The Case Against Donald Trump

For the most part, I try to avoid politics on this blog, but with Election Day coming up, thought that for the record I'd throw in my opinion and two cents.

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Let’s face it, Donald Trump winning the 2016 was a fluke—as one pundit put it, the equivalent of drawing an inside straight in poker. While he lost the popular vote, he threaded the needle and ran the table to win the electoral college.

As we approach Election Day 2020 on November 3, Trump faces a very different environment.

First, while Trump seems to have retained a measure of core support—over the years, anywhere from 35–45 percent of people from around the country have remained in his corner (which, frankly, is a frightening statistic considering his white supremacist views). And unlike 2016, he faces a candidate with much higher trust and likability ratings. People have realized that the more you get to know Donald Trump the more you dislike him.

Second, most Presidents, upon assuming office, usually move towards the political center and try to expand their base. In contrast, Trump, has doubled-down on divisiveness, choosing to pander only to his limited base and “red states,” which he has made explicitly clear many times. He particularly has targeted evangelicals, giving lip service to their priorities like abortion and prayer rights (based on their specious claim that Christians in this country are oppressed and under attack), making for strange bedfellows as Trump is the least religious of people and, in fact, among the most amoral if not outright immoral individuals to ever sit in the White House. As a result, as polls show, he not only has failed to expand his base, he has lost and alienated many of the swing voters that made his win in 2016 victory possible, such as suburban women/moms, the elderly, and even some blue collars.

Of course, these challenges are mostly of his own making, with his stiffest head winds coming from COVID-19. While the pandemic was obviously not his fault, once the virus hit the country's shore, the responsibility to protect the American people using all the resources and knowledge available to him fell on him. As a result, his inability and outright willful refusal to rise up to meet one of the greatest challenges in modern history was matched by one of the greatest collapses in presidential leadership. Many presidents have been measured or taken down by the crises they faced — think FDR and the Great Depression and World War II; JFK and the Bay of Pigs; Nixon and Watergate; George H.W. Bush and Iraq; and George W. Bush and the Great Recession. Trump will forever be tied in history to his COVID-19 fail.

Early on in the crisis, in a rare moment of clarity when he seemed to recognize his moment in history (but also borne out of his usual false bravado), Trump declared himself a “war president”—then decided to not take any action. Whether out of an obvious predisposition for laziness or his inability to ever see anything through over the long term, he chose—apparently primarily for political gain, believing “blue states” would suffer the worst—to let the American people and states fend for themselves. He asserted early on that he took no responsibility for what was happening and, as he’s done through most of his life, tried to bully and bluster through the crisis. But for once, with real lives at stake, hard evidence and science would have none of it. He tried magical thinking (saying it would magically disappear), fake and quack cures like bleach and hydroxychloroquine, and continues to delusionally insist we’re “rounding the turn” even as cases continue to spike (currently in record numbers) in many areas of the country—particularly in his precious “red states”—as a third peak wave of cases and deaths ravages the country. He can talk as much as he likes about how well we’re doing—or declare victory over the virus—but the fact remains, the U.S. has the highest number of cases and deaths of any country in the world to date, with no end in sight, even as the infection spreads like wildfire through his White House staff. It should be added that all of Trump's claims are usually at polar opposite from the guidance of his own public health experts, including those he appointed.

As the news has gone from bad to worse, of course, he’s fallen back to his favorite default defense by playing the victim card. He’s incessantly whined about his lot both in private and in public, constantly trying to deflect blame to others, whether it be China, the governors of blue states (regardless of the fact that it’s now the red states that are experiencing the worst surges) or even the health profession. To blame is anyone but he, who's first priority as president is to ensure the safety of the American people.

Of course, when he can, Trump also tries to play up his financial and business bonafides—which don’t exist. He often asserts that his "business experience" qualifies him to be chief executive, though he has never been beholden or accountable to a board of directors or anyone else since his companies are all privately held. In addition, his favorite measure of the strength of the economy has always been the stock market—but as an article in the Washington Post showed, Wall Street has actually fared worse under him in his 45 months in office relative to past administrations (including Obama). And, of course, both the economy and the unemployment rate under his watch have fallen off the rails. 

Of course, the pandemic is much to blame—but his inaction and lack of leadership made the crisis much worse. If he’s so quick to take credit for a roaring economy even when he has little to do with it (as Presidents are wont to do), he also needs to be ready accept blame and responsibility when things go south. (By the way, despite what the GOP may have people to believe, the economy historically actually performs better under Democratic presidents than Republican.*)

By the way, it seems silly to have to address this, but anybody who buys into the claim that we’ll be pursuing a socialist agenda under Biden and Harris is a fool and an idiot. To do so is to ignore Biden's record of 50 years as a middle-of-the-road slightly to the right Democrat—and the fact that we have checks and balances built into the system to prevent such overreach. 

(Regardless, as I’ve always said, socialism is just a word, often used as a scare tactic. No pure or dogmatic form of government or ideology have ever proved to be successful and many Western democracies feature “socialist” programs, ranging from healthcare to public schools and public libraries; after all, people don’t seem to mind the "corporate welfare" handed out to farmers in the form of subsidies and bailouts for banks. If we truly believed in a pure free market or capitalist system, we’d let those banks and farmers go out of business.)

It's dumbfounding that it needs to be said that Trump is likely the most unfit person to ever hold the presidency. His lack of respect for the norms and values of American democracy; his inability to learn or hear views or news that contradict his narrow view of the world or the high self-regard in which he holds himself; his obvious embrace and admiration of other authoritarian figures while destroying relationships with longtime friends and allies; his undermining of our democracy and many of the nation's institutions; his obviously racist views and alignment with white supremacists; and his belief in unfettered power and that all levers of government owe fealty to him rather than the Constitution—all aided and abetted what can be generously described as a criminal enterprise that include members of his own family—are each individually sufficient to disqualify him from any public office, let alone the U.S. presidency.

Like many people, I'm simply tired and exhausted of this odious man's non-stop need to be the constant center of attention and in the 24-hour news cycle. I just want a day when there's nothing important to report on the news about his latest meltdown, ridiculous exaggeration or narcissistic self-regard.

Need it be said that I will vote for the Biden/Harris ticket? With that said, if you haven’t already, go out and vote.

* See also Democrats or Republicans: Which Is Better for the Economy?