The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have brought the most consequential changes in the federal government since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal nearly a century ago, along with an all-out effort to curb the nation’s major independent institutions — the courts, law firms, academia and the press.

Though Trump proclaimed this was the onset of a new golden age, his moves have so far left the country worse off than when he re-entered the White House.

In just three months, he has increased the likelihood of an economic recession, weakened the government’s ability to meet unexpected crises, frayed longtime overseas alliances and undermined the Constitution’s balance of powers.

Trump has gone far beyond cutting federal jobs, targeting alleged waste and eliminating diversity programs. He has crippled many governmental programs that benefit the young, the frail and the elderly and threatened outside institutions that resisted or criticized him.

And his on-again, off-again imposition of stiff import tariffs has sapped consumer confidence at home and created uncertainty throughout the global trading system abroad.

Trump has governed by granting himself a vast increase in unauthorized presidential power, seeking to weaken traditionally independent branches of government and challenging the law that requires the executive branch to spend the money Congress appropriated and maintain the programs it authorized.

Roosevelt’s reforms, rubber-stamped by a supportive Democratic Congress, expanded government’s authority to help needy Americans. Trump’s initiatives, acquiesced in by supportive congressional Republicans, would limit its ability to help them, though federal courts have questioned or halted many of his unilateral actions.

Highly publicized court challenges have also contributed to a slow start of his efforts to deport millions who came here illegally, starting with gang members and others with criminal records. But Trump was able, through stricter enforcement, to stem the flow of illegal entrants on the Southern border.

Overall, he is succeeding where previous Republican presidents failed to curb the vast array of federal programs and services that FDR launched in the 1930s, moderate Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon maintained, and recent Democrats like Lyndon B. Johnson, Barack Obama and Joe Biden expanded.

Much of the initial government dismantling stemmed from the implementation, by billionaire supporter Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” of the detailed battle plan Trump’s conservative allies developed after he left the presidency in 2021.

Applying a meat-axe approach to agency after agency, DOGE forced thousands of government employees into retirement and crippled programs that fight poverty, encourage diversity, enhance the environment, support scientific research and help disaster victims abroad, while reducing governmental assistance for veterans, taxpayers and Social Security recipients.

Meanwhile, Trump has weakened U.S. ties with its traditional allies and strengthened them with long-term adversaries by reversing key aspects of the nation’s foreign policy. He has sought rapprochement with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including a peace agreement for Ukraine, and threatened to withdraw military support from the country’s strongest allies in Europe.

And while vowing to prevent weaponization of government, Trump unleashed a wave of retribution that targeted not only perceived political enemies in both parties, but also critics in broader areas of American life like law firms, federal judges and the press.

Trump’s sweeping actions, often by executive orders with questionable legal or legislative authority, have unleashed a massive political and legal counterattack. Fired employees, government unions, Democratic attorneys general and individual targets have sued to stop what they regard as illegal acts.

Their outcome may determine the extent Trump succeeds in crippling the government’s decades-long focus on helping Americans who suffered from poverty or racial and sexual discrimination.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.