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THE LEGACY OF TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY

Debunking the myths of his first term.


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Passing judgment on a presidency is no easy task – mainly if the president is still alive and is seeking a second term.


President Trump maintains that he would beat George Washington and Abraham Lincoln if he ran against them.”[i] Given that he has also stated that “The Art of the Deal” is the second-best book in world literature after the Bible, we can take his opinions with a large bucket of salt. But it just reinforces his narcissistic personality even more.


What is more interesting is the opinion of his base, the MAGA loyalists who hope and pray for his return “to save America” Messiah-like. Their point of view is clear: Trump was the best US president ever to walk this earth. Under his administration, the economy was booming, regulations were slashed, the border was safe, and the country regained its reputation on the international stage, notably eradicating ISIS. Trump is credited as being the only president not to have started any wars on his watch, and he is a master negotiator, culminating in the Abraham Accords in the Middle East and his infamous exchange of “love letters” with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. In other words, glory be to Trump.


The facts present a somewhat different picture. The economic recovery was on course under Obama’s second term, and Trump inherited auspicious economic conditions from which he benefited. Contrary to his numerous campaign promises, he did not get to implement a new healthcare policy, and Obamacare has become an established part of the law of the land.


His only significant economic achievement was to implement major tax cuts worth 1.9 trillion USD that primarily benefited corporations, as the central provision was reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, promising a positive “trickle-down” effect. The main impact, however, has been to substantially reduce corporate tax revenues without helping workers, as many corporations took advantage of the reduced rates to either buy back their shares or increase their reserves and ultimately did not pass on any benefits to their employees by raising wages.


Overall, the bill has achieved much less than promised and cost more than initially forecast. The impact on the budget deficit cannot be ignored: before COVID (more on that later), the first three years of Trump’s administration saw the deficit increase from 585 billion USD (the amount at the end of Obama’s term) to 984 billion at the end of Trump’s third year.[ii] The actual value of the national debt also increased similarly, from 19.5 trillion USD to 22.7 trillion USD.[iii] It is a classic case of overpromising and underperforming.[iv]


Trump’s immigration policy was notably characterised by undermining asylum, banning people from Muslim countries, reducing refugee admissions, attacking the Diversity Visa Program, and limiting avenues to access immigration services. “Building the wall” was the public face of his policies, but at the end of his term, only 458 miles were built, just 47 miles where no barriers existed before, paid for by the US and not Mexico to the tune of over 15 billion USD. Were his policies successful? In essence, they failed to make any significant impact on illegal immigration, as the number of illegal immigrants at the end of his term stood at 10.9 million compared to 11.3 million at the end of 2016.


However, the situation at the southern border has deteriorated since the end of the COVID crisis. At the beginning of 2024, the migration issue is at the centre of a political storm. The Democrats have made significant concessions, realising that the situation needs urgent attention, and have negotiated with the Republican senators what is probably the most favourable series of measures to tackle the border crisis that the Republicans could ever hope for.


Unfortunately, the Republicans, in particular in the House, under the influence so as not to stay under orders from candidate Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, are refusing to accept any compromise, however favourable it may be. They prefer to kowtow to Trump, depriving the country of much-needed urgent action so that Trump can campaign on the deteriorated situation at the border whilst blaming the Biden administration for the crisis. The Republicans’ capitulation to Trump underlines just how far they are prepared to sacrifice their principles, dignity and self-respect, favouring shameful cynicism and cowardice over courage and dedication to their country.


Regarding deregulation,[v] the record is mixed, as many of the proposed changes were challenged in court. One aspect, however, is clear: the Trump administration dismantled over 100 environmental and climate-related policies, not to mention withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which became effective on November 4th, 2020, in stark contrast to the rest of the industrialised world.


How did Trump fare on foreign policy?[vi] Trump claims that he singlehandedly eradicated ISIS and points to the October 2019 elimination of ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as evidence thereof, as well as the fatal drone strike against Qassem Soleimani as evidence of reducing terrorist threats.


The US government’s program to defeat ISIS was initiated under President Obama, who declared the elimination of ISIS a national priority, developed a plan and structure to achieve this aim and, finally, oversaw a significant part of the military campaign. Trump inherited this campaign and followed suit, declaring “new rules of engagement” and resulting in successes in the field. Once he declared victory over ISIS, he announced a pull-out of forces from Syria against the formal advice of his military advisers, resulting in the resignation of Defence Secretary James Mattis in December 2018.[vii] Trump’s withdrawal of troops from Syria antagonised allies, weakened the official US policy on fighting terrorism and ultimately emboldened an almost extinct ISIS, allowing it to survive to fight another day.


Much has been said about Trump’s major diplomatic coup in the Middle East, with the conclusion of the Abraham Accords under his watch in September 2020. These accords normalised relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, followed by other Arab states, such as Morocco, in December of the same year. While an essential set of accords, they are not as ground-breaking as portrayed primarily, as the underlying reason for the signature of the agreements was mainly to foster and develop strong economic ties between the signatories.


The main political issue at the heart of the Middle East was not one of the Trump administration’s priorities. Despite lofty declarations and promises made in the name of the administration by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who up until then had no prior experience in international peace negotiations, not to mention any experience in the Middle East other than being able to relate to the issue due to his Jewish background (being an expert on a PC flight simulator does not qualify you for flying 747s), the much delayed Trump peace plan presented in January 2020 was dead on arrival.


Trump had signalled his approach to the region already in May 2018 by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and his proposed peace plan was further evidence of a significant shift in US policy away from accepting only modest changes to the 1967 border between the parties and not guaranteeing the long-term goal of a wholly Palestinian State. The “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People", as the plan was officially known, was not the result of negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel with the US as a neutral mediator but instead, a US proposal submitted with Israel and imposed on the Palestinians who were not part of the plan’s negotiation in any form or manner. Recent developments in the Middle East demonstrate that the Trump administration’s strategy was far from successful in preventing further conflict, much to the contrary.


The withdrawal of Trump from the nuclear deal with Iran, painstakingly negotiated in 2015 between Iran and several powers that severely limited Iran’s nuclear program, is likewise a significant aspect of Trump’s regional policy. It appears that Trump is very good at cancelling prior agreements and withdrawing from international obligations signed by previous administrations (even more so if they were negotiated and signed by President Obama). Fast-forward to 2024, with major unrest in the Middle East instigated and supported by Iran, the wisdom of such an approach seems somewhat questionable. It is one thing promising to be “tough” and quite another to guarantee peace and stability in the region.


Trump's North Korea policy was equally disruptive, culminating in the exchange of “love letters” with North Korea’s notorious dictator. Right off the bat, the notion of exchanging “love letters” with such a bloodthirsty dictator is shocking. Imagine if British Prime Minister Chamberlain had come back from his meeting in Munich with Adolf Hitler waving the peace agreement, declaring upon his arrival in London not “Peace for our time” but “I have fallen in love with Herr Hitler”. It is almost unbelievable, but on September 29th, 2018, at a rally in West- Virginia, Trump said, “We fell in love. No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters”.[viii] It is safe to guess that Trump did not realise that he made this love declaration almost 80 years to the day after Chamberlain’s speech on September 30th, 1938.


As the quote ironically attributed to Karl Marx says, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”. In this case, the ridiculousness of the situation points to farce, but given the absolute lack of progress in Trump’s aim to contain North Korea and to achieve verifiable nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, despite two summits with Kim Jong Un, let's hope that it will not turn to tragedy. However, on the current record, with the multiplication of missile testing by North Korea and increasingly aggressive rhetoric, one is justified in fearing the worst.


Sending “love letters” to the leader of such a ruthless dictatorship is a disgrace. North Korea has probably the worst record of all existing countries today in human rights. To quote the reputable Human Rights Watch organisation: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. Ruled by third-generation authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un, the government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with deepened isolation and repression, increased ideological control, and by maintaining fearful obedience of the population by using threats of torture, extrajudicial executions, wrongful imprisonment, enforced disappearances, and forced hard labor.”[ix]


The notion that Kim Jong Un is Trump’s ideal bedfellow is the pinnacle of ignominy and repudiates the essence of American values and beliefs. Betraying American ideals is the hallmark of Trump as a person and president. America betraying America may seem quixotic, but this is at the core of Americans' choice in November.


In a recent town hall[x] to reinforce what his supporters believe, Trump stated that during his term, there were no wars (and he was the first president to do so) and no terrorist attacks. Once again, more than truthful hyperbole, this statement blatantly contradicts the truth. There were two terrorist attacks – not including domestic terrorism during his term. One on December 6th, 2019, and one on December 17th, 2017. His claim about no wars depends on the definition of “war.”


Since the Second World War, only four US presidents officially brought the US into new wars: Truman, Johnson, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush (respectively, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq). Other presidents did instigate military operations, some to a more considerable degree than others. Only Presidents Carter and Ford did not start a new war or escalate or start a new military operation. Like Obama before him, Trump continued the campaign against ISIS and approved targeted strikes on foreign territory.


A more rigorous analysis of the Trump presidency demonstrates in terrifying detail the shortcomings, blunders, and, more importantly, the abuses of power perpetrated during his tenure as president.


The list is indeed long. The following examples (in no particular order) demonstrate the point mentioned above and are far from being exhaustive, namely, the appointment of family members to strategic and vital positions making nepotism an integral part of government policy based not on prior experience or job qualifications (Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump); benefiting financially from his position as president thus promoting grift and corruption; trying to buy Greenland; abusing the bully pulpit; calling the press “the enemy of the people” in true Stalinist fashion; supporting and dog-whistling to the extreme right most notably at Charlottesville with the infamous “there were good people on both sides” and the shameful show put on after George Floyd’s death by forcefully moving protesters in front of the White House for a photo-op in front of St. John’s Church in Washington in June 2020.


However, there are three main areas where Trump has fundamentally failed, not only as president but also in his duty to uphold the solemn oath he made on the day he was inaugurated: “to execute the Office of President of the United States faithfully, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”


The first domain is his relationship with authoritarian regimes, starting with Russia. Whole books have been written about his constant support of Russia and Vladimir Putin. The summit in Helsinki in July 2018 is exhibit A, B and C in this regard. Answering an AP White House Correspondent Jonathan Lemire question, Trump preferred to support and believe Vladimir Putin over his intelligence agencies.


As discussed previously, Trump welcomed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although no conspiracy was proved, numerous contacts have been established, and after that, Trump has consistently refused to accept any Russian interference as a matter of principle. His support of dictators and authoritative leaders does not stop with Putin. Kim Jong Un, Turkish President Erdogan, Mohamed bin Salman Al Saud (MBS), Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and last but not least, President Xi Jinping of China all have been praised and, to various degrees, supported by Trump with concrete policy decisions and actions.


In the run-up to the 2024 election in November, it is often said that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine under Trump. Need we remind people that Trump’s deliberate postponement and delay of military support to President Zelensky in 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment, despite his “perfect” phone call with the Ukrainian president? Once again, the term “perfect” was repeated ad nauseam by Trump. Parallel to the support of authoritarian leaders, Trump demonstrated on numerous occasions his support and belief in extreme right policies based on racism and fearmongering. In the run-up to the 2024 election, Trump has more than doubled down on his support for Putin. He welcomes Russia's invasion of the NATO member states, who, based on his analysis of the situation, are “delinquent” by not spending more than 2% of their GDP on defence spending. Trump has, to date, failed to condemn Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian gulag, preferring to dress himself up as an American Navalny, unjustly prosecuted unfairly by the Biden “communist” regime. God forbid he would ever have to utter any criticism of Putin.


Such an attitude distresses politicians in America, but the reaction in Europe is shock, disgust and extreme consternation. The European leaders understand all too well the implications of Trump’s pro-Putin policies and their significant threat to the current political order.


The second major failure of the Trump presidency is managing the COVID crisis. The way Trump handled this once-in-a-century pandemic reflects all of his worst practices: politicising a significant problem, promoting outrageous conspiracy theories, bullying, and spreading hate and division, refusing to accept responsibility and laying blame on other people, lack of leadership, compounded by crass stupidity (remember the bleach comment?)[xi] and incompetence.


True to form, Trump supporters ignore the clear dereliction of duty described above and claim that Trump rose to the task by promoting the vaccine through the “Warp Speed Program” – which is ironic as misinformation on the vaccine was encouraged by the MAGA base. How a public health crisis of such magnitude is managed (or mismanaged) has immediate and direct consequences on life and death. When Trump left office, more than 400’000 people had died of COVID-19 – the “final” number would be just shy of 1.2 million by April 2023.[xii] Of the 400’000 deaths on January 20th, 2021, some reports estimate that up to 40% were preventable.[xiii] Trump’s record with the COVID crisis should permanently disqualify Trump from ever being elected president again. In a time of national crisis of the utmost severity, Trump failed to defend and protect American citizens.

In Europe, unsurprisingly, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was similarly guilty of mismanaging the crisis in the UK, adopting a highly politicised approach whilst downplaying the severity of the threat. To make matters worse, he knowingly and deliberately defied the government’s own rules that were put in place to prevent undue contact during lockdown. Contrary to the US, a detailed inquiry exposed Boris Johnson’s failings, which played an essential role in his subsequent political downfall. Nonetheless, it seems that birds of a feather fall sick together (the use of bleach notwithstanding). Trump was not held accountable for his appalling handling of the pandemic in the US.


As surprising as it may seem, the COVID crisis and its mismanagement are not the most prominent stain on Trump’s legacy. The final act of Trump’s presidency is the third area that illustrates his inadequacy as a president. Refusing to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, blatantly lying about the process and blaming wide-scale voter fraud without any tangible proof or evidence thereof, promoting this “Big Lie”, and clinging on to power for power’s sake is behaviour so egregious that one would think he would lose all support not only within the Republican party but throughout the country.


Unfortunately, the contrary is true. Under the guise of “letting Trump be Trump and giving him time to process and accept his defeat”, the Republican leaders remained at best silent and, at worst, poured more oil on the flames by supporting his position despite any evidence. Trump didn’t stop there. The Big Lie was only the tip of the iceberg. The plan was to overthrow the election results and prevent Congress from certifying the electoral votes – not to delay the certification process but to replace legally cast and valid elector votes with false elector votes. Any other interpretation is far off the mark. In calling a spade a spade, absolute clarity is essential. Trump’s actions constitute a conspiracy to organise a constitutional coup and stay in power. In this case, the proverbial spade was used to dig the grave of American democracy.


The violence of January 6th was but a by-product of the conspiracy – a welcome consequence from Trump’s perspective. The conspiracy of the Big Lie and the attempt to organise a constitutional coup culminating in the January 6 2021, violence and storming of the capitol broadcast globally are fundamentally in contradiction with the presidential oath of service and, notably, the obligation to protect and defend the Constitution. At the time of the riots, the scope and breadth of the violence, the mob behaviour, and the call to murder Vice President Pence were so dramatic that they justified Trump’s second impeachment. With hindsight, as terrible as the events of January 6 were, the underlying conspiracy to overturn the election results is the original sin.


The temptation to compare the conspiracy to overturn the results of the election and, in essence, to overthrow the government (as in preventing the legitimate Biden administration from taking office) to fascist behaviour like the Reichstag fire in 1933 may seem to be exaggerated and unjustified.


However, as mentioned previously, history does not identically repeat itself – but in this case, it repeats itself not as farce but as tragedy, one that could have been much worse if the riot had not been contained. Who knows what would have happened if Vice President Pence had refused to certify the results or if Congress had accepted a delay in the certification pending the investigation of a commission as boldly proposed, notably by Senator Ted Cruz on the Senate floor.[xiv] Maybe the plot would not have succeeded through its bitter end. But perhaps it would have. What could have happened does not matter, as there was a clear and present danger to the core and heart of American democracy.


If the comparison to fascism is too disturbing, be it the Reichstag fire and the consequences thereof, the Munich beer cellar Putsch in 1923 or Mussolini’s grand march on Rome in 1922, maybe it will make people feel better if we compare it to events from centuries past, more specifically Ancient Rome and the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC. The failing Roman Republic was defended by the celebrated Roman orator and statesman Cicero, who, thanks notably to his famous speech “Against Cataline,”[xv] saved the day and won the battle before losing the war a few years later, paying with his life the fall of the Roman Republic. In any event, a spade is a spade; a constitutional coup is a constitutional coup, and fascism is fascism, no matter how hard you try to disguise it as a walk in the park – or an innocent tourist walk around.


For the outside world, it is not understandable how Trump is in contention for the presidency. In any other liberal democracy, a leader guilty of a fraction of Trump’s behaviour, as illustrated above, would be forced out of office either at the ballot box or by the political forces within, never to publicly appear again. This was true in the immediate aftermath of January 6, 2021, but it is all the more remarkable after the four criminal indictments initiated against Trump in 2023.


Trump can turn a seemingly disastrous set of circumstances to his advantage and ride the wave of disapprobation and shame towards further electoral success. This is genuinely Kafkaesque in its absurdity. One can only imagine that if Trump were to wake up one day as a cockroach, like Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis,” he would still find a way to capitalise on such a misfortune, and cockroaches would become the official symbol of the Republican party.


[i] Maroosha Muzaffar: Trump claims he would beat a Washington-Lincoln ticket by 40 points”, The Independent, October 7, 2022, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-george-washington-abraham-lincoln-b2196675.html

[ii] “Public debt of the United States from 1990 to 2023”, Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-the-united-states-since-1990/

[iii]  “How Much Did President Trump Add to the Debt?”, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, January 10, 2024, www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt

[iv] For more details, see the CBO Outlook Report 2020-2030

[v] Nadia Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka and Kendra Pierre-Louis: ”The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List”, The New York Times, January 20,  2021, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

[vi]  ”Bluster, Donald’s Trump War on Terror”, Chapter 6

[vii] Jeffrey Goldberg : ”The man who couldn’t take it anymore”, The Atlantic, October 2019 Issue, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/james-mattis-trump/596665/

[ix] Tirana Hassan : “World Report 2023:North Korea Events of 2022”, Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/north-korea

[x] Glenn Kessler: “Trump falsely claims ‘no terrorist attacks’ and ‘no wars’ during his presidency“, The Washington Post, January 13, 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/13/trump-falsely-claims-no-terrorist-attacks-no-wars-during-his-presidency/

[xi] “Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment”, BBC News, April 24, 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177

[xiii] Amanda Holpuch : “US could have averted 40% of Covid deaths, says panel examining Trump's policies”, The Guardian, February 11, 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/10/us-coronavirus-response-donald-trump-health-policy

[xiv] Jeremy Wallace: ”What Sen. Ted Cruz said as he led the Jan. 6 effort to block President Joe Biden’s win”, The Houston Chronicle, January 6, 2022,  www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/What-Sen-Ted-Cruz-said-as-he-led-the-Jan-6-16752820.php

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

[xv] “Cicero: In Catilinam”, IB Notes, https://ibnotes.tripod.com/Subjects/Latin/catiline1.pdf

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