Trump’s First 100 Days: It Was All Bad

My father always used to say, “God don’t like ugly.”

What he meant by that is when people behave in a callous, cruel, or deliberately harsh way for the specific purpose of doing harm, it is an offense to the Most High and will one day be met with punishment of the most extreme kind.

When I look at the first 100 days of the Trump administration, I don’t see much good, but I see a lot of ugly, and this country is the farthest thing from "great."

You’ve already been inundated on a daily basis with this guy’s bullshit. For that reason I don’t think I need to go through a list of things this president has done to either spite his predecessor, to target his enemies, to create derision among nations, to deplete the hard-earned savings of honest people, to eliminate whole agencies that were beneficial, to usurp rule of law, to castigate the vulnerable, to criminalize people who have done no wrong, or to engender capitulation of the media.

In fact, I don’t know of a single benefit America has reaped from Donald Trump being elected. It’s been all bad. Every day. There is fear, anger, trepidation, and despair as a result of his very presence. Half of America's voters really thought backing his agenda would solve all their problems and got nothing back but grief.

But if I were going to pick the ugliest thing, it would be this:

Really? So, no decency for people who were deported under dubious circumstances and not afforded the due process required in the U.S. Constitution? For people who were thrown into a prison in El Salvador to never be heard from again? For people whose families have not heard from them since ICE threw a net over their heads and dragged them into unmarked vans? When he could at least attempt to find a pathway to citizenship for people who are here and have been for years, working and paying taxes, and to correct the mistakes he’s made with resident aliens and U.S. citizens who have been arrested, he puts photos of deportees on the White House lawn.

Then there’s this, something Trump also did in his first term.

Really? A kid, a U.S. citizen with stage 4 cancer, getting kicked out along with a seven-year-old and a two-year-old? Why? Because their moms are undocumented immigrants? The president says that his intent is to get rid of millions of criminal immigrants who are part of what he calls foreign terrorist groups, MS-13, for example.

But that’s a group that started in Los Angeles but expanded into other countries, so in that regard, are crips and bloods also foreign terrorist groups as well? Are these kids he’s ejecting parts of the gangs he’s targeting? I’ve known gang members myself, but I’ve never come across a toddler who's into set trippin'.

No, I’m not defending gangstas. But what Trump is doing is stamping anyone with a tattoo as an MS-13 or Tren de Aragua member and shipping them to a gulag in El Salvador.  This is done for the sake of cruelty, and it’s the exact type of ugly that has defined not only Trump’s presidency, but what kind of person he is.

Pushback and Patriotism

After all this, plus nationwide town halls in which the people who voted for him are now showing Trump just what they think of his “America First” agenda and what he can do with it. The polls are reflecting how people see these first 100 days and they don’t like it.

If you think this is nonsense, wait three months and see how easy it will be to find basic sundries in stores for the same price you paid a year ago.

Now, I’m not really comfortable saying “I told you so,” but we should all note that none of this should come as a surprise. He made it plain all of last year that he wanted to upend government, attack immigrants and break longstanding ties to international allies. His agenda was outlined in Project 2025 (check out this tracker to see the current damage), and to get it carried out, he has surrounded himself with sycophants, religious zealots, white supremacists, and billionaire oligarchs who think they are in an Ayn Rand novel.

I’m old enough to have lived through several presidents. Some people disliked, but later respected, like Jimmy Carter. Others who people never liked and continued to lambast until his last day, like Richard Nixon. Others who were praised when they certainly should not have been, like Ronald Reagan. Others who, while not perfect, made a difference and made history, like Barack Obama. But Trump? He is uniquely bad by every metric and is making plans to get worse.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s the pushback. People are pissed. I’m hoping that they’ll be more than pissed. I’m hoping they will act. That’s the truly great thing about America, you can screw with people here only for so long before they kick you in the balls. In fact, that’s how the American Revolution got started. It was a bunch of colonial farmers who decided to kick King George III squarely in his nuts – and it worked.

The Civil War was the culmination of years of enslaved Black people kicking slaveowners in the nuts by rebelling. The American labor movement grew when a lot of hardworking people decided to aim their work boots at the crotches of industrialists. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which I love studying, is a master class in ball kicking. So really, pushback and ballkicking is a form of patriotism. This country comes out better when we decide enough is enough and decide to make our voices heard and our feet felt. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker illustrated this much better than I can.

It’s been 100 days and there are 1286 days until the 2028 election. There are also 551 days until the 2026 midterm election. That’s a good amount of time to figure out just what kind of ball kicking we want to do. No, America is not great and Trump will never make it so, but it is good because so many of her people are and they will ultimately be the solution. I’m not sure what it will take, what the trigger will be for Americans, but I’m pretty sure whenever we do, it will be our only shot at it.

I think my dad was right. God don't like ugly. At some point, ugly always winds up on the ground next to our boots.

Madison Gray is a New York City-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple publications globally. Reach out to him at madison@starkravingmadison.com.