New York Times Op Ed Page, May 20, 2025
Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the New York Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Tuesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. He polled experts for their opinions on Trump’s actions, so far, during his first 100 days in office. Here are the opinions of experts from a variety of colleges and universities:
The quotes below represent the views of the nation’s experts in politics and economics in 2025. They echo my own sentiments, so I’ve excerpted some of the lines from my own 2019 book, BEE GONE: A A Political Parable”
Watching what has gone on, so far, makes me weep for my country. “I told you so” is cold comfort.
Bee Gone: A Political Parable (book by Connie Corcoran Wilson, illustrated by Gary McCluskey)
From my book BEE GONE:
“I could help this hive more by running the state.”
“Oh, No!” cried the others, “We think SHE’S the one. You’re new and you don’t seem to know much
She knows a lot. She’s been in this spot, While you haven’t ever done such.”
They would not agree that he should rule.
They thought he should go back to school….
So Donnie got in and then tried to rule.
He wouldn’t attempt to learn things in school.
He just wanted to do what he wanted to do.
If objections were raised, he’d simply shout, “Shoo!”
‘Oh my!” said the other bees, after his rise.
“This really is awful. Our whole hive might die.”
The Queen, who was out in the forest alone,
Said, “You should’ve listened to me about this bad drone.
But some of you didn’t and thought he was great.
Just how will you feel when it’s really too late?
If we don’t pull together and get this drone out,
He’ll ruin us all—the big crazy lout!”
“We don’t want to be violent
But he’s got to go.
Our lives and our honey he just doesn’t know.
He seems to think only of playing and greed.
He doesn’t care for us, does not meet our needs.”
But Donnie was known as a very bad bee.
He was not very truthful as all bees could see.
A valuable lesson was learned then by all:
Be careful in choosing or you’ll all take a fall.”
Insurrection of January 6, U.S. Capitol
- Michael Luttig (former Federal Appeals Judge appointed by George H. W. Bush):
“There has never been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been destructive, let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law. I even believe he is destroying the American presidency.”
BUDGET CUTS
Regarding the cuts in the share of grants going to universities and hospitals and proposed cuts of 40 percent or more in the budgets of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Science Foundation: “This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country,” Jennifer Zeitzer, the deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science magazine. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that cuts will “totally destroy the nation’s public health infrastructure.”
Sean Wilentz, Professor of History at Princeton:
“The gutting of expertise and experience going on right now under the blatantly false pretext of eliminating fraud and waste is catastrophic and may never be completely repaired. There is no precedent, not even close, unless you consider Jefferson Davis an American president. Even to raise the question, with all due respect, is to minimize the crisis we’re in and the scope of Trump et al.’s. intentions. Trump’s closest allies intended chaos wrought by destruction which helps advance the elite reactionary programs. Chaos allows Trump to expand his governing by emergency powers, which could well include the imposition of martial law, if he so chose.”
Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin: “Not to be flip,” Rudalevige replied by email, “but for children abroad denied food or lifesaving medicine because of arbitrary aid cuts, the answer is (these cuts are) already distressingly permanent. The damage caused to governmental expertise and simple competence could be long lasting. Firing probationary workers en masse may reduce the government employment head count, slightly, but it also purged those most likely to bring the freshest view and most up-to-date skills to government service, while souring them on that service. And norms of nonpoliticization in government service have taken a huge hit.
The comparison that comes to mind is Andrew Johnson. It’s hardly guaranteed that Reconstruction after the Civil War would have succeeded even under Lincoln’s leadership. But Johnson took action after action designed to prevent racial reconciliation and economic opportunity, from vetoing key legislation to refusing to prevent mob violence against Blacks to pardoning former members of the Confederacy hierarchy. He affirmatively made government work worse and to prevent it from treating its citizens equally.”
PROJECT 2025
Rudalevige on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025:
“Project 2025 was not just a campaign manifesto but a bulwark against the inconsistency and individualism its authors thought had undermined the effectiveness of Trump’s first term. It was an insurance policy to secure the administrative state for conservative thought and yoke it to a cause beyond Trump or even Trumpism. It was not just a campaign manifesto but a bulwark against the inconsistency and individualism its authors thought had undermined the effectiveness of Trump’s first term. It was an insurance policy to secure the administrative state for conservative thought and yoke it to a cause beyond Trump or even Trumpism.
In the past, when presidential power has expanded, it has been in response to crisis: the Civil War, World War I, the Depression and World War II, 9/11. But no similar objective crisis faced us. So one had to be declared — via proclamations of “invasion” and the like — or even created. In the ensuing crisis more power may be delegated by Congress. But the analogue is something like an arsonist who rushes to put out the fire he started.”
RELATIONSHIPS WITH TRADITIONAL ALLIES
Mara Rudman, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center:
“The most lasting impact of this term will be felt in the damage done to the reputation of the United States as a safe harbor where the rule of law is king and where the Constitution is as sacred a national document as any country has developed.
Through his utter disregard for the law, Trump has shown both how precious and how fragile are the rules that undergird our institutions, our economic and national security and the foundation for our democracy. Among the top four in U.S. News rankings (Buchanan, Pierce, Andrew Johnson), Trump was the only one not associated with the Civil War. He is proving to be superlative within that small club and may yet overtake his historical competition for the top ranking.There is no indication that these new Trump voters, his winning margin, voted for demolition of the basic structures of governance in this country as DOGE has done, impeding the services, e.g., Social Security and Medicaid, and the jobs upon which they depend.
Ideological loyalists such as Stephen Miller and Project 2025’s primary pen, Russell Vought, now O.M.B. director, seized a longstanding agenda and have the skills to implement it, Vought particularly so; recall pre-election when Vought boasted of inflicting maximum trauma on career civil servants.”
Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford, shares the belief that Trump has taken a wrecking ball to foreign relations
“What will be hard to fix from all of this is a substantial undermining of trust in American government that created important alliances and a strong economy. The poster child of ruined trust is Canada.
Canadians have been dependable allies and economic partners for decades, but President Trump’s preposterous ideas about taking over Canada have angered Canadians to a point of at least difficult return. Trust in relationships is easily lost and hard to regain.
The war on academic research will have long-lasting implications for technical innovation in America. Scientists who cannot support their labs while President Trump holds their funds hostage for the sake of MAGA theater over the next four years will take their labs elsewhere.
China will be a winner in this. Uncertainty about government commitments will make it harder for investors to take basic and applied research in universities and move it to market. The longer the time horizon for investments, the more trust and stability matter. In the end, disrupters like Trump and Musk leave us with a much bigger legacy of doubt and uncertainty than achievement.
Destruction has a role in both business and government. The creative disruption of technological innovation can destroy some businesses and elevate better ones. Similarly, political destruction such as democracy revolutions have dramatically improved the form and function of government.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are disrupters from the economic realm who have migrated into the political realm. The migration has been rocky for both are driven more by instinct than knowledge, vindictiveness than good intentions and impatience than carefully designed plans. They may make enough money out of their deals to do well for themselves. The same cannot be said for the Republican Party. If things get bad enough, we could be looking at 1974 all over again.”
Ellen Fitzpatrick, a professor emerita of history at the University of New Hampshire:
“It’s fair to say that if we look at the arc of American history from Reconstruction to the current day, there’s no question that Trump is busily destroying much of what several generations of Americans worked very, very hard to achieve.”
“The anti-immigrant sentiment of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the rhetoric abroad in the land today area shocking reminder of the distance the nation traveled over the course of the 20th century and how quickly those gains are being recklessly swept away. To see the effort to dismantle what was achieved with great difficulty in the realm of civil and voting rights in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and subsequent administrations is appalling.”
MOST DESTRUCTIVE PRESIDENTS:
In ranking the most destructive presidents, the scholars polled mentioned both Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.
Geoffrey Kabaservice, the vice president for political studies at the Niskanen Center, a center-left libertarian think tank, wrote:
“Will the Trump presidency be as destructive as James Buchanan’s presidency, which led directly to the Civil War?
What I think we can say with confidence is that no president in living memory has attacked the sources of American strength and dynamism in the way that Trump already has done. In particular, his withdrawal from American global leadership and his sabotage of American scientific and technological pre-eminence — at precisely the moment we are vying with China for superiority in those areas — has no parallel.”
Paul Rosenzweig, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush/ lecturer in law at George Washington University:
“The damage is permanent. Not because it cannot be fixed — it can be with effort. But rather because nobody will ever trust the United States again that something Trump-like won’t recur. Would you as a young person take a federal job today? Would you as a foreign student trust that you could attend university in the United States safely? Would you as a European government trust the United States to maintain the security of your secrets?
Trump was elected to enrich and protect Trump. That was his only motivation. On issues of direct concern (e.g., getting a plane as a gift from Qatar or profiting off cryptocurrency), he has views. Otherwise, he is an empty vessel.”
Is Trump laying the groundwork for a more autocratic form of government in the United States?
Robert Strong, a professor of political economy at Washington and Lee:
“I previously felt that the predictions of authoritarian government in the United States were exaggerated. The pace and scope of actions in the early months of Trump 2 have changed my assessment.
The levels of open corruption, the direct challenges to the rule of law, the assaults on institutions have been larger and more consequential than I expected. We are in a period of grave political peril.”
Russell Riley, a professor of ethics and co-chairman of the Miller Center’s presidential oral history program, took this view a step farther, noting that Trump explicitly dissociated himself from Project 2025 during the campaign and then, once in office, adopted much of the Project 2025:
“Any president seeking fundamental changes in our political system needs to be empowered by the American people to take on that challenge. This typically comes from two principal factors historically: (1) a resounding electoral victory based on (2) a clear program openly taken to the voters. Trump barely won the popular vote, with just under 50 percent — hardly an electoral mandate, even for an incremental program. Indeed, as a candidate, Mr. Trump openly distanced himself from Project 2025. Lacking both a clear mandate and an electorate explicitly supportive of Project 2025 means that the president is obligated to run that policy through the usual constitutional policy mills, respectful of the prerogatives of the legislature and the courts. That is not being done. A reliance on exceptional powers requires exceptional authorization. Normally a president may not mandate his own leadership.
