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What has been relatively steady progress over the past 50 years in defining the ethical responsibilities of organizations and society has been derailed by President Trump’s flurry of executive orders and other actions over the past four weeks. We need to keep track of the ethics norms being bulldozed aside in order to create an agenda and strategy for restoring them in the Post-Trump era. It helps to remind ourselves that Trump will not be president in four years, and that there is a chance his actions will by then be seen as betrayals of the same constituencies that elected him. Already some are realizing his actions violate the beliefs of even his most ardent supporters—pardoning those January 6 defendants who attacked and injured police, dismissing the indictment of a New York mayor for egregious violations just because he might be a friend to Trump’s policies, cutting medical care, welfare programs and university research in red and blue states, and making staff cuts which may interfere with opening our National Parks this summer. Further, Trump has promised actions, particularly on tax policy, which would benefit his friends among oligarchs and the wealthy, letting a heavier burden fall on the middle and lower classes who supported his election. His irrational tariff and other economic policies may refuel inflation and rattle the stock market, hurting everyone’s interests. But let’s look at the specific policies and decisions that most damage a concern for ethics and put these on our priority list for the post-Trump era. You might say these will be priorities on our own “Project 2026” and “Project 2028” programs. Our goal must be to reinvigorate both ethics and democracy. To me, the number one priority will be to re-establish the principle of equal employment and inclusion. Not only has Trump banned DEI programs, but he has suspended Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246 which required equal employment both in the government and in companies doing business with the government. Johnson’s order has been the foundation of our national commitment to addressing discrimination and racism in employment. I don’t care whether the term DEI fades, but we will need to reaffirm that we want to include all in the economic future of the U.S. The second priority, in my view, will be to re-establish the logic of diversity. What may have begun as affirmative action for specific groups has turned into an understanding that diversity—of gender, race, intellectual styles, diversity of all kinds—actually strengthens the institutions which champion it. To me, the dumbest statement of the young Trump Administration is that by Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, who said, “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is our diversity is our strength.” Even the Supreme Court carved out an exemption in its decision regarding affirmative action in education to permit the military to pursue diversity. Sadly, one can only conclude from the anti-DEI and anti-diversity rhetoric and other comments by Trump, Vance and other administration officials that they favor a world dominated by white males married to traditional women. Reversing that belief must be in the top three goals of our post-Trump agenda. Several troubling decisions regarding business and organizational ethics by the administration already stand out. Trump fired the two key ethics officers of the executive branch, presumably planning to install individuals who will be more “loyal,” less independent and certainly more tolerant of conflicts of interest by Trump, Musk and others. In addition, Trump has fired the Inspectors General (IGs) in most executive departments, individuals charged with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, his supposed goals. While new Presidents have always replaced some IGs, Trump has done it wholesale and violating laws requiring him to give advanced notice to Congress. Restoring these ethics officers in government should be our fourth priority. I will be watching in the next weeks to see the fate of two key Department of Justice memos known as the Sentencing Guidelines and the Prosecutorial Guidelines. These two instructions to DOJ attorneys and federal judges, usually authored by the Deputy Attorney General, have given significant incentives for businesses to have effective internal ethics and compliance programs. Doing so gave them credit when prosecutors considered bringing charges or Judges imposed sentences for corporate wrongdoing. If the DOJ withdraws those two memos, corporate ethics programs, like DEI programs, may be abandoned by some companies and mothballed by others. Reversing these actions, if they occur, would be my fifth priority. Trump’s appointees are rapidly dismantling much of the regulatory power of the federal government, shutting down organizations such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and directing others to ignore complaints from the public. There are certainly ways to improve these agencies, but neutering them is self-defeating. Reinvigorating these watchdog agencies, which protect all Americans and uphold standards of ethical behavior, is my sixth priority. Perhaps the ethics decisions most troubling from an existential viewpoint are those voiding any programs that encouraged environmental concern or mitigation of climate change. If there is a single over-riding ethics objective of a society and a government it is to protect its citizens from existential threats. This must be among the top concerns of our post-Trump agenda. So, our post-Trump—post-MAGA—project and agenda is already shaping up. We will need to reaffirm our commitment to civil rights and the equality of opportunity for all. We will need to recommit to the value of diversity and inclusion in order to capture its economic and social benefits-and serve justice. We will need to double down on our belief that good ethics is good economics, that by ridding business and government of corruption and favoritism, we serve economic growth and critical national interests. We will need to reappoint strong IGs and reinstall incentives for companies to implement strong ethics and compliance efforts. And finally, we will have to mount an emergency effort to head off the worst of the effects of rising global temperatures. None of this agenda yet addresses the weakening of democratic institutions caused by the Trump Administration’s orders, policies and rhetoric that encourage disregard for democracy and the Constitution. We need to support those who are fighting the most illegal, unconstitutional, and unethical of Trump’s actions—in the courts and in the political arena. We hope that Republican legislators who to date have been unwilling to object to Trump’s initiatives get some backbone and resist at least the most egregious. Retaking the House of Representatives in 2026 and the presidency in 2028 from the “Project 2025” zealots will give us a chance to pursue this restorative agenda. But we already have the start of a “to do” list for creating the next Ethics Megatrend.
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