LEGACY OF LIES:
How Trump’s legacy of lies, division and denial has left his country in deep trouble...
DONALD Trump rose to power four years ago promising to “Make America Great Again”. After the debacle of recent days – in which he helped instigate a riot to overturn his 2020 election loss and became the first president in US history to be impeached twice – he leaves an America in shambles. Trump’s incitement of an attempted coup at the US Capitol has left the nation fearing widespread violence and the threat of civil war.Yet as his White House reign comes to an end tomorrow, these latest disasters are only the tip of the iceberg that has wrecked America’s ship of state and left his legacy in tatters. “Donald Trump is the worst president we’ve ever had,” says presidentelect Joe Biden, echoing a panel of academics who ranked him last among America’s 45 presidents over 244 years. Yet with a snake oil salesman’s arrogant grandiosity Trump departs chanting the mantra: “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” But it is more fake news from the man who made the phrase his own. The US is foundering under a record national debt, raging unemployment, the most disastrous economy since the Great Depression, and has one of the worst uncontrolled coronavirus pandemics of any FirstWorld nation. Trump has polarised the nation, openly inciting violence, racism and xenophobia, driving a chasm of distrust between political factions. He promised to “Keep America Safe,” but his recent incitement to mob violence has shaken the nation’s democratic foundations, while his mishandling of Covid-19 stands as one of the greatest tragedies in US history. More than 23 million Americans have been infected, and almost 400,000 have died. “We built the Panama Canal and we put a man on the moon,” says historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University in Texas. “And now we can’t get a swab or a face mask or a gown, and we have no real chain of command. This is a crippling blow to America’s prestige around the world.”
ONTHE global stage, Trump’s destruction of America’s “special relationship” with Britain and close ties with long-term allies has also damaged the US. He was elected on a wave of ambitious promises: he would build a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border and have Mexico pay for it, deport millions of illegal immigrants, replace the Obamacare healthcare act, spend $1trillion updating the nation’s infrastructure, simplify income tax law and “drain the swamp” of corrupt Washington D.C. insiders. So, four years on, how’s that going? Along the 2,000-mile border just four new miles of wall have been built, and Mexico has not paid a penny. Obamacare endures, infrastructure spending is stalled, tax law remains a mess, and Trump’s appointees amassed a record number of arrests and ethics charges. Trump also pledged never to take a holiday or play golf for pleasure. In fact, he has taken almost 300 golf trips while president, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $150million in travel, extra security and so on. Trump has certainly scored what many count as successes: appointing two conservative judges to the Supreme Court, keeping America out of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tightening borders and deregulating the environment to free up business. But he has relentlessly used the presidency to line his own pockets. “If you’re Donald Trump, everything looks like a chance to make money,” says watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington executive Jordan Libowitz. Trump’s political committees hid a reported $761million of their spending by running it through a shell company, illegally cloaking how campaign money is spent, investigators found. More than $10million in donor money was funnelled to Trump’s hotels, golf resorts and offices. His recent post-election fundraising, ostensibly to overturn the result, syphoned off a fortune to pay off his campaign debt. He could leave the White House with an estimated $150million of donor funds available to him personally. “His donors are being duped,” says Robert Weissman, president of watchdog group Public Citizen. Meanwhile, democratic norms have been trampled underfoot. Trump was impeached in 2020 for allegedly blackmailing Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky by withholding funds unless he agreed to investigate political rival Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The president only escaped conviction on a technicality. He was impeached again this month for inciting the violent overthrow of his 2020 election loss. He has attacked judges who ruled against him, undermined Congress by refusing to allow House committees to interview his aides, bypassed Congress to fund his border wall and sell arms to Saudi Arabia, and encouraged police violence against suspects. Perhaps most damagingly, he has undermined confidence in democracy itself with his refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election, despite losing more than fifty lawsuits where judges found no widespread voter fraud. Thwarted, Trump attempted what is being seen as a virtual coup, urging members of the electoral college to name him president against the wishes of voters, and discussed instituting martial law to force a re-run of the election. Two months after the election, Trump shockingly asked Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn the state’s election result, then encouraged a mob to “be strong” and head down to the US Capitol to prevent rival Joe Biden being certified as the next president. Trump had sold himself to voters as a brilliant businessman, but investigations
‘Along the border, just four new miles of wall have been built... and Mexico hasn’t paid a penny’
revealed his companies had lost more than $1billion from 1985 to 1994, and since 2000 he paid no taxes in at least ten years.
A self-proclaimed master of “the art of the deal”, his negotiating skills in Washington, DC, amounted to bullying ultimatums, and he left most legislation to Congress.
“Trump has been the most uninvolved in legislation of any president in modern times,” says former Clinton White House aide Elaine Kamarck. Openly bigoted, Trump launched racist attacks on Hispanics and Muslims, and separated thousands of immigrant children from their parents. Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people”, and told neo-fascist group Proud Boys to “stand by” if he lost the election.
Even Trump’s sanity has been questioned. More than 350 psychiatrists in the World Mental Health Coalition petitioned Congress in 2019 warning that Trump was “psychologically and mentally both dangerous and incapacitated”. His niece, psychologist Mary Trump, branded him a “narcissist” with “antisocial personality disorder”.
He is frighteningly willing to overrule expert counsel, repeatedly claiming he knew more than his experienced scientific, military and legal advisers.
He has promoted distrust in science, and withdrew from the Paris climate accord, falsely claiming global warming was a myth. Trump openly supported authoritarian leaders in Russia, Egypt and the Philippines, while picking fights with longtime allies like Britain, Canada, and Australia.
His unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal sparked chaos across the Middle East, failing to contain Iran’s aggression.
He undermined Nato, repeatedly failed to respond to Russian aggression, withdrew US troops from Syria and abandoned Kurdish forces trying to contain the threat from Islamic State.
Trump dismissed Covid-19 as a hoax and promised it would be gone in weeks. He advocated drinking bleach to cure it, promoted dangerous untested drugs, and was ultimately hospitalised with Covid-19. He leaves behind a nation torn apart by factionalism he fostered, even down to the millions of supporters who still follow his lead in refusing to wear a face mask or practise social distancing.
He leaves an America less safe, less prosperous and less respected than he found it. And Trump is not done yet: while facing his second impeachment trial in the US Senate, he is seriously considering another presidential run in 2024, threatening to Make America Great Again, Again.