It’s hard to believe that we are only one year into President Donald Trump’s second term given all that has transpired since he took office again. Nevertheless, the first-year anniversary of Trump 2.0 is a good time to pause and take stock of the performance of his administration to date.
An honest assessment of this issue suggests that, to put it mildly, it has not been a good year for American democracy and for tens of millions of people that reside in the United States. My goal here is to highlight five areas in which our democracy and well-being have been undermined in the past year: rule of law, dismantling the federal government, incoherent foreign policy, the economy, and the overall welfare and safety of Americans.
On his very first day in office —January 20, 2025— Trump issued an executive order that granted pardons to more than 1,200 people convicted in connection with Jan. 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol and commuted the sentences of 14 others. Among the 14 individuals whose sentences were commuted was Oath Keeper founder Stuart Rhodes who received an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy.
According to various reports, despite the fact that Trump was presented with several options regarding the January 6, 2021 rioters, he decided to issue sweeping pardons, including ones for all rioters convicted of violence against police and Capitol security as well as one for the leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio who was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Many of the individuals that Trump chose to pardon had pleaded guilty for their crimes while others had been convicted at their trials by impartial judges. By opting to issue these sweeping pardons, Trump began his second term by raising his middle finger and dealing a significant blow to the rule of law in the United States.
The second Trump term also began with Trump empowering Elon Musk and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) to use a sledgehammer to cut governmental programs, personnel, and budgets. In his recent Atlantic Magazine article titled “The Purged,” Franklin Foer illustrates the impact of this purge on tens of thousands of federal workers and the programs that they were running. Foer writes that by April 2025, “entire departments—the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—had been gutted.”
Some people might not remember today that during the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. A year into his presidency and almost four years since Russia invaded Ukraine, there are few signs that this conflict will be resolved anytime soon. In fact, one could make a strong case that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have only intensified since Trump came into office again.
Trump’s incoherent foreign policy can also be seen in the recent abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the aftermath of this seizure. Although Maduro was a brutal dictator, the Trump administration is now supporting Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s Vice President, who was herself implicated in many crimes and sanctioned by the U.S. government rather than the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, to lead the transitional government in Venezuela. In supporting Rodríguez, the Trump administration is signaling that they are more concerned with a leader that will look out for American oil interests than one that will ensure a transition to democracy in Venezuela.
Trump came into office in January of 2025 promising to focus on the cost of living and to lower grocery prices and inflation. However, one of Trump’s first actions as President during his second term was to impose heavy tariffs on dozens of countries including U.S. allies like the U.K., Canada and Mexico.
According to a report in the New York Times, in large part because of the Trump tariffs “grocery prices are still rising, undercutting his administration’s rhetoric about how it is making life more affordable for average Americans.” For instance, since Trump took office the price of beef has risen 16.4 percent, the price of coffee is up 19.8 percent, while the price of frozen fish is 8.6 percent higher. Rent prices have also gone up in the past year and the cost of health insurance is set to skyrocket for many Americans because the Administration refused to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Finally, the Trump Administration has unleashed the forces of ICE to many American cities in order to “protect” the American people against the invasion of illegal immigrants into our communities. Yet, as we all witnessed in the past two weeks in the city of Minneapolis with the killing of Renee Good—an unarmed American citizen and mother of three—by an ICE agent, the administration’s immigration policy has resulted in more violence, increased tensions, and in many Americans feeling less safe in their own communities.
Any honest assessment — even one that merely scratches the surface — should conclude that the damage on American democracy and society wrought in only one year by the second Trump Administration is dreadful and will take a long time to undo.
Mordechai Gordon is a Professor of Education School of Education at Quinnipiac University.