gang members", disregarding the usual judicial procedures to establish these facts.
“Once you start saying that the executive can arrest people on the street and remove them from the country without a formal legal hearing, you have eliminated what we call due process here,” said Schwartz.
'There's been no continuity'
Charles Bullock III, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, describes Trump’s 100 first days in office as "chaotic".
"There's been no continuity. Every day, Trump wakes up and acts [according to] whatever some kind of inner spirit tells him to do – whether it be to raise or cut tariffs, whether it be to watch the stock market crash or try to do something to pull it back up, whether he decides to go after institutions of higher education," he said.
Every day, Trump wakes up and acts according to whatever kind of inner spirit tells him to do.
REMARK by Charles Bullock III
"What Trump is showing is that [the idea of] three co-equal branches... is now a very outmoded notion. Congress, which is controlled by Republicans, is not going to push back against any of these policies at all.”
Bullock also raised a chilling scenario: “The great concern is that some element that Trump has done does get to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rules against him, and he ignores it. And then what happens? How does one go about then forcing the president to abide by the rulings of the court?”
So what are the Democrats, now a minority in both houses of Congress, doing to counter Trump’s tidal wave of orders and their consequences?
“Much of the Democratic leadership is quite old,” explained Schwartz. “And their own personal experience in Congress was one in which there was much more of a bi-partisan approach to legislation and governing.”
"[House Minority leader Charles] Schumer basically has said that his strategy is to let Trump destroy his own popularity.”
However, Schwartz argued: "This is a pivotal moment in which Democratic norms and institutions can be destroyed and are being destroyed, and therefore there's a need for immediate action.”
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Grassroots activism
Amid this uncertain leadership, grassroots activism is surging. Tina Shannon, a long-time Democratic campaigner, describes the energy. “We had the biggest rally in my lifetime at the courthouse earlier this month. Mostly sponsored by our Democratic committee. Some 500 people at our courthouse... Our labour council has called a rally again for 10 May.”
She added: "There's all kinds of protests, from small to large, just popping off all the time. It's kind of hard to keep up. But I've never seen it quite like this before. And I've been politically active for a long time.”
On the ground, economic hardship is fuelling resentment. Tina lives with her husband Randolph, the secretary of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA,) in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, an area that once flourished as the centre of America’s steel industry.
Following the closure of many factories, thanks to outsourcing, it is now impoverished.
According to Randolph,"there's a lot more homelessness and poverty” in the region. He says the minimum wage “hasn't changed in 10 or 15 years, so there's a lot of resentment toward the Democratic Party".
He added: "Biden never raised the minimum wage. The minimum wage in the United States is now a poverty wage. People have to work two or three jobs. Housing prices have skyrocketed, because of the housing takeover by real estate investment trusts.”
Insurrection Act
Cuts to social programmes are biting hard too. “There are so many programmes that have been cut... for example, the food stamp programme," said Tina.
One of Trump's campaign promises was that the price of eggs would go down. But Tina is worried. “I just ordered eggs today. The price of eggs did go down a dollar from what I paid three weeks ago. But I've read that that's because [Trump] has lowered the safety standards, the health and safety standards for eggs have been lower. So now I'm scared about the eggs I'm bringing into my house.”
Her husband Randolph chimed in: "Rotten eggs are cheaper.”
As Trump’s first hundred days come to a close, Democrats are still searching for a coherent strategy – torn between waiting for Trump to self-destruct and mobilising for immediate resistance.
The stakes, warned Schwartz, are nothing less than the survival of American democratic norms.
"The critical issue is whether there are free and fair [midterm] elections in 2026, whether before that Trump invokes the Insurrection Act,” he said, referring to a piece of legislation dating back to 1807 that allows for the suppression of some domestic civil rights and authorises deployment of the military in a policing function.
The coming months will test the resilience not just of the opposition, but of the nation’s institutions themselves.
