[Image depicts Donald Trump making a speech. Credit to Pixabay]

Just three days into his second presidential term, President Donald Trump wasted no time in reshaping the U.S. government, implementing his Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda at an unprecedented pace.

From abolishing federal diversity programs to issuing blanket pardons, the Trump presidency has unleashed a whirlwind of surprising and controversial new policies,  leaving even stalwart critics and supporters bewildered and wondering.

The scale and pace of these changes foreshadow four fractious years ahead.

First, there has been a clampdown on immigration, and it was among the first policies from Trump.

In reaction to widespread opposition , the Department of Justice has instructed federal prosecutors to charge state and local officials for refusing to comply with his deportation policies.

He deployed thousands of active-duty U.S. troops to the southern border via a national emergency declaration, again ramping up those efforts to curtail illegal immigration. 

Tom Homan, Trump’s appointed border czar, emphasized how not only undocumented immigrants will receive an aggressive approach but also the communities who support undocumented immigrants will experience adverse consequences. 

His next action was to dissolve Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices across the federal agencies where workers at these offices were placed on administrative leave. 

This move underscores Trump’s strong commitment to advancing his conservative goals and reshaping America’s ideological landscape to fit with his agenda. 

Another crucial action was withdrawing the US out of the World Health Organization 

This decision was severely criticized by the world as it weakened the coordination of global public health. 

Now, federal health agencies are required to obtain presidential approval before releasing scientific reports or health advisories outside of the US, complicating the procedure and preventing the dissemination of information. 

This has raised  serious global  concerns about the credibility and  trust of US health agencies. 

As shown above, Trump has moved swiftly to deliver various of his ideological promises, but his pledges to help economic anxieties have fallen flat, concerning American consumers.  

Swing-state voters who supported him because of frustration over high grocery and housing costs are still waiting for tangible relief. 

Though Trump signed an executive order calling for “emergency price relief,” that order lacked any concrete measures for implementation. 

Trump’s primary focus was on energy production as a medium-term solution and no focus was made on prices that each individual was concerned about, leading many households to be deeply concerned. 

Additionally, his threats to impose tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union added extra concerns for higher prices to consumers.

This is because the tariff will lead the price to become higher and it will be American consumers who will have to face the financial burden, questioning the purpose of Trump’s imposition of tariff when it can hurt the US’s economy and growth. 

Federal judges have also chastised his pardons, cautioning they could signal a dangerous precedent and undermine respect for the rule of law. 

The rapid pace of these changes has also raised pressing questions regarding  the strength of democratic institutions and the future of bipartisan governance in America.

Trump’s second term is shaping up to be just as tumultuous and polarizing as his first, but with a keener sense of delivering for his loyal base.