An Incompetent Man-Child — But Still a Legend in His Own Mind
If inflation has you thinking you will vote for Trump in 2024 — Think Again
Donald Trump is a legend in his own mind. But in reality — on his best days — Trump is a babbling buffoon who does not know geopolitics, history, economics, business, ethics, or any other subject that someone in any position of authority should possess. In short, Trump was the worst possible person that could have ever ascended to the presidency of the United States.
And because of the danger that he will run again for POTUS in 2024, we must not forget just how pitiful Trump was at doing his job during his 4-year stint in the White House from 2017 through 2020. I acknowledge this stuff may put you to sleep as you read it. But these are bedrock issues that America must remain mindful of when selecting our next POTUS in 2024.
This is the second article in a series. Click here to read part 1.
Trump’s trade wars and trade deficits
Trump had famously said in 2016 that he “will end our chronic trade deficits” by making a series of new trade deals. In 2020, Trump’s last year, the trade deficit was $678.7 billion, the largest gap since 2006.
Trump’s trade policy lacked rhyme or reason and was an utter fiasco. During his presidency, Trump threatened, and in some cases, began trade wars. Not just with China but with many of America’s economic partners. He provoked futile, consumer-harming conflicts with partners like Canada and Germany.
Trump’s much-ballyhooed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement simply inserted more automobile protectionism into the old NAFTA, without addressing the big North American trade issues of the 21st century — especially the needs of the digital economy and cross-border shipping.
Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership. By leaving the partnership and picking trade fights with other key partners, Trump’s administration missed an opportunity to organize a broad coalition of industrial powers united by a desire to get China to reform its own economic practices.
Meanwhile, Trump’s team failed at any meaningful trade negotiations with China. Beijing’s aggressive leadership was much at fault — but Trump’s trade and tech wars, Taiwan brinkmanship, and “Wuhan virus” rhetoric worsened everything.
In 2020, China was viewed by most Americans as the number one threat to the American economy. But since 2020 was a re-election year, Trump called a truce with China in January without obtaining any of the structural reforms he had demanded from Beijing.
Trump’s more coal, oil, and gas production — less environmental protection
As a presidential candidate, Trump specifically vowed “to promote clean air and water,” which are overwhelmingly popular causes. But during his presidency, Trump reversed 80 environmental rules and regulations related to clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals. This included weakening rules for emissions from vehicles and power plants and removing protections from wetlands.
In tandem with the regulatory rollback, Trump’s goal was to boost America’s coal, oil, and natural gas extraction industries. In his infinitely dim wisdom, Trump valued expanding extractive industries over environmental protection. As a result, energy production increased substantially during the four years of his presidency while the air got dirtier and carbon dioxide emissions rose.
Most of the impacts of Trump’s rollbacks will be felt mainly in the long term. But during his presidency, particulate pollution worsened — reversing years of progress.
The Trump administration also moved to restrict the range of evidence used to demonstrate air pollution’s harms, hoping to forestall the promulgation of new standards that would lead to stricter regulation of the fossil industries.
Trump’s reshaped immigration
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” ― Excerpt from the Emma Lazarus poem mounted on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
Immigration was at the heart of Trump’s politics from the moment he descended the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he was running for office. And once in office, he immediately set about changing immigration policy with the first version of his travel ban.
As promised, his administration restricted travel from several Muslim-majority countries. Trump’s promised immigration crackdown was real. Under Trump, the U.S. was a much harder place for the “huddled masses” to enter.
Trump instituted drastic changes to immigration policy that went far beyond border wall construction. The immigration changes aligned with Trump’s main campaign themes — even if they did not line up in detail with what he promised. For example, Mexico did not pay for Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” on the U.S. border with Mexico. American taxpayers paid for his wall.
Stephen Miller was the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policies that separated children from parents at the Mexican border, forced people seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico under squalid conditions, instituted the Muslim ban, and poured money from the military into border wall construction.
Miller more than helped reshape immigration policy. With Miller’s assistance, the Trump administration did an end-run around Congress to dismantle every aspect of the immigration system. And it was done through executive actions, gutting regulations, and replacing them with their own.
Among other deplorable actions, Trump’s administration came under fire for migrant children and teens who died in government custody. 666 was the number of separated migrant children whose parents had not been found at the end of 2020 because the Trump administration did not keep sufficient records.
If he had been re-elected in 2021, Trump had plans to cap the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. at 15,000 a year — down from the cap of 18,000 in 2020. Far less than the more than 85,000 slots during the final year of the Obama administration.
Trump’s remade judiciary for Republicans
From day one of his presidency, Trump enjoyed a GOP Senate majority and the new rules whereby the Senate minority could not filibuster judicial nominees. Under the Trump presidency and the GOP-controlled Senate, 220 conservative judges were appointed to the federal bench.
That included three to the Supreme Court — which enlarged a conservative majority that may endure for decades. Trump’s success with appointing Supreme Court justices resulted from unexpected circumstances and the planning by the Republican Party and, specifically, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
If McConnell had not held up the nomination of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in 2016, Trump’s first opportunity to nominate a justice (Neil Gorsuch) would not have happened.
And if McConnell had played by his own rules to wait until after the election to nominate a replacement for liberal Justice Ruth Ginsberg, who died in September 2020, Amy Barrett would not be on the top court right now.
Trump’s failed attempt to repeal Obamacare
Trump’s plan to replace Obamacare: “We have to come up, and we can come up with many different plans. In fact, plans you don’t even know about will be devised because we’re going to come up with plans — healthcare plans — that will be so good.” — Trump quote.
Arguably the defining policy drama of Trump’s presidency was his effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). It was an effort that occupied much of Trump’s first year in office — and it ultimately failed, thereby sending his approval rating tumbling down.
The proposed repeal of Obamacare proved to be deeply unpopular once voters realized that promises of an adequate replacement were false. Trump as a candidate, promised, “I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”
Trump made similar vows repeatedly, but once in office, he outsourced policymaking to Republican leaders in Congress. And he did everything he could to help pass ‘repeal’ proposals, which envisioned many millions losing coverage. The widespread backlash was a significant reason House Republicans lost their majority in the 2018 midterms.
I’m not finished yet with the deplorable leadership we endured with POTUS #45. Stay tuned.
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