In a burst of presidential action unmatched in modern U.S. history, President Trump has loosed a flurry of executive orders, begun to shore up the border and deport illegal immigrants, dismantle the Washington bureaucracy, oust his opponents in the “deep state” and reset global alliances.

It’s been just four weeks since his return to the Oval Office.

Mr. Trump has issued 90 executive orders, memorandums and directives, an average of three per day. That’s more than three times the pace of his first administration and more in four weeks than the combined number of similar actions taken by presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton.

“The velocity is overwhelming,” said Ross Baker, political science scholar at Rutgers University. “It is the political equivalent of a major military offensive and the ground game isn’t quite being fought yet.”

The blitz of activity has stunned Trump opponents, who are scurrying to decide where to direct the resistance. So far, Democrats’ responses have been slow, sporadic and splintered, which has angered Democratic officials and voters alike. Democratic leaders have grappled with which issues to lean into — should the fight focus on Mr. Trump’s defiance of judges trying to block his orders or the impact of reduced foreign aid? Defend the value of civil servants or zero-in on the alleged economic threat of Trump policies?

Only recently have Democrats coalesced around attacks on the Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk as a boogeyman bent on pickpocketing Americans’ data and wallets.

“This is how Trump operates. He creates shock and awe, and executive orders are his tool of choice because it allows speed and brutality in a way that other actions don’t,” said Matthew Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of New Haven. “His first deadline is the 2026 midterms in 18 months.”

Polls show Mr. Trump’s early actions have been popular with voters and his job approval rating remains in positive territory.

Mr. Trump has largely governed by executive fiat, signing only one bill into law, the Laken Riley Act.

Named after the Georgia student murdered by an illegal immigrant, the new law orders Homeland Security to detain — and thus speed deportation of — illegal immigrants who commit theft, burglary or shoplifting offenses, as well as some major crimes such as assaulting law enforcement or killing or seriously injuring someone.

Although Republicans control both chambers of Congress, their thin majority in the Senate empowers Democrats to kill most legislation with a filibuster.

Mr. Trump has turned to executive orders to take a wrecking ball to the federal bureaucracy, which he blames for thwarting most of his first-term agenda. He has used executive action to reduce the size of the federal workforce through buyouts and layoffs.

The executive orders included the creation of DOGE, a federal hiring freeze, offering buyouts to roughly 2 million federal workers and ordering government employees to stop teleworking and return to the office.

Mr. Trump signed half of the orders on his first day back at the White House, but he’s still going strong nearly a month later.

Last week, he intensified efforts to shrink the federal workforce by ordering agencies to lay off all probationary employees who had not gained civil service protection. It affects hundreds and thousands of workers.

Also, last week he made it easier to fire Foreign Service employees and empowered DOGE to cut agencies or subagencies.

Mr. Schmidt said the cuts to the workforce will have the greatest impact because “it’s the way he’s trying to remake the government.”

Unions representing federal workers went to court to stop or at least delay the cuts. A federal judge last week lifted the temporary pause on the buyouts, allowing Mr. Trump’s order to go through. About 75,000 workers took the deal, far less than the White House’s estimate that as many as 200,000 federal workers would take it.

Overhauling the nation’s immigration system has been the second biggest target of Mr. Trump’s executive order blitz. The orders include declaring an immigration emergency that frees up more border wall funding, denying birthright citizenship for children of migrants and designating international gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.

A federal judge blocked the birthright citizenship order, which spawned at least eight lawsuits from coast to coast challenging the directive.

Craig Shirley, a presidential historian and conservative political consultant, argues that the immigration orders will be the most significant actions of Mr. Trump’s first month.

“Nothing else can happen unless we secure the border,” he said. “The border is the root cause of inflation because we are spending so much money on illegals coming here. So much money is being spent from the federal budget and Trump needs to stabilize this if he wants to achieve the things he wants to achieve.”

Other executive orders have limited practical effect but send a political message, such as Mr. Trump’s revoking the security clearances of dozens of officials, including Mr. Biden and his national security advisor Jake Sullivan. 

Another order changed the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the Gulf of America and renamed Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley. Both changes are entirely symbolic, though the Gulf of America action ignited a feud between the White House and the Associated Press, which refused to use the new moniker.

Mr. Trump also removed the chairman of the Kennedy Center, a performing arts center in Washington, and placed himself in charge.

A CBS News/YouGov poll found that the actions have generated positive reactions from Americans. An overwhelming majority of Americans described Mr. Trump as “tough” (69%), “energetic” (63%) and “focused” (60%). He earned a 53% approval rating in the poll with 47% disapproving of his job so far.

However, a cautionary sign in the survey was that most Americans (66%) said Mr. Trump wasn’t focused enough on lowering prices. That result could prove perilous for Mr. Trump, who won the election in part by criticizing Mr. Biden’s economy and the high inflation that occurred on his watch.

So far, only a few of Mr. Trump’s executive orders have targeted pesky inflation, which remains high. He has issued a handful of orders that impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, levy reciprocal tariffs against nations that are taxing U.S. imports and issued tariffs on goods coming in from Canada, Mexico and China. The tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been temporarily halted for one month after they agreed to bolster security at their borders. 

Mr. Trump has acknowledged that the Americans could feel the sting of such tariffs but has also argued that the tariffs could lower inflation once they are in place. His strategy is to use the money raised from the tariffs to cover the cost of his proposed tax cut.

“Prices could go up somewhat in the short term, but prices will also go down,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. “So Americans should prepare for some short-term pain.”

Mr. Baker, the Rutgers University scholar, said it takes some time for prices to go down, but warned Americans might become impatient with the president if grocery bills remain high.

“Trump has bought himself a certain amount of latitude with the American, but it can’t last forever,” he said. “If the price of eggs is $10 a dozen three months from now, the distraction value of the executive orders will fade and he’ll pay a political price for the cascade of activity.”

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.