Donald Trump's most dangerous quality may be his honesty.

During his 2024 campaign, he vowed to rule on "Day One" as a "dictator," and promised the "most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history." He would launch a “shock and awe” campaign to enforce his will and remake American society and government in the far-right MAGA movement's desired image.

During the first 10 days of his second term, Trump has delivered all that and more. As I wrote earlier this week, his dozens of  executive orders and other edicts have included "freeing virtually all of his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, attempting to nullify the 14th Amendment and end birthright citizenship, declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, launching nationwide raids against undocumented immigrants and their communities as part of 'the largest deportation plan in American history,' escalating attacks on the LGBTQ community, closing down government programs and offices focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, withdrawing from both the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord, and throwing out many other changes made by the Biden administration regarding the environment, the economy, education and other areas." None of that should have come as a surprise.

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At the New Republic, Michael Tomasky summarizes Trump's unprecedented first week:

What have we learned? Three things, all of them ugly:

In a bold new essay, Thom Hartmann defines the goal of Trump and the MAGA movement’s revolutionary project: “Trump is hell-bent-for-leather to turn America into a tin pot dictatorship as fast as he can, establishing the same sort of single-party state his mentors, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, run in Russia and Hungary.”

In a roundtable discussion for the New York Times, David French issues a similar warning: “You can paint a picture where the combination of Trump’s obstinance, the total unyielding loyalty of MAGA, plus the abuse of the pardon power — which he’s established as of right now as having no real limits in his mind — create a situation of absolutely sustained and profound lawlessness.”

Nearly lost in the tsunami of intentional confusion and chaos created by Trump’s “shock and awe” assault are orders that the U.S. stop accepting refugees, end most foreign aid assistance (except military assistance to Egypt and Israel), prohibit the use of federal money for women’s reproductive health services, and shut down grants at the National Institutes of Health. Trump also ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop cooperating with the World Health Organization.

At this writing, the status of the Office of Management and Budget order dictating a "pause" in all federal grants and loans remains........

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