‘I run the country and the world,’ said President Donald Trump last week. That’s not really an exaggeration. In our ever more mediatised age, Trump doesn’t just make the news. He is the news, win or lose. Why did Mark Carney triumph in the Canadian elections? A Trump backlash. What happened at the Pope’s funeral? Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky talked peace. Is the economy tanking? It’s the Trump, stupid.
Younger Donald’s ambition was to be the world’s most famous man – to achieve, as his son-in-law Jared Kushner put it, ‘virtually 100 per cent name recognition’. He surpassed that years ago. His aspirations now are far bigger. In the first 100 days of his second presidency, which the global media marked on Tuesday with curious reverence, Trump has sought to usher in a new golden age – for America First, then the world. He wants to pull the global economy away from China’s grasp; to be the first commander-in-chief since Calvin Coolidge to reduce his nation’s debt; to create energy abundance and turbocharge US industry; to prove a prosperous country can stamp out illegal immigration; to eliminate ‘Marxism’ in all federal institutions; and to destroy and remove the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) dogma from almost every facet of American life. And that’s just the start.
On Tuesday, I asked Steve Bannon, leader of MAGA’s advance guard, to sum up Trump’s first 100 days in a word. ‘Revolution,’ he replied. Revolutions are messy, though. Each of the first 50 days of the new administration gave Trump fans at least one exhilarating blast of executive action.
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