Donald Trump's First Week: A Critical Review of Executive Orders and Political Crisis
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| An iconic image of Washington DC. |
Trump's Second Term A New Era
Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States on 20 January 2025. It was obvious what he would do when he took office after the swearing-in ceremony. The consequences of his decisions will determine the main planes on which American politics will develop in the following period. I therefore made a general political assessment of the picture that emerged at the end of the first week.
I firmly believe that this second term of Donald Trump's presidency, unlike the first, will bring about more radical and lasting changes, with a significant impact on world politics as these changes will centre on the American state. The most important reason for this is that Donald Trump has started to implement important measures concerning the federal government as soon as he took office. One of the first decrees signed was the elimination of the employment protection provided by the federal government. This meant the removal of legal obstacles to staffing. The Washington Post reported;
The White House described the order stripping employment protections from agency employees as necessary to rein in what Trump and his allies have called a “deep state” of bureaucrats who resisted his plans during his first term.
Another key development is the introduction of a performance monitoring system in labour relations. This is in line with the neoliberal economic policies embraced by the conservative structure. In light of Trump's political stance, this outcome was anticipated. Nevertheless, I must stress an important point here.
After the elections in the United States of America, it was clear that a radical leftist discourse had become the norm for the Democratic Party, which remained in the opposition after the elections. This liberal-democratic wing, which openly stated at every opportunity that they were capitalists, and Joe Biden often liked to emphasize that he was a capitalist, had clearly adopted this new discourse. This change of attitude is not very convincing. If they continue this attitude for a long time, they will be caught in a contradiction arising from their own class character. What do I mean? The Democratic Party's liberal elite are mostly wealthy, middle-to-upper-class individuals. They have no real relationship with the masses of poor people. When they are excluded from the relations within the state, they will become completely powerless. Their resistance can and will be broken. If they are deprived of these relations and the opportunities of the bureaucracy for a long time, it is not possible for them to maintain a relatively radical leftist discourse in the long term.
It is clear that the decrees and orders signed by Donald Trump "at jet speed" have effectively locked down the federal government. This is a real "shock". Nevertheless, this "shock therapy" is so "shocking" that even The Wall Street Journal, which was one of the most important factors that led to the withdrawal of former President Joe Biden with its harsh opposition, and which sometimes openly supported Trump by following the same opposition line against Kamala Harris, had to publish a serious criticism about the speed of the process and the chaos it caused. In its article, Wall Street, which analyses the resulting disruptions, writes that services have come to a standstill in many areas, from the economy to health, from foreign communications to scientific research and even national park services.
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From the moment he took office, Donald Trump has signed many executive orders. |
The leaders of the United States, and Wall Street in particular, must remember how vital it is for a great state, a "superpower", to govern effectively. An experienced administrator can undoubtedly fill many gaps in a great state with their mere "presence". They can fill gaps that others cannot fill and address certain deficiencies with their experience. Joe Biden was without doubt an executive figure. As I stated in my previous article, big changes require time. The programme is also important. Economic and political transformations, which can be called "populist" in a sense, are being implemented much faster than normal. Those who implement them must be careful not to make mistakes. The Soviet Union collapsed because it dismantled its administrative mechanisms and state apparatus too quickly.
Ethical and Legal Confrontations
Donald Trump's prioritization and implementation of a series of administrative measures to implement his conservative agenda will undoubtedly lead to complications. The execution of the death penalty is an issue that must be taken very seriously in terms of its ethical and humanitarian dimension. Barbara McQuade of Bloomberg, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, has highlighted the noteworthy elements of the decree signed by Trump. Entitled "Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety", it is particularly noteworthy for some of its elements. One of its sections clearly instructs courts to overrule the Supreme Court and apply the death penalty for certain offences. McQuade makes a key point in one of the crucial paragraphs of her article.
“The Supreme Court has found the death penalty is unconstitutional in cases for crimes other than homicide or where the defendant is under 18, mentally disabled, or legally insane. Trump’s executive order seems to suggest that prosecutors should seek the death penalty in such cases anyway, even for defendants who cannot appreciate the seriousness of their crimes.”
The author's second point is a resounding critique of another glaring injustice in the order. The death penalty is to be sought against any person who is an illegal immigrant in the United States of America, regardless of other factors, if that person is in a legal situation that requires the death penalty. This is in direct opposition to the spirit of the law and to American law and practice, as set out by the author in his article, as it undermines the principle of equality.
Reversing precedents is harmful to American society. It removes fair notice of what the law requires so that people may conform their behavior to the law. Failure to adhere to precedents makes it more difficult for policymakers to craft rules that comply with the law and for business leaders to commit to long-term planning. Courts that repeatedly change their minds risk losing credibility that they are interpreting the law without regard to politics.
It is possible to reveal which segments of society have been subjected to the death penalty more in the United States of America, but this fundamental problem is beyond the limits of this article. Suffice it to say that Hispanics, blacks and non-Americans are clearly at the forefront of the application of the death penalty. This means that de facto discrimination already existed, and it was a well-known secret. What makes this practice different from others is that it legalizes discrimination and elevates inequality to the force of law. This universally contradicts the rule of law.
Trump's decrees are already facing many objections and resistance from law enforcement. The first, and most controversial, is his famous order cancelling birthright citizenship. The New York Times reports that a federal judge has already ordered a temporary stay of this decree. The Times reports that;
In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided with Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, the four states that sued, signing a restraining order that blocks Mr. Trump’s executive order for 14 days, renewable upon expiration. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order, he said.
The NYT reported this news to its readers in the form of a news article. The NYT, known for its opposition to the Republicans and the Trump government, was not alone in reporting this news. The Wall Street Journal, known for its support for the Trump government and its conservative identity, also emphasised this news and chose to report the situation with the headline "Trump Loses on Birthright Citizenship". Moreover, the newspaper was clear in its message to the Trump administration from the very first week: a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan had declared the executive order unconstitutional. The message is clear: conservatism must prioritise profit in economic policies. At the same time, it is vital to be more realistic, balanced and applicable in the social and ideological plan. In fact, Ronald Reagan, one of the iconic names of the new right-wing politics and a role model for Trump, is used as an example of the wrongness of his policies.
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| Reagan, the legendary figure of the conservatives, has always been looked up to by Trump. |
Media Narratives and Power Dynamics
It is clear to anyone familiar with American media circles that The New York Times and its affiliates, as well as CNN and the Washington Post, have long been biased towards the Democrats. The Wall Street Journal is an entirely different story.
The WSJ is a conservative-leaning and big business-influential newspaper. I read the WSJ regularly and I know for a fact that the paper's editorial team is a major driver in setting the United States' agenda. Wall Street actively opposed the Democratic Party during the election process. It did this using its editorial policy and its influence in the circles with which it is associated. As politics followers, we all observed this. It displayed an opposition to Joe Biden that was undoubtedly too harsh in terms of style in some places. This style of opposition reached its highest level after the first of the traditional television debates and caused a wave of anti-Biden panic to spread through the Democratic community, The New York Times and important Democratic donors. The forced withdrawal of an experienced president like Joe Biden is clearly the main dynamic here.
Kamala Harris, the other candidate who had the potential to win, was not elected. She had to replace Joe Biden after he was forced to withdraw from the nomination, but she could not win the support of Wall Street circles. I can confidently claim this as well. Harris's leftist background is unacceptable to the dominant capitalist circles in the United States. It is clear that Harris' time as a prosecutor was scrutinized during his candidacy. The mortgage affair on Wall Street, which led to one of the biggest financial crises in recent history, is still fresh in the memory. We are talking not only about the owners of capital, but also about very politically powerful and highly intelligent people. Wall Street is one of the few true concentrations of intelligence in the world. When Joe Biden left office, he claimed that a financial oligarchy was beginning to take shape in the United States. However, this claim is incomplete. If he had said the following, he would have been correct: A new and much more active financial-technological oligarchy has taken shape in the United States of America and has put its weight on power. This statement would have been perfect. It is clear that there has always been a kind of financial oligarchy in the United States. There is always an oligarchy behind every president and king, whether in a capitalist country or a monarchy. In monarchies, it is the aristocrats. In democracies, it is the rich and bourgeois. It is clear that these people did not want to see Kamala Harris in the future administration. They felt that her attitude towards China would be weak. This is another observation of mine. In fact, anyone following the agenda for months before the elections could have made this observation, and the result completely confirmed it.
The Democratic Dilemma and Future Prospects
The Democratic Party is the most vivid and concrete example of the limits within which the left in the United States must remain. It is unacceptable that priorities such as providing social security for more people, housing for the homeless and basic necessities for millions of poor people are considered "extreme" demands in this country. Therefore, providing free and equal healthcare, education or housing for all is far beyond the limits of this kind of "leftism" and is enough to get you labelled a "communist". The Democratic agenda has had to adopt a kind of identity politics and the globalizationist, technological progressist agenda as its main political line. It has stayed within the limits of what it is allowed and within which it can move freely. After a while, it reached the natural limits of this politics. My previous articles make it clear that the process of globalisation stalled during the pandemic. The idea of technological progress has now changed. The question of by whom and how this progress can be achieved has been resolved in favor of conservative Republicans. Reproductive rights, trans marriages and identity issues are important, but they do not directly improve the daily lives of the masses. To the extent that they are imposed as a policy on countries in the rest of the world that live in much more backward conditions, they can be met with antipathy. The defeat of the election has plunged the Democratic ideology into a kind of identity crisis. It is clear that this elite ideology has become a middle-upper income idea that only appeals to the elite and educated. The Democrats could not overcome this crisis.
Shortly before the Republicans seized political power in the United States, a Labour government was formed in England. We are talking about two election results that should be diametrically opposed to each other; the Republicans in the United States and the Labour Party in Britain are two very different political traditions. Nevertheless, the constitutive influence and control of the capitalist circles in the political system in both countries is so strong that both governments are closely monitored and frequently and sometimes violently criticized by the same power centres that brought them to power. The recent editorial line of The Wall Street Journal is the clearest example of this. The editorial lines of The Times and The New Statesman demonstrate that this is a key goal of theirs and show how delicate the balance is.
Elon Musk's outrageous and shameful behavior is a clear warning sign of the dangerous tendencies developing in the forces behind this balance. The evaluation of this move is beyond the scope of this article. It is a subject that must be addressed in a separate article.
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