Reflections on the Presidency of Donald j. Trump
Let’s focus on a few good features, first. He initiated personal negotiations with North Korea to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and try to bring North Korea into the community of nations. He signed the Covid relief packages that Secretary Mnuchin had negotiated with Congress. He was a stalwart friend to Israel and helped Israel and some of its Arab neighbors to re-establish relations. He did not get into any new wars. For the first three years of his Presidency, the economy continued to prosper. He updated the trade pacts with Canada and Mexico. He woke up a nation to the importance of politics, of voting, and of the electoral consequences of an unqualified President.
The rest was bad and extremely bad. He lied all the time and created an army and air force of believers in his lies, making the nation ever more difficult to govern. He was terrible on the environment, setting global warming on an ever more perilous path. He alienated almost all of our European allies and gave Putin free reign to make mischief on Russia’s periphery and throughout the Middle East. He encouraged white supremacists and helped foster the rise of the extreme right. He promoted racial divisiveness and outright violence towards minorities and immigrants. He ran up a huge increase in the national debt, which we will have to pay off for decades. He was a disaster in managing the nation’s response to Covid 19, killing far too many, wrecking the economy and infecting millions and millions of Americans. His tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations did nothing to promote our nation’s economic growth or to increase our productivity and increased our nation’s economic disparities. He appointed a slew of incompetents throughout the federal government and quickly fired almost all of his competent appointees. The “master of the deal” was unable to negotiate deals with Congress or most of our trading partners. He badly missed opportunities to forge consensus deals on immigration and trade — the pillars of his run for the presidency. He badly damaged democratic institutions at home and international cooperation abroad. He fostered the rise of anti-democratic and authoritarian movements in Eastern Europe, Germany, England and Brazil. He destroyed US credibility globally. He weakened our democracy and our respect for the rule of law. We do not yet know the breadth and depths of his personal corruption and enrichment at the public trough, but it is likely extensive.
He will go down as one of the worst Presidents in American history. Sadly, his followers and sycophants are still in his thrall, and his party is still frozen in terror at his tweets, and our democratic values and institutions are in tatters. He severely misled many of his most ardent followers; this could cause havoc for a long time to come. It remains to be seen how much further damage he can wreak in the remaining two months of his tenure.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 11/15/20