What will you remember about Donald Trump’s second first 100 days? Probably the cruelty and arrogance of the people in charge, and the fecklessness of so many institutions that were supposed to fight back. Maybe the image of the world’s richest men, and some of their wives, sitting obediently in front of the president’s Cabinet on Inauguration Day. Or the way the New York Times described Elon Musk as having “extended his arm diagonally upward, palm facing down.” Or the enthusiasm with which the secretary of agriculture encouraged Americans to raise chickens. Or the words, “They hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.”
But personally, I’m going to remember all the mistakes.
I have never seen a government get so many things wrong, in so many different ways. It was like an Obamacare website every 18 hours. It was like the soft opening of Jurassic Park. And these were not the sort of run-of-the-mill snafus that are endemic to any large organization. They all had something in common: People who thought they knew better than everyone else took on work they didn’t understand, and sidelined the people who did. They were making mistakes, quite simply, because the people who didn’t make mistakes were gone, and because there was no one left to tell them not to, or to correct them when they did.
In 100 days the administration has, in no particular order:
“Accidentally cancelled,” in Musk’s words, funding for “Ebola prevention.”
Sent Harvard an “unauthorized” list of demands, which led the nation’s wealthiest university to stop negotiating with the administration and fight back in the courts.
Rescinded job offers for the Veterans Crisis Line, “due to an administrative error.”
Fired Health and Human Services employees that, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “should not have been cut.”
Accidentally fired, and tried to rehire, employees at the National Animal Health Laboratory Network who were working on the administration’s response to bird flu.
Fired, and scrambled to rehire, people responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
Fired, and then un-fired, workers at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Fired, and then rehired, people responsible for ensuring the safety of medical devices.
Fired workers at the Small Business Administration, then un-fired them, and then fired them again.
