The Trump Administration continues to be an embarrassment for lovers of liberty.
It seems to screw up just about everything it touches or so corrodes what America’s democracy has stood for that it has made our nation a laughing stock again and again.
The world breathed a sigh of relief in 2021 when Joe Biden and the adults took office to lead the United States. But in 2025 with the return of a grumpy, petulant, conspiracy-fueled Donald Trump to the White House, it’s gotten way, way worse. You may not have liked Biden – and he had some failures – but he turned the tide on Covid to help the country recover, invested in America to strengthen neglected infrastructure, showed world leadership on Ukraine. His economic policies improved the economy and generated more than 2 million jobs.
Trump and his lackeys, on the other hand, used a no-bid contract to a big supporter for renovations of the National Mall’s reflecting pool to make it blue, only to have it turn green again within weeks thanks to algal blooms.
They denigrated the White House grounds by removing a symbolic rose garden. They tore down a wing for an ill-conceived, unnecessary ballroom where costs are escalating. And, of all things, they littered the lawn into a tacky spectacle for a mixed martial arts humiliation.
They knocked up Trump’s name and image all over the place, from the Kennedy Center (removed by a judge) to National Park passes to passports. There are even Soviet-style banners of his face on some federal buildings in Washington. And don’t forget his planned huge and garish arched monument that would be in full view of the stately Lincoln Memorial.
Since being sworn in for the second time, the national embarrassments created by this unhealthy, sleepy president have expanded from surface branding to deeper intrusions into what has made our country special.
Trump got America into a war with Iran that he supposedly ended this month by backtracking to where we were before the war. The country spent gazillions, bombed and killed innocent people and interrupted global commerce – only to return to the status quo. This agreement embarrassingly signed in Versailles to reopen the Strait of Hormuz got us what new that we didn’t have before? Experienced, strategic foreign policy at work? Nah, just the modern version of the Keystone Cops.
The list of disgraces goes on. Now the administration apparently is planning to sell or give away 11 immigration warehouses worth $700 million that it once said it just had to have. Officials are still quietly working to snare Greenland. Trump blustered to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. And he tried to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay the convicted felons who attacked the U.S. Capital while ignoring the police officers killed in the melee.
Also on this Executive Branch’s misadministration list: It threw ethical standards out of the door by accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar that many call a bribe. It sold pardons. It continually talks about rigged elections (not true) to confuse voters and create distrust in a process for Americans to exercise a key and fundamental democratic right.
Here in South Carolina, future impacts of the administration’s intentional neglect will be telling. What happens, for example, if a hurricane devastates the state? One thing is for sure – the Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t come running to fix things like it used to because Trump has gutted it, just like it impaired the National Weather Service’s resources to do its job.
Across the country as Americans prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of declaring our shores to be independent of tyranny, we’ve got a childish despot in office who is wrecking what we’ve stood for in a bipartisan manner for generations.
The 2028 presidential election can’t come soon enough. Maybe the adults will return.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
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