President Donald Trump’s 100th day of his second term of office offers the world and the United States a stock-take of his attempts to wreck and remake his country and its global role.Debates abound in all areas of his presidency: is he a fascist or ‘merely’ a conservative authoritarian? Is he destroying or rebalancing the American and global economies? Is he wrecking or recalibrating the global order? Will his imperial geopolitical ambitions lead to a wider great power war? What will the impact be on the US social and political fabric, on the constitution, on democracy, of his divisive and anti-democratic offensive against immigrants, federal employees, regulation of big corporations, and assaults on workers’, women’s and minority rights? Is he crazy or is there a method to his madness?These questions are in themselves quite dizzying. The actions that have provoked them are causing anxiety, consternation, despair, fear, anger, and mass resistance, but also inspiring much adulation among Trump loyalists. Trump’s decisions cause divisions even, it is becoming clearer, among his own electoral and political base, let alone independent or Democratic voters.Trump’s ‘bread and circuses’, ‘king of chaos’, ‘clown-show fascism’ public performances – a real-time political horror show that simultaneously repels and appeals, conceals and reveals, are the superficial but significant cover for a massive tilting of the balance of domestic and global power.The consequences – one way or another – will be long lasting and severe.But every despot generates their own gravediggers; mass resistance is rising once again. And despots are made, not born. Donald Trump is a symptom of the crises produced by the foreign and domestic policies of neoliberalism and a corporate welfare/warfare state produced by both political parties’ administrations over several decades.Unprecedented Presidency? Two ways of saving capitalismIn his first 100 days, Trump has taken a chainsaw to the federal government, weaponised the Justice Department, pardoned violent January 6 insurrectionists, bypassed congress with an avalanche of executive orders, fired inspectors general who (since Watergate) have safeguarded against executive abuse, and deported immigrants and even citizens without due process.Trump has intimidated prestigious law firms whose lawyers worked on court cases against him, threatened universities’ freedom and independence under the guise of fighting antisemitism, implemented and/or paused a barrage of tariffs that have torn asunder the world trading system. He has repeatedly threatened to invade Canada, Panama and Greenland, and opened the federal government to the whims and profits of billionaires.This is among other things like amplifying an ongoing global arms race that risks broader instability and conflict, a sustained assault on workers’ rights, and on the hard-won rights of racial, ethnic and gender minorities.Has there ever been a more tumultuously radical political shift in the internal workings of US government, its attitude to its own society and peoples, and its global intentions? Probably, only President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first administration comes close. Certainly, that’s what Trump’s claiming.FDR came to power in 1933 in the depths of the great depression and mass unemployment, with capitalism on its knees, and created a plethora of government agencies and redefined for decades the role of the state in American economy and society, and its relations with the rest of the world.Also Read: Trump Is Showing Us the Spectre of the Formal American Empire – All Vengeance, No VisionDuring and after the Second World War, FDR’s ‘New Deal’ was effectively internationalised in a world system centred on the United States presiding and financing an international institutional architecture, the Bretton Woods order.President Trump, backed by Project2025, is doing his bit to feed corporate capitalism by dismantling the significant remaining, if hollowed out, elements of that regulatory New Deal order, and resetting America’s power methodology for maintaining global primacy. What once saved American capitalism – concerted state intervention – is now its nemesis. But FDR’s domestic programme was inextricably linked with a liberal international order, made possible by war.Trump is weaponising all aspects of state power to protect and unleash corporations, against ‘enemies’ and competitors, foreign and domestic. And is willing to increase the risk of war to do it.Continuities amid changeIf the problem were Trump alone, his simple removal or retirement would resolve the crisis. That’s the message of the Democratic party. Which is convenient as they bear heavy responsibility for Trumpism. Merely reviewing the record since 2016 through to the present demonstrates how fundamentally continuous are the policies of Trump I, Biden, and Trump II.Tax cuts passed by Trump I were maintained by Biden, as were corporate subsidies; both consistently boosted global arms sales, fuelling conflicts worldwide; trade protectionism instituted by Trump and amplified by Biden – and now hyper-intensified.President Biden deported 1.7 million people, half a million more than Trump I, which Trump II now is planning to surpass using wartime powers, targeting millions without recourse to law. Support for Israel, protecting and prioritising energy sector drilling and fossil fuel production; the list goes on.The billionaire oligarchy funded Biden and pulled his compliant strings. Trump has put the oligarchy in his Cabinet and on the political stage for all the world to see. The gloves are off in the class war.Resistance risingBut there are other continuities too: the iron law of oligarchy is always up against the iron law of democracy. Levels of political unrest were unleashed by the policies and rhetoric of Trump I, marking a sharp increase in protest activity compared with before 2016.Recall the aftermath of the fascistic Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. The Women’s March of January 2017 drew millions to one of the biggest single-day protests in US history. The police murder of George Floyd fuelled sustained peak resistance from May 2020, with national and worldwide ramifications. Anywhere between 14 million and 25 million marched and rallied across America. There were marches and demonstrations in over 70 countries. The whole world watches America.Biden’s tenure at the White House may have seen an ebb in the levels of protest, but opposition to police killings continued. Levels of political unrest – resistance – did not return to pre-2016 levels, however, with extensive protests against US support for Israel’s illegal onslaught in Gaza.And that trend continues under the even harsher regime Trump’s triggered since his inauguration. There were double the protests in February 2025 compared with February 2017.As the authors of a Waging Nonviolence report argue: “That Americans seem to be rediscovering the art, science and potency of non-cooperation – combined with a robust protest capacity and legal action –shows that resistance against Trump’s agenda in America is not only alive and well. It is savvy, diversifying and probably just getting started.”That trumps all Trump’s achievements in his first 100 days.The people are on the march.Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a columnist at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and powers of the US foreign policy establishment.