Putting the Trump presidency in history

[Denny Zartman]

At 11:49 AM Eastern Time on January 20, 2021 the one-term presidency of Donald J. Trump finally came to an end. The discussions and debates over Trump will probably continue for decades to come. Now we can begin putting the Trump Presidency into the past.

What will history record about former President Donald Trump?

In addition to losing the popular vote twice and being the first President to be impeached twice, I believe Trump leaves behind a legacy of division, violence, and broken promises.

Trump said he would be too busy to play golf as president, and criticized his predecessor for playing golf during a crisis, and then went on to play golf hundreds of times, including during a deadly pandemic.

Trump treated the Coronavirus epidemic as a public relations problem, not as a true health emergency. The result has been hundreds of thousands of Americans dead, and more suffering long-term problems from a pandemic that continues to rage out of control as of this writing.

Trump called American military war dead "losers" and "suckers". Trump, who had an opportunity to serve his country during wartime and did not due to a phony aliment, said a Vietnam veteran prisoner of war was not a hero, and repeatedly attacked a Gold Star family.

Trump stoked division and racial tension by characterizing Mexican immigrants as "rapists and murderers", separated immigrant children from their families in detention centers, said there were "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville, told far right extremists to "stand back and stand by", and by inciting a violent mob to storm the US Capitol causing property damage, injuries, deaths, and disrupting the legislative branch of the US government while they were in the midst of performing their Constitutional duty. After the Trump mob did all that, Trump told them "we love you".

Trump had peaceful protestors tear-gassed in order for him to have his picture taken in front of a church, holding up a Bible as if it were a prop.

Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with "something terrific." He only eliminated the individual mandate and offered no replacement plan. Promise broken.

Trump apparently built a grand total of 47 miles of new wall along our 1,950 mile-long border with Mexico. Mexico did not pay for it, as Trump said they would. Promise broken.

As of the time of this post 12:00 PM ET, Hillary Clinton still walks around free. Trump's number one campaign promise broken.

Let us not forget that Donald Trump mocked a disabled person. In my opinion, this, more than almost anything, demonstrates the true character of the man.

Perhaps the most tragic thing about the Trump presidency is that he never once tried to be the president of all Americans. He neither felt the obligation nor the desire to represent those that did not vote for him. He seemed to only want to please his far-right base. Trump was an ungracious winner in 2016, continually and repeatedly attacking his defeated opponent. Trump was a sore loser in 2020, repeatedly insisting that he won an election that he lost. Even to a wide-ranging judiciary packed with Republican appointees, he couldn't produce any convincing evidence of voter fraud.

Trump could have been a transformative president. In a way he was, just in a negative way. He had the potential to be a leader that wasn't totally beholden to his party and the politics of the past. Unfortunately, he wouldn't or couldn't step up to the task.

[Evan Burton]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.