Trust Was Once an American Superpower

Opinion|Trump Is Like F.D.R. — Only in Reverse

Remember last month, when you didn’t have to think twice about the safety of America’s nuclear arsenal? Or how about last year, when you could file your taxes without wondering if the I.R.S. might share your Social Security number and banking details with an unvetted contractor? Those were the days.

In the weeks since President Trump unleashed Elon Musk’s initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, on our federal institutions, it has profoundly destabilized basic systems we count on to make our society function. Two weeks ago, Senator Ron Wyden announced that DOGE agents had gained access to the I.R.S. and “are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America,” raising concerns about privacy and delayed refunds.

In early February, Mr. Trump suggested the DOGE team — many of whom are younger than the typical age required to rent a car — should staff air-traffic-control towers in lieu of the trained experts he claimed were “intellectually deficient.” His proposal seems unlikely to reassure Americans spooked by the spate of airline collisions and fatal crashes that have occurred since Inauguration Day, following years of warnings about inadequate aviation safety. A poll released last week shows that Americans’ confidence in the federal government to ensure aviation safety has already dropped by 11 percent since last year.

It’s as though the current administration is running Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days in reverse: Instead of rebuilding institutions and public trust at a moment of national peril, it seems to be trying to unravel both — and is creating a moment of national peril.

This threatens to destroy what’s left of Americans’ faith in government. Moving fast and breaking things — the Silicon Valley motto that appears to inspire Mr. Musk and his DOGE initiative — is “potentially wreaking havoc,” as Senator Ed Markey and Representative Don Beyer recently wrote, on federal systems that ensure our physical and economic survival.

Those systems include the National Nuclear Security Administration: specialists who build and maintain the country’s nuclear stockpile. As many as 300 staff members were summarily fired earlier this month by DOGE officials who reportedly “did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons” (some were reportedly asked to return to work). Worse yet, in its chaotic backtracking, the administration is now having trouble rehiring some of these specialists because it cannot find their contact information.