Again, Donald Trump is running for President (Trump announces 2024 run for president). So, there is no better time than now to assess his Presidency, thus ruling out his candidacy as soon as possible!
1. How was Trump elected the President in 2016?
The system (aka “the establishment”) had failed so badly by 2016 that “We the People” simply did not know what to do, other than electing someone – anyone – very different to be the President: Donald Trump!
As a matter of fact, there has been only one American President who was truly elected by “We the People” (vs. moneyed interests behind the establishment) over the past 100 year at least: Donald Trump!
2. My assessment of President Trump
Three conclusions:
- He is the most “obviously flawed” person ever to occupy the White House.
- He is the least prepared person to take the top job in the nation.
- He is not the worst President, even though he was impeached twice. Both JFK and George W. Bush still outrank him in the race to the bottom.
Let me elaborate on each …
2.1 He is “obviously flawed”
He is the most “obviously flawed” person ever to occupy the White House! For example, he has little virtue, as advocated by Confucius – See image below. Two examples:
- He lied at will (In four years, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims), shamelessly (Trump Cries Election Fraud. In Court, His Lawyers Don’t).
- He could not handle adversity, from Covid-19 to his defeat in the 2020 election.
2.2 He is the least prepared
He is the least prepared person to take the top job in the nation. For example, he is the only President who never served in the public sector or in the military prior to taking the top job in the nation. The relevant experience matters! Two examples:
- He ran, and still runs, his family business like a king, without a board of directors watching over his shoulders. So, he often acted like a king as the President.
- His best success prior to becoming the President was the host of a reality TV show. Subsequently, he simply turned his Presidency into a reality TV show. One last example of his Presidency: Did Trump Watch Capitol Riots From a Private Party Nearby?
2.3 He is not the worst President
By the “worst President”, I mean the damage to America.
Let me discuss his major failures and successes, respectively, before reaching this conclusion.
3. President Trump’s major failures
The worst damage he caused to America was his failure to contain the spread of Covid-19. The image below offers a vivid example. For more, read 8 Catholic Sisters Die of Covid-19 Within Week at a Wisconsin Home.
However, if you look across the West, no country has done a good job on Covid-19, especially when compared with East Asian countries, from South Korea to China.
In other words, while anybody would/could/should have done better than President Trump did, America would still unlikely have fared much better than an average country in the West.
Now, what about the American carnage, for which he was impeached a second time? Read American Carnage vs. American Revolution.
As for all his other major failures, two points of explanation:
- All can be fixed, relatively easily.
- Blame our failing political system: getting re-elected ad nauseam. President Trump simply did it more boldly, thus making it more obvious. For more, read American democracy: what is it and what’s wrong with it?
It must be emphasized that although he surely carried it to the extreme, his contempt of the government as well as the MSM was not much beyond comprehension. After all, it was chiefly for this reason that he was elected in 2016.
4. President Trump’s major successes
Two very important facts:
- He initiated no shooting war abroad.
- He invaded no country.
Both were remarkable American Presidential achievements since Jimmy Carter, given the harsh reality (America’s Evil Military Industrial Complex).
As for his other major successes (Trump’s biggest accomplishments and failures from his 1-term presidency), especially the judicial appointments, they came with the job, not because of his extra-ordinary ability or effort.
5. How did President Trump lose in 2020?
Unfortunately for America, President Trump did not work out. So, America chose to settle back to 2016 …
6. Summary
Overall, the damage President Trump caused to America still pales to what these two Presidents did:
- JFK: for issuing Executive Order 10988, allowing public-sector workers to unionize against the people of the United States of America. Since then, it has been destroying America from inside out, city by city, state by state, without most Americans even knowing it!
- George W. Bush: for launching the Iraq War in 2003, without which there would have been no “History 2.0”! He is the world’s #1 war criminal this century (Tony Blair is #2 – Desmond Tutu calls for Blair and Bush to be tried over Iraq). History will not be kind to him!
It is for this reason, chiefly, that I rank Donald Trump the third worst American President in recent history, as shown below.
7. Donald Trump: Post-Presidency
Donald Trump is well on the way to becoming the worst former President! Three main reasons:
- He continues to lie, recklessly, especially about the 2020 election (Trump continues to lie about the 2020 election).
- He may have violated many laws (Trump Is Under DOJ Criminal Investigation For Stealing Classified Docs).
- He has been dragging the GOP down (Voters name Trump as biggest loser of midterms).
8. Closing
America is desperately in need of a great transformational leader. Donald Trump was given a chance, but he failed – His odds of winning the Presidency in 2024 is zero!
America, reform our failing political system, as I have suggested (History 2.0 – China’s Comeback vs. America’s Decline), or face a bloody revolution (A quarter of Americans open to taking up arms against government, poll says)!
