Though it feels like it’s been an eternity already, tomorrow marks Donald Trump’s 100^th day in office. After his inauguration, he wasted no time trying to implement the bigoted, regressive, and dangerous policies he’d touted on the campaign trail. And activists, organizations, and communities wasted no time resisting his efforts. Herewith, from his first 100 days: the top Trump travesties—and the successes of the resistance.

 

Trump (in)famously – twice – tried to ban citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. People were unable to return from abroad, were detained at airports, separated from their families, risked losing jobs, and more. Massive protests sprang up at airports, and lawyers sprang into action—and into court. CCR attorneys joined at JFK airport in New York, documented to the DHS Inspector General the abuses occurring at airports, had a contingent at the #NoBanNoWall protests, and filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the legal justification for the ban.

 

Trump’s Muslim ban is hardly the only instance of his attacks on immigrants. Though his effort to build a “great, great wall” on the Mexico border has so far failed, Trump has successfully unleashed an aggressive, xenophobic harassment and deportation apparatus that is terrorizing communities. He has increased immigration arrests, threatened to separate parents and children at the border, tried (and failed in court) to pull funding from so-called “sanctuary cities,”— ICE agents have even staked out immigrants at courthouses. Needless to say, the Trump administration reversed the Obama Justice Department plan to stop the use of private prisons, and we have seen an increase in the targeting of DACA recipients and immigration activists. The Muslim Ban at the airports and the de facto ban on migrants from Central America are two parts of his Bannon-conceived goal to “Make America Great Again,” which is to say, his attempt to “Make America White Again.”  

The appointment of a committed racist as the most powerful law enforcement officer in the land is all you need to know to understand the retreat of civil rights in the Trump era—almost. Among other efforts, in just the first 100 days, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already begun to roll back years of work to curb abusive policing. He is pulling back federal oversight aimed at reforming police departments with histories of abuses, and tried to dismantle agreements around systemic police abuse, including the one set to take effect in Baltimore. Sessions is working in line with Trump’s executive order that the Office of the Attorney General prioritize officer safety over that of the people they are supposed to protect. As CCR Advocacy Program Manager Nahal Zamani laid out in a recent blog, this makes local efforts at combatting abusive policing even more crucial.

 

When Trump bombed Syria on April 7, he did so without Congressional authorization, dragging the U.S. further into yet another intractable conflict. While the impulsiveness with which he did it was Trump’s signature style, he is hardly the first president to wage unconstitutional war. Drones continue to kill, and men continue to be detained at Guantánamo, as part of a global war expanded by Presidents Bush and Obama far beyond the post-9/11 authorizations for war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also, for cruel machismo show, dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a village in Afghanistan, with callous disregard for the death and destruction visited on communities who live there. 

 

Despite his nod to the LGBTQ community at the Republican National Convention, Trump has been busy trying to pander to his base in his first 100 days, undercutting protections and rescinding Obama-era directives protecting the rights of transgender students. One of his many executive orders seeks to weaken efforts to ensure federal contractors comply with nondiscrimination laws. As CCR Senior Staff Attorney Pam Spees and Advocacy Program Manager Nahal Zamani explained in a recent blog, this affects not only LGBTQ people and others benefiting from protections against discrimination, but the health, safety, and fair pay of workers. Though Trump’s license-for-bigotry “religious freedom” executive order has yet to materialize, he’s already done enough in 100 days to give the lie to his claim to care one bit about LGBTQ people.

 

While Trump’s accomplishments have been mostly limited to signing (or forgetting to sign) a nightmare collection of executive orders, his appointments look like a staff directory from Goldman Sachs (crossed with a family Christmas letter). Washington has always been a revolving door for lobbyists, but the extent to which Trump is shaping a government by the corporations, for the corporations is staggering.

 

The apparent number-one qualification for a job in the Trump administration is conflict of interest. In keeping with this hiring strategy, he appointed someone with deep financial ties to illegal Israeli settlements as U.S. ambassador to Israel. As president of American Friends of Beit El, David Friedman has helped funnel tens of millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations (including from Donald Trump’s and Jared Kushner’s foundations) to the settlement, located deep in the occupied Palestinian territory. Friedman has also made contributions to another U.S. nonprofit that aims to evict Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem and settle Jewish families there instead.

 

Of course, some of his appointments are already under Congressional investigation…

 

Trump has succeeded devastatingly in defunding Title X clinics and re-instituting the global gag rule, dismantling protections for federal contractor workers and drastically rolling back environmental regulations. But mostly he has failed. There is no wall. He hasn’t yet gutted healthcare. So far, the courts have stopped the Trump administration from enforcing the Muslim ban. A court just blocked his plan to cut funding to “sanctuary cities.” Trump sought but failed to bring back CIA torture.