Guilly's Guide-Day One

Eyes on the Prize.

 

Greetings Beloved: Welcome to Guilly’s Guide to the first 100 days.

If you have ever paid attention to any incoming administration, an inauguration, and cabinet picks before the Trump Administrations, or were invested in the priorities of an incoming administration: then you probably have a decent idea of the importance of the first 100 days.  

From Inauguration day Jan 20th until April 29th is considered the most critical time of any administration. The administration has to create legislation, policy, and get the senate to adopt all their priorities. 

There is also the constitutionally complicated process to get all their people in place for their “deep state” clean up routine. I say routine because it just seems like he is letting billionaires deregulate their own interests and industries, which is the same thing politicians have been doing for decades in DC. Trump just cut out the middleman. 

But common political wisdom is that if it isn't  done in the first 100 days, it’s not happening. Not in any meaningful way, nor will it change the nature of the country long term. 

To be frank, the incoming administration's task would be herculean in almost any political environment, but the Trump administration has continuously created an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and a factor I think many people underestimate in DC: Gangsterism. 

Donald J Trump, the now 47th President of the United States has always acted like a guy who wanted to be in the Mafia so bad he could taste it. He will pull into the white house like most gangsters and see what “falls off the truck” for him and his buddies. He sees NATO as a protection scheme. He thinks the Army and ICE are his muscle, and he is going to go to great lengths to make the FBI his consigliere. But the only way to interpret this administration is as a criminal heist of much of what we as Americans often subconsciously, but collectively, hold dear. 

The President will sign over 100 executive orders in the coming days and weeks. 

Most of them will have no teeth.

They are the orders of an aging Don who has had to fight to retake his territory. But immigration raids will start, some of them will be very public, and a media circus. 

This will be his first mistake. Like most tough guys, he thinks everyone will revel in cruelty. 

Unfortunately for the incoming administration and the Grand Ol’ Party, they have created an atmosphere in Washington that will work against them constantly. In the last 4 years GOP politicians have gone out of their way to hurt, insult, and unleash hordes of online trolls, hatred, and misinformation upon their perceived political enemies. They have even made something as shocking to the American psyche as an attempt on a president's life seem almost  normalized. Noone was shocked when a would-be killer took a shot at the then 45th now 47th POTUS.  It was like a collective national: “I saw that coming.” While normal news for say the prohibition era bootleggers, politicians, and celebrities, -I grew up in an era where folks didn’t take potshots at the President as a political aside.

While I can assure you that these sorts of things have happened much more in American history than the average citizen knows, it is another sign of the rather heated escalation of political violence in this country and our gangster leaders seeming readiness to accept it as a new normal. 

While all this is going on, Washington is still Washington. The Beltway functions the way it functions, and even with project 2025, his early moves for cabinet, DOJ, FBI, State, and the DOD picks which have all been highly publicized, this again is: business as usual. 

So why? Why business as usual? 

If Trump is such a unique threat to American Democracy, then why are the outgoing POTUS, The Democratic Party, and the GOP members we know don't agree with these Trumpian policies just going along for the ride? 

The first thing you have to understand is that many of these folks truly believe in our system of checks, balances, norms, dual sovereignty, constitutional integrity, and in Madisonian democracy. They believe the system has, and will survive this test. 

President Biden has gone out of his way to do everything that President Trump’s last term threatened during the transition last time. The shared cup of tea. The transition team meeting. The last ride together to the inauguration. 

In fact I do believe that President Biden is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing. Showing his faith in the oath of office that he took. The process of electing an American President. He is making sure the contrast is also sharp. He is betting you will be hungry for normality in 4 years, so he is being the epitome of it. 

In this President Biden did the “right” thing. He is thinking of the 2028 and the 2032 elections. He is protecting the only thing that has kept us who we are as a country, and what has us wringing our hands over the last 4 years. A peaceful transition of power. 

Even if like many of you I am not quite as hopeful as President Biden in the strength of our institutions (I personally believe the system of Madsonian democracy is in danger of being changed in fundamental ways that may make it almost unviable in 20 years), I get why he is taking this course of action. 

 I also think if it wasn’t President Trump someone else would be attempting this incredibly cynical attempt at nationalist politics. 

Americans are struggling with uncertainty, in an uncertain world. We don’t know what will happen next, there will be no sense of normality. This too will work against Trump. 

The second thing you have to understand is the pace at which business is done in Washington DC. Glacial would be too fast of a description. Also, since the GOP and Trump decided that we are going to be campaigning every year all year, GOP representatives will go home in 3 months, with their jobs on the line, and answer for a christmas list of likely broken promises and try to convince constituents to put them back in office. In other words, this administration has the toughest sled I have seen an incoming administration have in decades.

They have 100 days to create, then get both houses to adopt any new legislation. Anything not passed by congress, becomes just an executive pipe dream. Maybe an executive order, but not the law of the land. 

Here in fact are the 25 he will most likely sign today: https://www.fastcompany.com/91244797/trumps-day-one-will-unleash-over-25-executive-orders-sources-say

“Trump’s post inaugural orders on the first day are expected to mostly focus on rolling back what Trump views as Biden’s overly permissive border policies and preventing new surges of migration along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, two sources said.

He is expected to sign executive orders that give immigration officers more latitude to arrest people with no criminal records, send more troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, and restart construction of the border wall, three separate sources with knowledge of those draft orders said. The orders will also include a drive to increase energy production and follow through on Trump’s oft-stated campaign vow to “drill, baby, drill” and “frack, frack, frack,” the sources said.While some of the moves would face stiff court challenges or would require legislation or new agency regulations—which can take many months to implement—there are dozens of actions that Trump can in fact take with the stroke of a pen.” -Reuters Agency Wire Repost by Fastcompany

But the truth is a lot of these orders can be changed on day one of the next administration, a few violate the constitution itself, and many are simply unfunded. It is the responsibility of the congress to fund these ideas. It is the responsibility of the congress to make these imperatives the law of the land. Or not. 

And he has 30 work days to pull it off before April 29th. 

As an example this year’s schedule released by congressional leadership gives the Trump administration only a little over 30 days of an insession Congress: https://www.majorityleader.gov/uploadedfiles/overview_-_2025_house_calendar.pdf

He has a 1 vote majority in the Senate and a 3 vote majority in the House. He won by 1% of the popular vote even if the electoral college makes it more seem like a shellacking. It was once again less than a few hundred thousand of us in key counties that made the difference. It is not the mandate I or the Trump team thought it was. 

It is an incredibly unsure picture not just for us, but for President Trump in these 100 days as well. Today is the day the real work begins. 

I shall not be moved. We shall not be moved. 

Eyes on the prize, Beloveds. 

Tomorrow we will meet some of the cast of the Trump White House. 

Written in Love and Liberation: 

lenny duncan