Opinion: 100 frenetic days

One hundred days ago (plus a few days for publication time), our country began a transformation, designed in large part to isolate China, a formerly poor country that is challenging the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, for global dominance. But that was only part of the plan of the new administration that took over Washington, D.C. in January. During President Trump’s first 100 days in office, he has issued somewhere between 130 and 200 executive orders and three redwood trees worth of memoranda. 

In about three months, he has declared at least eight national emergencies, withdrawn our country from the international agreement on climate change, and alienated the United States from both our neighbors and some of our closest allies around the world by creating tariffs on imports. Trump has accomplished all this by advocating a political theory that he believes gives a president absolute control over all aspects of governing the nation. Many scholars have referred to these actions as a Constitutional Crisis.

Doing something different

I think that many, if not most, Americans had grown tired of the “same old politics” regardless of which party held office. The fact is that few matters of significance were accomplished because the party not in power would automatically oppose whatever proposals were made by the party in power. And, of course, vice versa. The good of the party had overridden the benefit to the nation.