I could not contain my short list of President Donald Trump’s damage to American democracy and the rule of law in a single short article. I include more instances here.
Trump has damaged the Supreme Court. Long before the recent stacking of the Supreme Court by Trump and the Republicans, Trump pushed the Right-Wing members of the Court to go through odd contortions to uphold Trump’s racist Muslim ban in the Trump v. Hawaii case.
Justice Sonia Sotomayer, in her blistering dissent at the time, showed stark parallels between this case and the flawed ruling in the 1940s Korematsu v. United States case that upheld Japanese internment during World War II. In both cases, the Court accepted the unproven national security excuse to support the racist behavior of the United States government.
Trump damaged the economy. Not understanding how tariffs work, Trump, as president, imposed large tariffs on goods coming from China. Tariffs tax all products that cross a border, thus raising prices within the country imposing the tariff. Consequently, it raised prices for American consumers. China retaliated and reduced the importation of goods from the U.S.
Trump imposed tariffs on other goods and other countries, and these countries retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. goods. However, his tariffs on goods from China took things from bad to worse for American farmers.
This had a devastating effect on American farmers who had depended on exports to China. To help farmers, the Trump administration provided $28 in aid. The USDA estimated that aid payments amounted to one-third of total farm income in 2019.
To date, Americans have paid over $230 billion for tariffs Trump imposed on imported solar panels, steel and aluminum, and Chinese-made goods.
A January 2021 study commissioned by the U.S.-China Business Council reported that former President Trump’s trade policies – and I would add “ignorance”–cost the United States 245,000 jobs.
Because of his trade policies and tax cuts for the rich, the national debt rose by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.
Trump damaged U.S. intelligence operations. He ignored intelligence from his officials and expressed his preference for what Russian leader Putin said. Putin told him Russia was not involved in the U.S. presidential elections, and Trump believed it, believing an enemy of the U.S. and not his intelligence officers.
A binder holding top-secret intelligence that contributed to a U.S. assessment that Russia tried to help throw the 2016 U.S. election to Donald Trump has been missing since the last days of his presidency. On May 10, 2017, Trump disclosed classified information to Russian representatives, creating political and security concerns in the United States and its allies. Some experts indicated that this action jeopardized the lives of foreign agents from an American ally.
Trump abandoned U.S. international leadership. He tended to push important allies away and isolate the U.S., including pulling out of landmark international agreements like the Paris Climate Accord.
People worldwide have expressed negative views of Trump. In January 2020, the Pew Research Center released a survey of 32 countries that showed a median of 64 percent saying they did not have confidence in Trump’s ability to do the right thing in world affairs.
As leaders of NATO member states prepared for a summit in London in 2019, a familiar theme emerged: how to keep President Trump from disrupting proceedings.
Trump caused excess deaths from COVID. Researchers from UCLA noted in March 2021 that the United States could have avoided 400,000 COVID deaths if the Trump administration had implemented a more effective health strategy that included mask mandates, social distancing, and robust testing guidelines. Instead, Trump was suggesting various quack remedies.
Trump damaged the presidency. His actions lowered the prestige of the office, but hopefully, it was temporary. For example, Trump refused to release his tax returns until court-ordered well into his term, and he never released his medical reports.
Trump damaged the presidency with his ignorance. He never understood how the government functioned and never tried to learn.
I have often said that I owe George W. Bush an apology. I was very critical of him as he appeared to have so few of the intellectual tools needed to be president of the United States.
And then Trump came along. With so few of these tools, he made Bush seem like a great leader.
