Anti-trump essay for my reading class (mostly finished).

Current President Donald Trump and his administration has so far proved to be unconstitutional, disappointing,  not knowledgeable with economics, and generally inadequate and concerning in ways not listed. Trump's presidency was already considered disappointing when he was inaugurated for his second term, as reported by PEW Research Center with 35% of participants reporting that his administration’s actions have been worse than what they’ve expected and only 28% saying they are better than they expected. Another national survey led by the same research center as well as shown in the same article would report that only 47% of the 5,086 participants approve of his current presidency- and only 44% approved of his 1st term. American citizens have also shown low confidence in some of Trump's traits and characteristics. In another data chart shared by PEW Research Center it would show that democrats and democratic leaning participants show very little confidence in all of the skills listed- scoring less than 10% in all categories. This is the opposite for republicans and republican leaning however- which could be due to biases or the different common beliefs of people who identify with that label in comparison to democrats who tend to be more liberal. This is all proving that Trump as president so far in his second term has proven to be a disappointing president by many. According to an article posted by USAfacts, 45.1 million Americans are registered as democrats and 36 million are registered as republicans, and so logically wouldn’t it be best for the other half of the registered voters to be somewhat happy with their president? 

Trump and his administration has also proven itself to be unconstitutional in certain cases and situations, with his most prevalent being his deportation cases in this 2nd term. As an example, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who moved to the U.S 15 years ago from his original country of El Salvador for fear of gang violence would enter the U.S without authorization but would work through the system to acquire a immigration court order. This gave him protected status that allowed him to live and work here freely and legally, but despite that in January of 2025 he would be detained with no warning. Abrego Garcia would have no opportunity to see a lawyer, plead his case, and would be deported back to El Salvador to be imprisoned in Cecot. Cecot, which stands for Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo which translates to Terrisom Confinement Center, is a maximum security prison located in El Salvador which is known for its human rights violations and harsh conditions as well as its overwhelming population. Multiple lawyers have reviewed this case and all say that he should have never been deported at all and the Trump administration has admitted to his deportation being due to an “administrative error”. Since then they have been saying that his release is impossible, something that the prison is also known for, having never let a prisoner free. The problem here is that Abrego Garcia is being held illegally, not having received due process and the Supreme Court’s demands being ignored. On April 4th, the U.S. District Court for Maryland through Judge Paula Xinis would order the government to “facilitate and effectuate the return of [Abrego Garcia] to the United States.” The court would order the Trump administration to return him back to the U.S., but despite that they would deny the order. As seen in an article written on npr.org it says, “The Salvadoran citizen entered the country illegally; an immigration judge said he should not be deported to El Salvador because Abrego Garcia was able to prove he was likely to suffer persecution in his home country. The Trump administration says it deported him because he was a member of MS-13; his lawyers deny that Abrego Garcia belongs to the gang.” The administration continues to say they cannot force his return from the EL Salvador prison, for he is now a citizen there and the Trump Administration has also accused him of being a dangerous criminal and terrorist- two accusations that are simply false about the man. But criminal or not, he should’ve received due process and the court order given previously should’ve protected him from this- but they disregarded said order and this whole ordeal is frankly unconstitutional. And this is only one of many cases in which immigrants are being deported without due process to unsafe countries and the countries they tried to leave. 

This is far from the only insistence when Trump did not uphold the constitution. In a recent with NBC, after being asked whether he needs to uphold the constitution Trump would say “I don’t know” as noted in an article posted by CNN. The administration has so far not complied with multiple court orders, and Abrego Garcia was only one example of it. Trump doesn’t see the constitution as the guideline but instead as a suggestion. 

Trump has also caused many economic problems in America, although this may come as a shock to some people, his recent tariffs have proven to be bad on the economy. Tariffs are a tax placed on imports from foreign countries, and sources say that the cost of tariffs are primarily passed onto consumers. A part of Trump's campaign was he promised to place tariffs on imports to make a better economy and promote U.S. based production, but when this failed he has blamed Biden, his predecessor, that it was his fault. As said on his social media page he stated, “I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’” and saying that “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,”. A few days into his second quarter he would further increase tariffs before rolling them all back excluding China. As of writing this, it stands that there is a 10% tax on universal goods and a 145% tax on goods from China. Trump would then roll out further tariffs in response to the fluctuations in the stock market- that were then halted for 90 days. These tariffs are affecting the stock market, after S&P hitting a record high in April it would drop into a correction (a decrease of 10%) as Trump placed his tariffs. According to CNN, Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst, would say “The S&P 500 has shed $6.5 trillion in market value since its record high in February,”. Trump's response to the current economy of the U.S. is also problematic, one of these examples is when Trump said that the good parts of the economy are his economy and the bad parts of it are Biden’s economy. This would be said in a recent interview with NBC when he said, “I think the good parts are the ‘Trump economy’ and the bad parts are the ‘Biden economy’ because he’s done a terrible job,”. In addition to this, a poll constructed by CNN would have results saying that overall 69% of people believe that there will be a recession in the next year with 32% saying it with certainty. Back to the previous topic, Trump falsely claimed that the stock market was doing well, according to CNN grocery prices are abou 2.41% higher as of March 2025 compared to March 2024. Trump has denied responsibility for the stock market as well after announcing his reciprocal tariffs. Trump would say, “I’ve only just been here for a little more than three months. But the stock market, look at what’s happened in the last short period of time. Didn’t it have nine or 10 days in a row, or 11 days, where it’s gone up? And the tariffs have just started kicking in. And we’re doing really well,” Meanwhile, on Friday S&P would go down 6% since January 21st, and on April 9th it would be up 9.5%, the best it has been in the past 17 years. “Coincidentally”, this would be when Trump paused most of his tariffs. The claim that Trump is doing better than Biden is also just false. Multiple news resources, such as the Economist, are claiming that the U.S. economy has been doing worse under Trump than it had been under Biden.

Trump as well has a disconnect between what his tariffs are doing to the common people, oblivious to how his economic plans are actually affecting the average consumer. Because both small businesses and major corporations now have to pay larger amounts of taxes, they will either not be able to buy as much stock as they used to or instead increase the prices of their goods to counter the excessive taxes. Trump has been insisting that grocery prices have gone down since the start of his presidency, but that clearly is not true if you go to the average grocery store. Trump continues to blame Biden for the bad economy. According to an article written by The Guardian it would mention that many economists have said that Trump instead actually inherited a good economy. As written Mark Zandi would say, “President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” who would then further say, “The US economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than pre-pandemic.” According to the same article many economists agree that it is Trump’s overwhelming tariffs that have caused this worsening economy as written, “that cause was not Joe Biden. Rather, it was the huge uncertainty and fears stirred by the prospect of Trump’s tariffs. Eager to stock up on foreign goods before Trump imposed his wave of tariffs, US businesses rushed to increase their imports, and according to the formula used to calculate GDP, soaring imports have a downward effect on economic growth.” Although the idea behind his tariffs was that they would encourage manufacturing in America, this likely will not happen because America does not have the industries and labor to do that which contributes to why America imports many things in the first place. And so, how are companies going to manufacture things inside the U.S. if America doesn't meet those labor requirements in the first place, there is no industry to encourage growth in. 

  Further explaining how America was actually doing better when Biden was in office, during Biden’s term he actually added 16.6 million jobs to America, meanwhile during Trump's first term he actually lost 2.7 million jobs according to The Guardian. Trump saying that this is Biden’s economy is absurd, Trump would say it’s Biden’s economy even after months of him being in office. “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th.” would post on social media, not acknowledging how the stock market only began to decrease April 2nd, the same day when he announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs. The stock market actually did extraordinarily well while Biden was in office according to the Guardian as they wrote, “The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 39% and the S&P 500 soared by 55.7%, including a 28% jump during 2024.” This is proving that America’s economy was doing well under Biden despite what people said, and although some prices rose under Biden like gas, the economy was still doing well. And even if the economy was doing bad, Trump has clearly not helped with lowering prices on goods. Those prices are expected to further increase. Jared Bernstein, one of Biden’s economy advisors during his term would say, “I have never seen a more direct connection to what we’re seeing in the economy and stock market to the action of one person, which is to President Trump and his trade war,” Further proving that people educated in economics are saying that the economy was doing better with Biden than is was with any of Trump’s terms, so far at least. This is further proved by the same article as it reads, “Many economists warn that the US economy may sink further in the second quarter due to Trump’s tariffs as some supply chains break down, some imports dry up, prices rise on many goods and many consumers and business pull back on spending due to all the uncertainty and anxiety.” and then in the next paragraph John Kasich, a Republican and former governor of Ohio would voice, “You can’t blame Biden,” and “It’s like saying the dog ate my homework.”.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/07/public-anticipates-changes-with-trump-but-is-split-over-whether-they-will-be-good-or-bad/ 

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-affiliation/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqyT59Zf1vI ← News commentary, uses actuals sources.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/21/g-s1-61500/house-democrats-land-in-el-salvador-demand-abrego-garcias-return 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/30/economy-gdp-q1-trump-tariffs 

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-are-tariffs 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/24/investing/us-stock-market-bottom 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/business/trump-economy-tariffs-powell 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/05/politics/constitution-trump-nbc-interview-tariffs-canada?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2025/may/05/trump-biden-economy

my apologies for it did not translate well from Google doc to blog