He is the only president to be impeached twice; and if AG Bill Barr hadn’t buried the Mueller report, it could have been three.
He refused to accept defeat after the biggest voter turnout ever, a remarkable election in the midst of a pandemic, where people literally risked their lives to vote -- driven largely by their desire to be rid of him.
He transposed his personal refusal to admit defeat into increasingly grandiose claims that he had actually won – in a landslide! – and that victory was being stolen from him in a massive electoral fraud.
He whipped his followers into a frenzy that THEIR votes had been invalidated and urged them to challenge the vote certification in Congress. This resulted in one of the worst assaults on the Capitol, ever, causing five deaths. Trump watched it unfold on television, was reportedly “delighted” by what he saw, and refused to dispatch the National Guard to prevent the riot. We have yet to see if he will be held responsible for this act of sedition.
He responded to the worst U.S. health crisis in a hundred years with denials that it was a serious problem, predictions that it would “just go away, like magic,” then phony harebrained false cures. He refused to wear a mask or to encourage even simple, nonobtrusive precautions -- in fact, he kept hosting events that violated them. He actually said “I don’t take responsibility at all.” The result has been over 400,000 deaths on his watch.
He went beyond the typical “fox guarding the henhouse” model of many previous GOP Cabinets to install utterly unqualified dept heads who were actively ignorant about the missions of their depts, and who forced out career experts and specialists across government. His “deep state” rhetoric put personal loyalty to him ahead of devotion to the missions of their units. He leaves behind a swatch of hollowed-out, dysfunctional government agencies.
He sought to turn the Republican party into a personality cult to himself – and he used the threat of turning his followers against GOP officials to enforce conformity with his demands. He is obsessed with personal loyalty – through he is strikingly disloyal to others who serve him, if they ever go astray in even minor ways. The events of January 6, his intervention that cost two Senate seats in Georgia (and with them Senate control), and his loss of social media privileges, have turned some Republicans against him – but he keeps talking ominously about “our movement.” He is eagerly looking for ways to continue to steer the GOP even after he leaves office.
He has alienated longtime global allies with his ignorance and bullying, and has substantially weakened, or cancelled, international agreements that bring democratic nations together in cooperation. Meanwhile, he cozied up to some of the worst autocrats across the world, and clearly felt more comfortable with them – especially when they flattered him shamelessly.
He never separated himself entirely from his businesses, as he promised to do. Government expenditures, including his constant golf outings, funneled public money into his own pockets. He openly bragged about using the presidency to build his brand.
He has spent more than 20% of his presidency at one of his golf properties. Add Mar-a-Lago and it’s almost a third. And when he was in the White House he spent hours every day watching television and tweeting.
Throughout his presidency, as throughout his career, he has used racial, ethnic, and national slurs to tar his enemies and rile up his xenophobic, racist followers. Despite his disclaimers now, he often advocated violence. There is a hateful ugliness to American politics today, largely because of him.
He thinks that “the art of the deal” means quid pro quo arrangements with people. This transactional approach to governing was most evident in his efforts to get foreign governments to help him, as if personal benefit was the proper basis of foreign policy. At its worst, it involved outright corruption and deal making. He constantly howls about how people “owe” him and therefore should do his bidding.
He turned pardons into an instrument of criminal conspiracy, pardoning people specifically because they lied or covered up to protect him.
He accepted Russia’s support to get elected – he welcomed it, at one point he even invited it (“Russia, if you’re listening. . .”). His campaign staff knew about Russia's leaks of hacked materials to undermine Hillary Clinton before they happened, and they planned accordingly. We know with certainty that Russia wanted him to win and worked to achieve it – and he never would have been elected without that help. I cannot understand how he got away with all this.
He lies. He lies about matters great and trivial. He says whatever he wants to believe, or whatever he wants you to believe. I’m not even sure “lying” is the right word, because that suggests something specific and strategic. For Trump it is just a total disregard for the truth. I don’t know how you count them, but one estimate was over 30,000 lies.
He and his administration were hostile to facts or science of any sort. His attempt to modify a scientifically generated weather map with a black sharpie, just in order to vindicate an utterly false claim he had made, is a metaphor for his administration. Administration spokespeople were constantly backfilling the factual narrative to fit what he had said. If he said it was true, that made it true; and anyone who said otherwise was shown the door.
He governed at every stage by dividing the country, both internally -- by constantly demonizing everyone who questioned him (the media, the Democrats, and any Republican who dared to speak out) -- and externally by drawing a picture of the U.S. surrounded by undependable allies, scary immigrants, and "shithole countries." For him, you are either a Trump loyalist and useful to his rule – or you are a disgusting adversary to be attacked and destroyed.
His most lasting physical achievement, the aggrandized Wall™, is a shadow of what he promised. Almost all of it is a replacement for existing barriers. It has proven to be easily cut through . . . and Mexico never paid for it. But it has a plaque on it: Built by Donald Trump!
He made the economic divide in the country worse. While trumpeting a pseudo-populist message, his policies at every stage favored the wealthy. He broke countless promises about addressing the problems of working people, the needy, and the elderly.
He politicized the Justice Department and used it as a way of protecting himself and his corrupt activities, while constantly trying to force investigations into his critics. He tried to make it his sword and his shield. He actually tried to use it to help with his personal legal problems. The man who had always lived by lawsuits and threats of lawsuits saw the Justice Dept as just one more way to reward and punish others.
He is not only the worst president we have ever had – he is the very worst person who has ever been president. Good riddance.
Trump is the Worst President in History
History Will Crush Trump
It All Began With Russia
A little comedy break after all that grimness
‘Fox & Friends’ Host Gushes Over Trump’s Work Ethic: ‘He Watches Every Show’
In COVID news . . .
Why?
Trump Orders Lifting of Covid Travel Ban Days After the Inauguration. What’s He Up To?
Biden Expected To Reject Trump’s Last-Minute Lift On COVID-19 Travel Bans
In Biden/Harris news
What it looks like when leaders really care about the human cost of a pandemic
Vogue will run a new cover with VP Kamala Harris on it
In other news . . .
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday openly declared that President Donald Trump and other conservatives who relentlessly peddled bogus election-fraud claim “provoked” the deadly insurrectionist Capitol riots. . . . “The mob was fed lies,” he continued. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on.”
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who just one year ago led the charge to acquit Donald Trump of impeachment charges, has been going through a head-spinning, donor-inspired evolution over the past couple weeks since Trump incited a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. . . . But surprise, surprise—the mighty dollar is proving more powerful than opportunistic loyalty to a man now ending his term as the grossest, pettiest, and least liked American president in modern history. . . . . Not only are corporate donors pulling back from their widespread support of Sedition Party candidates, but other big-dollar donors are making their demands for a break with Trump perfectly clear. . .
Congressional leaders, including House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will skip President Trump's departure ceremony in Maryland tomorrow morning in favor of attending mass with incoming President Joe Biden ahead of his inauguration . . .
Even Mike Pence Isn’t Going to Donald Trump’s “Farewell”
The Coming Republican Amnesia
Donnie has a sad
“The President has been in a foul mood for several days . . . While he’s eagerly anticipating his military-style send-off from Joint Base Andrews on Inauguration morning — one of the few items that have cheered him up recently — there were already signs the crowd may be smaller than he’d hoped. And a slate of actual celebrities lined up for Biden’s inauguration has disappointed a president who tried and often failed to secure A-list support for his own presidency.”
[NB: Hey, what do you mean? KID ROCK! TED NUGENT! SCOTT BAIO!]
The legal case for a Trump impeachment conviction
How Trump pressured VP Mike Pence (unsuccessfully) to get him to overturn the election results
Trump issues over 140 pardons and commutations -- but not for him or his kids
Some other last-minute outrages, on his way out the door
11th-hour deal strips FDA oversight of genetically modified animals
Trump revokes ethics order barring former aides from lobbying
As Biden prepares to take office, Trump lawyers ask judge for help in tax return fight
The "Deep State" Trump is trying to leave behind for Biden
Over four years, federal workers were ignored, subjected to retaliation, and fired for articulating politically inconvenient truths or standing in the way of President Donald Trump’s attacks against the public. . . . Trump has never made any secret of his contempt for the civil service, the body of approximately 2 million federal workers tasked with carrying out the government’s policies and programs, independent of partisan influence. . . . Over four years, this administration has targeted specific civil servants who got in the way through personal retaliation, reassignment, and silencing. Inconvenient offices have been reorganized and sidelined to ensure that the independent voices in them can’t contradict Trump’s official line. . . . If it wasn’t already obvious, Trump’s erratic governing style should make clear why a competent, independent, and trusted civil service is essential to good governance. . . [A] Biden administration will face a depleted and beleaguered civil service. The longer-term assault on civil servants’ jobs has created often intolerable conditions that prompted thousands of career officials to leave, taking their policy and institutional expertise with them. Meanwhile, as ProPublica has reported, some Trump appointees are “burrowing” into the civil service. . . [read on]
Trump declassifies another set of documents related to the Russia probe
Trump leaves with a pointless last-minute attack on school curricula
Members of President Trump’s 1776 Commission are calling for “patriotic education that teaches the truth of America” and identifying “progressivism” and “racism and identity politics” among the challenges to America’s principles. . . . The commission, officially established by Trump in November, argues in a report released on the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday that Americans must “stand up to the petty tyrants in every sphere who demand that we speak only of America’s sins while denying her greatness” . . . [read on]
The 1776 Report — written by the commission ordered by President Trump in response to The New York Times’ 1619 Project — has received scathing rebukes from historians and civil rights groups . . .
Trump’s “1776 Report” Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Dangerous
The Capitol attack was planned and coordinated
Trump supporters vote as "Republicans" because that's where Trump is -- they couldn't care less about the party itself
“President Trump has talked in recent days with associates about forming a new political party, an effort to exert continued influence after he leaves the White House . . . The president said he would want to call the new party the ‘Patriot Party.'”
Election reform will finally get a vote
Fox World is going after Mitch McConnell now
[NB: File this under, "What have you done for us lately"?]
Big chains drop "MyPillow"
Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, has begun the process of crying about being persecuted . . .
Bonus item: The Trump years, in cartoons
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