Reign of Administrative (T)error

How Trump’s First 100 Days in Office Have
Shaken Out in Santa Barbara

By Ryan P. Cruz, Callie Fausey, Tyler Hayden, Margaux Lovely,
Christina McDermott, Nick Welsh, and Jean Yamamura
May 1, 2025

One hundred days. Already, it seems like forever.

In no time at all, Donald J. Trump has become everywhere. In startling short order, Trump — committed to his militant America First agenda — has begun eviscerating a complex web of international alliances and trade agreements the United States, led by both Democratic and Republican administrations, spent 80 years cobbling together. Equally sudden has been his assault on a social safety net even longer — 93 years — in its creation.

If Trump’s agenda is radical, its execution has been violent, lurching, chaotic, impulsive, scornful, belittling, and angry. The question used to be whether Trump should be taken seriously or literally. The answer, we have learned, is both.

Trump has declared a trade war against much of the planet, imposing — and then retracting — stiff tariffs against both friend and foe, even a few islands inhabited only by penguins. In this way, he hopes to restore America’s once-dominant industrial might.

Closer to home, he’s put sacrosanct federal programs that give succor to the poor, the elderly, and the infirm on notice. Their days are numbered. Such spending cuts will be necessary to offset the $4.5 trillion he’s looking to lose by extending tax breaks for the wealthiest of Americans. If Donald Trump — born with a silver spoon lodged squarely in his jaw — seems an unlikely populist, such is the nature of American populism. It’s an old formula. Crudely put: Take from the needy to give to the greedy.

What makes Trump new and truly original is his aggressive — almost gleefully defiant — indifference to such Constitutional niceties as the separation of powers, the rule of law, and habeas corpus. In upending the status quo, Trump has declared war not only on immigrants, but also the media, universities, the courts, powerful law firms, and any entity strong enough to challenge his authority.

During his first term, Trump made the mistake of surrounding himself with competent grown-ups; initially they functioned as guardrails only to later become conscripted — however reluctantly — into Deep State resistance. This time around, Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists and eccentrics lacking the competence, stature, or inclination to venture a contrary opinion.

In Santa Barbara, we occupy what would appear to be an idyllically insulated bubble. But Santa Barbara is, above all, a government town where both the rich and the poor are sustained by the billions of federal dollars that trickle into every crevice of life and commerce. How will the Trump revolution shake out locally? The short answer is that we’re still finding out. While the precise dimensions have yet to be manifest, certain broad brushstroke trends have become clear. The following is a brief overview of what we’ve found out so far. — Nick Welsh

For more, read our previous 59 articles covering the
local impacts of Trump’s first 100 days in office at independent.com/ICYMI

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