Trump’s Murder of America’s Precious Institutions
Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler
The dismantling of America’s public institutions is not just about governance. It is about who we are as a people. Do we believe in a shared inheritance — our parks, our schools, our justice system, our history — or do we surrender them to power, profit, privatization, and propaganda?
Trump’s second term is answering that question with devastating clarity.
Our institutions are not just buildings or agencies. They reflect us — our ideals, our hopes, and even our future. If we allow them to be hollowed, or even destroyed, we will lose our democracy — surrendering our freedom to fascism and authoritarianism. If we fight to rebuild them — anchored in the Common Good — they can live again.
Institutions as the Foundations of Democracy
Institutions are not abstractions. They are the bones of democracy, the connective tissue of our society. They are the safeguards that protect us from tyranny, arbitrariness, and the corruption of unchecked power. They are the guardians of the Common Good.
For decades, Americans assumed that their institutions — though imperfect — were durable. The National Parks belonged to all of us. The Justice Department pursued fairness. The Census counted us equally. Public broadcasting told us the truth. The State Department upheld alliances. Voters could vote by airmail and use voting machines.
But what happens when a leader decides not to steward institutions, but to hollow them out? What happens when loyalty to a man replaces loyalty to the law, to truth, to history, to the people?
Donald Trump’s presidency has answered this question. His first term weakened the foundations. His second term, which began in 2025, is demolishing the pillars.
This demolition of our Democracy is not accidental. It is the strategy of authoritarianism: dismantle, delegitimize, and dominate.
This is the very definition of misleadership — leadership which destroys the Common Good.
Let us count the ways.
1. National Parks & Public Lands
Before Trump:
America’s national parks and protected lands were celebrated worldwide — “America’s best idea.” These lands were set aside for the public, conserved for future generations. Presidents of both parties expanded protections, treating nature as a shared inheritance.
First Term:
Trump shrank Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante monuments by millions of acres. He opened sacred lands to mining, oil, and gas drilling. Environmental reviews were bypassed, and the voices of Indigenous communities were silenced.
Second Term:
In 2025, Trump accelerated leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, weakened the Antiquities Act, and gutted rules protecting water and forests. The Department of the Interior became an arm of extraction industries. Public land is no longer held in trust — it is treated as a business asset to be sold off.
The Department of the Interior laid off 1,000 National Park Service employees, a nearly 20% drop in park workforce in some cases. At Yosemite, cuts in personnel forced rangers into tasks like restroom maintenance and led to a surge in overtime and search-and-rescue missions.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Biodiversity loss, Indigenous dispossession, park visitors dissatisfaction and climate damage. A common inheritance privatized for short-term profit.
2: Public Broadcasting (PBS/NPR)
Before Trump:
Public broadcasting was one of the most trusted institutions in America. PBS documentaries and NPR journalism connected millions of citizens the public to fact-based reporting and culture.
First Term:
Trump repeatedly threatened to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). NPR journalists were attacked as “fake news.”
Second Term:
In 2025, the administration slashed CPB’s budget by 30%. Political appointees were installed on oversight boards. NPR affiliates in rural areas lost funding, forcing closures. PBS had to seek corporate sponsors, eroding independence.
Consequences for the Common Good:
A misinformed citizenry. Public broadcasting reduced to private influence. Truth itself put at risk.
3: Voice of America (VOA)
Before Trump:
VOA was a beacon of American credibility worldwide. Its independence made it a trusted source in countries where truth was scarce.
First Term:
Trump installed loyalists in leadership and pressured VOA to promote his narratives. Journalists resigned in protest.
Second Term:
In 2025, VOA became an overt propaganda channel. International credibility collapsed. Journalists were pushed to repeat White House talking points on China, Ukraine, and immigration.
Consequences for the Common Good:
The U.S. lost its moral voice abroad. Authoritarian regimes celebrated. The US has lost a way to counter misinformation or to pursue the truth on the global stage.
4: History of Slavery & American Sins
Before Trump:
Schools were slowly integrating honest accounts of slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism, and Native genocide into curricula. The 1619 Project symbolized this reckoning.
First Term:
Trump launched the “1776 Commission” to promote “patriotic education” and ban “critical race theory.”
Second Term:
By 2025, the Department of Education tied federal funding to state compliance with “pro-American curricula.” History standards were rewritten to minimize slavery, colonization, and racism. Teachers who dissent face dismissal.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Historical amnesia, and institutional erasure of the truth. A nation unable to face its sins cannot heal them.
5: Arts & Culture (NEA, NEH, Smithsonian)
Before Trump:
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded community projects across the U.S. — theaters, museums, libraries. Art and culture were treated as public goods.
First Term:
Budgets proposed eliminating both agencies. Funding survived, but barely.
Second Term:
In 2025, funding cuts of 40% forced small arts institutions to close. Federal support for museums dwindled. Art and culture became dependent on wealthy donors, reinforcing inequality.
Consequences for the Common Good:
The arts became privatized luxuries instead of democratic expressions of creativity.
6: Environmental Protections (EPA)
Before Trump:
The EPA regulated air and water quality, enforced emissions standards, and protected human health.
First Term:
Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. The Clean Power Plan was scrapped. Climate science was suppressed.
Second Term:
In 2025, a former coal lobbyist ran the EPA. Emissions regulations collapsed. U.S. climate pledges abandoned. Climate denial returned as official policy.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Increased pollution, rising health risks, and the loss of America’s climate leadership. The loss of biodiversity.
7: Healthcare (ACA/Medicaid)
Before Trump:
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded healthcare to over 20 million Americans. Medicaid was strengthened.
First Term:
Trump failed to repeal ACA but weakened it through executive orders and lawsuits.
Second Term:
By 2025, Medicaid eligibility was narrowed. Subsidies shrank. RFK Jr., as Health Secretary, gutted vaccine policy. Millions lost coverage, women’s reproductive care restricted.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Health became a privilege, not a right. The most vulnerable suffer first. Increased mortality rates for infants and women.
8: Immigration
Before Trump:
Deferred Action for Childhood (DACA) protected “Dreamers.” Refugee admissions held steady.
First Term:
Trump imposed the Muslim ban, reduced refugee admissions, and separated families at the border.
Second Term:
In 2025, family separations quietly resumed. Refugee cap dropped near zero. DACA frozen in courts. Deportations surged — some 1.2 million immigrants have been eliminated from society — leading to a crisis in the labor workforce.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Humanitarian crises at the border. America’s moral credibility shattered. Loss of illegals lead to rising prices of food, construction, and infrastructure-related services.
9: Department of Justice / Judiciary
Before Trump:
The DOJ enforced civil rights laws and was seen as largely independent.
First Term:
AG Barr used DOJ to protect Trump and attack his critics.
Second Term:
In 2025, Harmeet Dhillon gutted the Civil Rights Division. Voting rights cases dropped. DOJ loyalty tests proliferated. Over two-thirds of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division staff are expected to leave their jobs, accepting a resignation offer as the Trump administration moves to drastically reshape the agency.
Consequences for the Common Good:
The law was weaponized for partisan purposes. Equality before the law has eroded.
10: Census & Voting Systems
Before Trump:
The Census was nonpartisan, ensuring fair representation and resources.
First Term:
Trump tried to add a citizenship question, aiming to suppress counts of immigrants.
Second Term:
In 2025, gerrymandering expanded so that black Americans have less representation. Census methodology skewed. Voter ID laws proliferated under DOJ approval.
Consequences for the Common Good:
A distorted democracy. Some voices silenced; others amplified unfairly. The GOP holds on to power at the expense of the people’s wishes.
11: Education
Before Trump:
Title IX protections ensured equity. Federal support for student loans expanded access.
First Term:
Betsy DeVos dismantled borrower protections and weakened Title IX enforcement.
Second Term:
Trump attacks major universities such as Harvard and Columbia, on accusations of antisemitism and reduces previously granted funding for many student science projects. In 2025, federal funding tied to “a patriotic curriculum.” Charter schools expanded, public schools underfunded. Trump cancels many foreign students from coming to American universities that accepted them.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Education became a battlefield of ideology, not a ladder of opportunity. America’s educational and scientific future is threatened.
13: State Department / Diplomacy
Before Trump:
The State Department relied on a professional corps. Alliances were stable.
First Term:
Diplomatic corps hollowed, Paris Accord abandoned, NATO weakened.
Second Term:
In 2025, further staff exodus. Partisan loyalists replaced career diplomats. NATO fractured. Trump raises tariffs on its close allies. Allies bypass America.
Consequences for the Common Good:
U.S. global influence diminished. Allies no longer trust America.
14: Consumer Protection (FTC, CFPB)
Before Trump:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) protected consumers from predatory finance and monopolies.
First Term:
CFPB defanged under pro-industry leadership.
Second Term:
In 2025, antitrust actions abandoned. FTC slowed enforcement. Tech and finance corporations operate unchecked. Staff and contractors at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been told they cannot “perform any work tasks.”
Consequences for the Common Good:
Consumers exposed to predatory lending, monopoly abuses, and privacy violations.
15: Social Safety Nets (SNAP, SSI, WIC)
Before Trump:
Social safety nets such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the Wicked 7 Project ( WIC) reduced hunger, supported children, and alleviated poverty.
First Term:
Trump proposed deep cuts to food stamps and SSI, blocked in Congress.
Second Term:
In 2025, work requirements were reinstated. Funding cut. Eligibility narrowed. Millions lose food assistance.
Consequences for the Common Good:
Food insecurity and poverty rise. The poor and vulnerable abandoned.
Conclusion
We listed 15 institutional areas that Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) followers devastated. Sadly, Trump’s actions changed MAGA to MAWA (Make America Weak Again). Foreign countries are shocked and dismayed by how rapidly America sunk from the world’s leading democracy to a leading world colonial power. Trump talks about acquire Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Trump had the audacity to dictate new tariffs that he would charge not only to his enemies (China 50%), to neutral countries (India 50%, Brazil 50%, Switzerland 39%) and to his allies (Canada and Mexico 25%). At the United Nations Security Council in June 2025, the U.S. was effectively the only country opposing an effort to move toward peace — specifically, it vetoed a resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.
Within America, Instead of Trump uniting Americans, Trump deepened the division between conservatives and liberals. His purpose is to openly destroy the liberals and their political party (Democrats) and to set himself up as a dictator.
If and when American liberals regain their power, they will have to reverse this tsunami of destruction. They may have to start by impeaching Trump for all of his illegal actions, possibly imprisoning him, and making sure that another Trump figure will never be able to rise again in the American constitutional system.
