One hundred days of fascism, deliberate chaos, and economic arson: Donald Trump's second term has been catastrophic

In March of 1933, after taking over from the ineffective Herbert Hoover, new President Franklin Delano Roosevelt summoned Congress into special session to pass legislation to address the Great Depression, which had left many Americans in dire straits. That special session lasted for three months and produced fifteen successful bills, an unheard of amount of legislation for such a short period. By July, Roosevelt began referring to this period as the “first 100 days” of his presidency. And so began a tradition of assessing presidential performance based on the first one hundred days of a term.

“It’s not a perfect measure, but it’s a useful one — the 100-day standard for gauging presidential effectiveness,” Kenneth Walsh explained in 2009.

“The underlying truth is that presidents tend to be most effective when they first take office, when their leadership style seems fresh and new, when the aura of victory is still powerful, and when their impact on Congress is usually at its height.”

“There is nothing magic about the number, and many presidential aides over the years have complained that it is an artificial yardstick. But it has been used by the public, the media, and scholars as a gauge of presidential success and activism since Franklin D. Roosevelt pioneered the 100-day concept when he took office in 1933.”

Today marks one hundred days since neofascist Donald Trump’s second inauguration.

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/04/one-hundred-days-of-fascism-deliberate-chaos-and-economic-arson-donald-trumps-second-term-has-been-catastrophic.html