Trump’s Legacy: The Worst President In History & A Lifetime Of Failure
President Donald Trump has moved swiftly in the early weeks of his second presidency with a game plan based on anger, hate, revenge, and destruction. He appears to be out to turn our democracy into an autocracy.
Trump, assisted by his partner Elon Musk, is conducting a frontal assault on our government and civil service on the one hand, while hawking Musk’s Teslas on the White House lawn on the other.
Trump has twice been elected President, but those political victories and his endless self-promotion should not distract us from the bigger picture. Trump has lived a life of failure – in business, in government, and in trying to rewrite his personal history.
Last year, a survey of more than 150 historians ranked Trump as the worst President in American history. Trump has done nothing early in his second term to indicate the historians were wrong.
Yet, in his address to Congress last week, Trump crowed, “It has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency … is the most successful in the history of our nation.”
Many have bought into Trump’s self-promotion and self-mythologizing. And, as Mark Twain once wrote: “How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”
There’s no running list to show who is the biggest liar in history, but Trump’s reported 30,573 false and misleading statements during his first presidential term alone would probably put him in the running.
The list of Trump’s failures is long, but there’s a point to revisiting at least some of them.
Trump is a failure as an American citizen. He is a criminal, convicted last year of 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers. Three additional criminal indictments were ultimately blocked from reaching trial by Trump’s election in November. In total, he faced 91 criminal charges.
Trump was found liable for engaging in sexual abuse and defamation by a jury of his peers. Trump owes more than $88 million to the victim, E. Jean Carroll, for two defamation judgements.
Trump has repeatedly failed as a President. Trump was twice impeached by the House of Representatives, the only person in American history to suffer this infamy. And he became the first President to attempt a presidential coup following the 2020 election – an election he clearly lost. He incited a violent mob attack on the Capitol but failed to stop the Electoral College vote count by Congress.
Trump’s business failures are legendary.
He was found liable for fraudulently inflating his net worth for purposes of borrowing money from lenders. He was ordered to pay $355 million plus interest, which, by January, has reached $490 million. The judge said of Trump and his associates that their “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.”
His companies have filed for bankruptcy six times and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 legal actions, including class action lawsuits.
Trump casinos, failures. Trump University, failure. Trump airlines, Trump mortgage company, Trump telecom, bottled water, vodka, steaks, mattresses, fragrance. All failures in the end.
Trump’s own Donald J. Trump Foundation was forced to dissolve for misconduct as part of a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General. Trump had to acknowledge in the case that he personally misused foundation funds. The lawsuit alleged that the non-profit Trump Foundation functioned “as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” and had engaged in “a shocking pattern of illegality.”
There are tough and painful battles ahead in Trump’s second term. But as he works to destroy our democracy and build up an autocracy for himself, it is important to remember that Trump’s not the man he says or thinks he is.
Trump’s efforts to tear apart our government and abuse our civil servants; intimidate the media; restrict free speech; undermine the rule of law; ignore the Constitution; abuse national security; misuse law enforcement and the military; and increase the wealth of the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans, are dangers and abuses that must be fought at every step.
In the end our democracy will prevail. Trump will fail, just as he repeatedly has.
Trump’s legacy will be summed up simply like this – he was the worst President in American history.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s and other recent newsletters here. And, subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
