Introduction: Trump’s “You’re Fired” Presidency
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how often I hear of Trump firing someone. It just seems endless — one name after another, people being let go or outright dumped from their jobs. That’s why I’m writing this post. I’m alarmed at how many people he has fired, both in his first term and now again in his second. Yes, every administration makes changes, especially when a different party takes power. That’s normal. But what Trump has done goes far beyond normal. The sheer number of people he has fired or forced out is massive, and it’s getting worse.
We have a choice as citizens. We can look at what’s happening with open eyes and admit that something is deeply wrong, or we can choose blind loyalty to a man just because we liked him once. I can honestly say, if a Democrat did this, I’d be just as alarmed. I don’t want any president completely controlling the government — Democrat or Republican. And yet, that’s what Trump seems determined to do. I can’t understand how, in a country that has prided itself on democracy from the beginning, people can be okay with that. Even more disturbing, I’ve actually heard some people say maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a dictatorship. That’s something I never thought I’d hear Americans say. But I want no part of a dictatorship, from either party.
I did some research on this, and I found I’m not imagining it. Trump himself recently said, “A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator.” Polls confirm that while only about 4% of Americans openly say dictatorship would be good, a much larger share — around 40% say they could support a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections. That scares me. Even if people think skipping over Congress might make things easier, it chips away at the checks and balances that define our system. Sometimes the process feels slow and frustrating, but it is what keeps our democracy alive. Once you start weakening those safeguards, you open the door to very dangerous things.
To be clear, I’m not blindly loyal to any president. Joe Biden wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t dislike him, but some presidents stand out more than others, and he felt more average to me. I loved Obama, but I didn’t agree with everything he did either. At times I thought he was too soft when it came to standing up for our country. That’s the point — whether it’s Biden, Obama, or anyone else, I’ll call it like I see it. Blind loyalty to any leader is dangerous, no matter who it is.
And that brings me back to Trump. His whole persona has always been built around those words from his reality show The Apprentice: “You’re fired.” He thrived on firing people then, and he’s carried that same attitude straight into the White House. But no president should be allowed to gut the government and get rid of people simply because they hold different political opinions. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work, and it’s why I feel this post is necessary.
First Term: Record-Breaking Chaos
Before I go into the details, I want to be clear about something. This post is not just about “hating Trump.” I’ve actually heard people say that anyone who criticizes him must just dislike him personally or refuse to give him a chance. That’s not true for me. In fact, I voted for Trump in 2016. It was a very difficult election. I didn’t fully trust Hillary Clinton, especially because of things like Benghazi and some of the accusations surrounding her. I wasn’t excited about Trump either, but I ultimately decided to give him a chance, hoping he might do some good for the country.
I regretted that decision very quickly. Within the first year of his presidency, it became obvious to me that Trump wasn’t leading in a way that would strengthen our democracy. He governed like a man obsessed with control and loyalty, not someone who wanted to bring stability or unity. While I had my doubts about Hillary, at least she didn’t give me the sense that she wanted to take our democracy away. Looking back, I know I voted for the wrong person, but I made that choice with the information I had at the time. The important thing is that I gave Trump a chance, and what I saw alarmed me.
The numbers speak for themselves. Trump’s first year in office set records for chaos. By the end of 2017, 34% of his top advisers were already gone — more than triple the turnover seen under Obama or Clinton at the same point, and more than five times the rate under George W. Bush. By early 2018, 61% of senior aides had turned over, with 141 staffers leaving in just one year. By the end of Trump’s first term, 92% of his original “A-Team” advisers were gone. In other words, almost everyone he started with had either quit, been forced out, or been fired.
The Cabinet wasn’t spared either. Within his first 14 months, Trump had already seen more Cabinet-level turnover than most presidents had in their entire first two years. Secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and countless others cycled in and out. Rex Tillerson, his first Secretary of State, was fired by tweet after barely a year on the job — the shortest tenure for any modern Secretary of State. The Department of Homeland Security went through five different leaders in less than four years, with one “acting” secretary after another because Trump kept pushing people out.
It wasn’t just routine changes. Trump had a habit of firing anyone who challenged him or wasn’t loyal enough. Sally Yates, the Acting Attorney General, was fired ten days into his presidency for refusing to defend his travel ban. James Comey, the FBI Director, was fired while investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election — a move that drew comparisons to Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.” Trump even admitted during an NBC interview that when deciding to fire Comey, “I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.” His first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was forced out simply because he recused himself from that investigation — which was the ethical and legal thing to do. Again and again, Trump made it clear: if you weren’t willing to put him above the law, you were gone.
By the time I had watched all this unfold, it was impossible for me to believe I had made the right choice in 2016. Trump’s first term showed me — and many others — that his style of leadership wasn’t just unorthodox, it was dangerous. The constant firings, forced resignations, and chaos weren’t about draining the swamp or fixing Washington. They were about consolidating power and punishing disloyalty, no matter the cost to stable governance.
Second Term: DOGE Mass Layoffs
I did not vote for Trump in his second term, and I deeply hoped he would not win the election. But when he did, I tried to tell myself it couldn’t really be that bad. I thought Congress would provide a check on him. Instead, what concerned me almost immediately was that he pretty much had Congress on his side — both the Senate and the House — and on top of that, a conservative Supreme Court. That meant there were fewer limits on what he could do. Even then, I never dreamed he would gut the government the way he has. It’s not just about firing people in high positions; it’s about hollowing out entire branches of government, letting agencies fall apart by dumping thousands of employees at a time.
That’s exactly what has happened under his second term, especially through the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). By May 2025, more than 260,000 federal civilian workers had already been fired, forced into early retirement, or pressured into buyouts. Another 154,000 were placed on administrative leave, sidelined and unable to do their jobs. That’s not a normal shake-up — it’s a massive dismantling of the federal workforce in record time.
The damage can be seen agency by agency. At the Department of Agriculture, 5,600 employees were fired outright, and thousands more took buyouts. The Forest Service lost 3,400 people. The Department of Veterans Affairs has already lost around 17,000 workers, with plans to cut up to 30,000. The Department of Health and Human Services handed termination notices to 5,200 probationary employees, including more than 1,000 from the CDC. The IRS saw 6,000 to 7,000 workers let go right in the middle of tax season. USAID, which provides humanitarian assistance abroad, was nearly wiped out — from over 10,000 employees down to only a few hundred still active. Even the National Park Service wasn’t spared, losing around 1,000 workers, with some parks facing 20% staff reductions.
Independent oversight has been gutted, too. In January 2025, Trump fired 17 inspectors general in a single day, eliminating watchdogs across multiple agencies. NOAA, the government’s main climate and weather agency, lost nearly 900 employees, more than 7% of its entire staff. FEMA has lost about a third of its workforce, with many employees forced out after criticizing the administration. The CDC director herself was fired in August 2025, along with three other senior officials who resigned in protest. Even the Federal Reserve wasn’t off-limits — Governor Lisa Cook was dismissed in what many economists saw as a political purge.
Trump has even bragged about the firings. In defending the wave of dismissals, he has repeatedly painted career officials as part of the “deep state” and claimed that rooting them out is necessary. At one rally, he boasted, “We’re getting rid of the people who don’t love our country” — which in his mind simply meant the people who didn’t agree with him. To me, that is frightening — and it’s why I believe this second term has been even more alarming than the first.
The Chaos Factor: People Leaving on Their Own
This post is mostly about how many people Trump has fired, because that’s what alarms me most. But there’s another piece to this story that I think is just as important. It’s not only the firings — it’s also how many people who once adored Trump eventually turned on him and walked away. To me, that says a lot. If people who stood by him from the beginning, people who defended him and wanted him to succeed, finally decided they couldn’t take it anymore, what does that tell us? Because it sure tells me something about the kind of leader he really is.
There have been quite a few high-profile figures who left Trump’s orbit not because they were fired, but because they couldn’t stomach his behavior any longer. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, one of his earliest and most respected Cabinet members, resigned and later said Trump “tries to divide us” and makes the U.S. appear “an object of scorn.” John Kelly, his Chief of Staff, went from trying to manage the chaos in the West Wing to publicly warning that Trump is “the most flawed person I’ve ever met in my life.” Even John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser and once a staunch conservative hawk, became one of his most outspoken critics after leaving, writing that Trump is “unfit for office.”
And it hasn’t just been political insiders. Early on, business leaders like Elon Musk and others walked away too. Musk served briefly on Trump’s advisory council, but when Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, Musk quit in protest, tweeting, “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” What makes this even more striking is that Musk had a lot to gain from staying close to Trump financially. Supporting Trump could have helped him with regulations and government contracts, yet he still walked away. That tells me the cost of staying was higher than the benefits. And he wasn’t alone. For anyone, especially public figures, to admit they were wrong or to say “I can’t do this anymore” is not easy. But the fact that so many have done it with Trump speaks volumes.
To me, that matters. If so many people who once supported Trump have turned their backs on him, it shows the truth about his leadership. It’s not just his critics who are sounding the alarm — it’s his own allies. That should tell Trump’s supporters something. Because when people who were closest to him, who worked alongside him every day, say he’s dangerous or unfit, we ought to take that seriously.
The Pattern: Loyalty Tests & Reshaping Government
Here’s what bothers me most: if you really pay attention, the way people have to be personally loyal to Trump feels more king-like than presidential. In a democracy, a president knows not everyone will agree with him. Of course a president fights for what he believes is right — I expect that. But you don’t fire or sideline every person who challenges you. That’s not leadership in a republic; that’s running a loyalty court. And even if some Trump supporters say “that needs to be done,” no — not like this. Not everybody has to be loyal to one man. That’s how dictators operate, not presidents.
In most presidencies, disagreement inside the team isn’t a scandal, it’s normal — and healthy. Abraham Lincoln famously built a “team of rivals” so he’d hear hard truths from people who once opposed him. Barack Obama kept Republican Robert Gates as defense secretary even when they disagreed over Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan managed strong-willed advisers like James Baker and Don Regan through serious policy clashes and turf wars because capability mattered more than flattery. That’s what governing in a democracy looks like.
Trump flipped that script. He openly elevates personal loyalty above independence or competence. James Comey testified that Trump told him, “I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.” When officials act according to law or conscience instead of personal fealty — Jeff Sessions recusing himself, Sally Yates refusing to defend an unlawful order — they’re pushed out or fired. The message is crystal clear: disagree with Trump, and you’re gone.
He then fills the vacuum with loyalists and “acting” appointees who don’t need Senate confirmation, weakening a key constitutional check. Analysts at Brookings documented how Trump leaned on acting officials at an unprecedented scale, bypassing the normal advice-and-consent process to install people whose main qualification was loyalty. That’s not streamlining; that’s avoiding scrutiny.
Independent watchdogs — the people whose job is to protect taxpayers and the rule of law — have been purged when they got in the way. In 2020, Trump removed a string of inspectors general across multiple agencies, including the intel community and State Department; reputable accounts called it an unprecedented IG firing spree. In his second term, the pattern intensified with 17 inspectors general fired in a single day. Fire the referees, and you control the game.
On top of that, he brought close family into powerful roles — Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as senior advisers — exploiting loopholes that let them serve despite longstanding anti-nepotism norms. Whether or not those roles skirted the letter of the law, they clearly violated its spirit. Multiple ethics experts warned that this blurs the line between public service and personal loyalty; see early coverage of those appointments from NPR and analysis of the anti-nepotism statute.
Step back and the pattern is obvious: purge dissenters, bypass the Senate with acting loyalists, fire the watchdogs, and surround yourself with family and yes-men. That isn’t tough management; it’s government being reshaped to serve one person instead of the public. In a democracy, no president — of any party — should wield power that way.
Comparison to Other Presidents
Facts should mean something. And the facts here show just how different Trump has been compared to other presidents. Every administration has turnover — some advisers leave, some are fired, and sometimes a Cabinet member just isn’t the right fit. That’s normal. But what Trump has done is not normal. The scale of firings and departures in both his terms is far beyond anything we’ve seen before in a democratic presidency. It shows just how determined he has been to reshape government in his own image, rather than preserve it as an institution that serves the American people.
Let’s look at the numbers. Political scientists who track senior staff turnover found that by the end of Trump’s first term, 92% of his original “A-Team” advisers were gone. Compare that to Barack Obama, who had around 46% turnover after a full first term. Bill Clinton’s rate was about 47%, George W. Bush’s about 43%. No other modern president even crossed the 50% mark in their first term. Trump nearly doubled that.
It wasn’t just staffers. Trump’s Cabinet turnover set records too. In his first two years alone, nine of his 15 Cabinet positions changed hands. That level of churn was unprecedented. By contrast, Obama, Bush, and Clinton each saw only a handful of Cabinet secretaries depart in their first two years. And most of those were ordinary resignations or shifts, not the kind of public firings or forced exits that became Trump’s hallmark.
Historians have noted that even presidents famous for conflict within their administrations — like Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter — did not come close to the level of turnover Trump created. Nixon’s firings during Watergate, or Carter’s shake-ups after political struggles, were dramatic but still targeted. Trump’s firings were constant and sweeping, and they touched nearly every major department.
That’s why these facts matter. Trump’s record isn’t just a little higher than normal — it’s off the charts. The sheer scale of it makes clear that this isn’t about ordinary politics or even a tough management style. It’s about reshaping government into an extension of himself. And in a democracy, that’s not just abnormal — it’s dangerous.
Why This Matters for Democracy
So what happens if Trump keeps doing this and is allowed to keep doing this? That’s the question that worries me most. I’ve heard him more than once joke at rallies about serving “maybe another four years, maybe eight” beyond what the Constitution allows. There have even been stories of Trump merchandise floating around with “Trump 2028” printed on it. Whether or not that’s official, the point is that he has planted the idea publicly — the notion that maybe two terms shouldn’t be the limit for him. Even joking about breaking that fundamental rule of American democracy ought to concern all of us.
We’ve also all heard the constant drumbeat about “getting rid of woke.” Trump and many of his allies frame this as a kind of cultural purge — silencing ideas about racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, or climate action by labeling them as dangerous. But here’s the thing: in a democracy, people are allowed to believe in those things. They are allowed to advocate for them. Even if you personally disagree with those values, other Americans have the right to hold them. That’s what democracy means. If you start taking away people’s right to believe something simply because you don’t agree with it, that’s no longer democracy. That’s dictatorship.
And this is why all the firings, the loyalty tests, the walkouts, and the chaos matter. It’s not just office politics in Washington. It’s a pattern of reshaping government so that disagreement is punished and loyalty to one man is rewarded. If we normalize that, we are sliding away from democracy into something far darker. I don’t want to live in that kind of country. I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or a Republican in office — no president should have that kind of unchecked power. That’s not freedom, and it’s not what America was meant to be.
Conclusion: Pay Attention
I’ve focused a lot here on Trump, because his record is unlike anything we’ve seen before in a president. But the truth is, we need to pay attention to all of our politicians, no matter their party. None of them should get a free pass. The difference is that Trump’s behavior — the firings, the loyalty tests, the way he reshapes government around himself — is especially alarming. It’s not normal, and we shouldn’t accept it as normal.
What makes this even more concerning is that Trump has had Congress and the Supreme Court often siding with him, or at least unwilling to stop him. That kind of alignment gives him more room to push boundaries than most presidents have ever had. But here’s the thing: those institutions still exist. They are not gone, and they still have the power to act as checks on any president. And we, the people, still have the power to speak up and demand accountability. Democracy isn’t dead — but it’s in danger if we don’t defend it.
If you are concerned, don’t just shrug and move on. Stay alert. Pay attention to what your representatives are doing. Call your members of Congress. Write letters. Ask questions. Hold them accountable. Democracy only works if the people care enough to protect it. If we tune out, or worse, if we excuse actions that chip away at it because it’s “our guy” doing it, then we all lose something far bigger than an election. We lose the system that has allowed this country to survive for nearly 250 years.
That’s why facts matter. That’s why this record of firings and chaos matters. And that’s why it’s on all of us to pay attention — now, before it’s too late. No president should be allowed to say “You’re fired” to democracy itself.
Notes from the edge of the system 