The Trumpian Legacy
All that glitters is not gold …
In about a two week’s time the presidential elections will take place in the USA. Like many Europeans I am hoping that President Trump will not be re-elected for a second term not only for Europe’s benefit but for that of the whole world and most of all for America’s own benefit. The last four years have shown us what can happen when you elect a businessman (and not a good one at that!) to the highest office of any land. It has shown us that government can never be run like a company. A government is for the people and by the people for the betterment of all the people. A government should have a fiscal plan and not just cut costs wherever it can. It should have plans in case of emergencies like the Corona virus. It should have goals which are reasonable and feasible. Above all it should be stable and reliable so that its own people and its allies can trust it. It should have substance, a set of values and a list of principles. The Trump administration has none of the above.
Instead the Americans had a comedy of errors which was not even funny. What are this administration’s accomplishments? A bit of wall in the desert which the Mexicans did not pay for and parts of which fell over when a storm came? A quarrel with NATO allies which has soured relationships? A handshake with Kim Jong-un who is still building missiles? A trade war with China so that American farmers were left sitting on their soybeans? Immigrant children of a very young age locked up in cages and transferred to God knows where so that some of them are still unlocatable? Yes, all this happened under the auspices of the Trump administration because this is a presidency concerned with itself, with how it looks, not with what it does and the consequences of its actions. Instead of a stable government we have witnessed countless appointees abandoning the ship, frustrated at being forced to work for a man who still thinks he is starring in a reality show.
The real legacy of these Trumpian years, however, is what they have done to America itself. By playing for his base of mostly white people from central and southern states he has exposed the latent racism that still festers in the USA. He has made denigrating women, especially women of colour, appear to be normal. Instead of having a coherent, logical debate American politics are reduced to jeering, ridiculing and name-calling everyone and anyone who he perceives to be against him. Now, as the election looms up and there is a real possibility of him being the loser (which does not fit into his fantasy image of always being a winner), he is sawing at the very legs of democracy by trying to make it impossible for people to send in their vote by mail. Trump was elected by the electors with the promise to make America great again. What many do not realize is that America was great. Obama’s presidency, although not faultless, created Obamacare. Suddenly millions of people finally had some form of health insurance. Obama also got the economy back on track after the financial meltdown of 2008. He created a structure to deal with pandemics which Trump later dismantled. Above all the Obamas gave the Presidency something which the Trumps never could … dignity.
Trump rode roughshod into the White House claiming the economic recovery as his own work and from then on the so called “alternative facts” kept on coming. Photo op followed photo op with his sycophantic supporters in the Republican party. It took a pandemic and almost 200,000 dead Americans to show everyone that Trump and his administration are completely incompetent and not up to the job. So yes, I am crossing my fingers that American voters come to their senses and boot him out of office.