Trump America will go down in history as a greater failure than Trump steaks, Trump University, Trump casinos, or James Buchanan, often ranked the worst president in U.S. Time will tell, but it won’t take long.
Donald John Trump revels in superlatives, writes Tim Naftali at The Atlantic:
The first. The best. The most. The greatest. “No president has ever done what I’ve done,” he boasts. “No president has ever even come close,” he says.
Thankfully, no. Corruption, nepotism, incompetence. Impeached twice, 30,000 untruths, 400,000 coronavirus deaths, violent insurrection and the first non-peaceful transfer of power in U.S. history. Trump seems destined for greatness for his worstness (Washington Post):
“You never want to be ranked below William Henry Harrison, who was only president for one month. If you rank below him, it means you’ve harmed the country,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University. “Now you’re getting into James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson territory. Trump will automatically be in that category.”
And very predictably.
“Adversity doesn’t build character; it reveals it,” the saying goes. Trump’s adverse occupation of the Oval Office did not reveal much about the man that was not obvious before the start of his accidental presidency. What his tenure has revealed is weaknesses in the country itself.
David Nakamura explains at the Washington Post:
Trump’s relentless attacks on civic institutions, provoking of racial and social divisions, trampling of political norms, broadsides against the free press and impugning of America’s international allies have raised profound questions about the nature of American governance and the endurance of the values the United States has long professed to cherish, scholars said.
“Trump and Trumpism have brought those flaws into sharp relief,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “The fact that 74 million people could vote for someone who is a conspiracy theorist and a perpetual liar and encouraged violence and the Proud Boys and white supremacy — in that sense, the Trump presidency will be important for those reckoning with: ‘What does it mean to be an American?’ And also: ‘What does it mean to live in what a lot of people thought was the world’s greatest experiment in democracy, when it turns out that experiment is incredibly fragile?’ ”
Nakamura goes on to examine what makes Trump uniquely awful. There is no good analogy to other presidents before him. But perhaps we should “leave it right there,” as cable news hosts say, and consider what his presidency reveals instead about the country and ourselves.
Many of us are people of the lie. Like Trump himself, we believe our own bullshit about ourselves. Whatever soft-focused myths Americans embrace about courageous, straight-talking, truth-telling pioneers of the 19th century, Americans of the 21st elected an unprincipled, physical coward and con artist as their leader in 2016.
The Trump administration in its final hours released a report by its 1776 commission meant to convey its view of American history, “properly understood.” It reads like a John Birch publication from the 1960s. It is Trump’s parting gift to his evangelical believers. More lies told to themselves about themselves.
Diana Butler Bass (“A People’s History of Christianity”) tweeted:
“A vision of history – America’s godly past with its divinely-mandated mission and future – is fundamental to white evangelicalism,” she writes. “Almost akin to a biblical literalism, it is something one MUST believe to be considered truly Christian. It is that central.”
So are the myths Americans believe about themselves. Do not expect self-reflection in the aftermath of Trump’s disaster of a presidency. “Warts and all” is for losers.
It is said a portion of voters ascribed to President Barack Obama perspectives more reflective of their own aspirations than ones the man possessed. Another portion of America looked at Donald Trump and saw themselves. Those portions overlapped.
As a new president takes office, the National Mall is set up with flags taking the place of people who cannot be there as the coronavirus rages on. They will more than fill the sparceness of the crowd photo from the Trump inauguration (taken from the same vantage point) that launched his presidency on the lie that he had the largest inauguration crowd in history. Four years and a failed pandemic response later, Trump ends his presidency on a Big Lie about the election results and another about who we are as Americans.
Politicians reflexively repeated that the isurrection of Jan. 6 is not who we are. The world saw exactly who we are that day and every day of the Trump administration. And still we cannot face it.