Reasons Trump Is Unfit To Be President
Part of the mad genius of Donald J. Trump is that he never runs from scandals. He just creates more of them. So many more that anyone attempting to track them all risks becoming numb as a survival mechanism.
A collective amnesia sets in. We ask ourselves, Do you remember that time when Trump got impeached, said that super-racist thing, cozied up to dictators, threatened our elections, or oh, whatever that was?
Well, we at The Bulwark do. Yes, it can be hard to keep up. We all need reminders. So, lest anyone forget or require convincing, heres a non-exhaustive list of 100 reasons Donald Trump is unfit to be president.
Historical Rankings Of Presidents Of The United States
In political studies, surveys have been conducted in order to construct historical rankings of the success of the presidents of the United States. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians and political scientists or popular opinion. The scholarly rankings focus on presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures and faults.Popular-opinion polls typically focus on recent or well-known presidents.
He Is Emotional And Has No Filter
Some will confuse this lack of filter with honesty, others with a mental disorder. Whatever it is, I like it. This level of transparency and free expression might forever change the way the American public engages with their public officials. Trumps raw emotional presentations however racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic are remarkable assets to understanding the brutish dynamics of power.
Hopefully, this will inspire righteous outrage, creative resistance and an innovative, social-media-driven way of organising quickly and impactfully, especially from the artists, activists and young folks who checked out under previous White House administrations.
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A Dearth Of Shared Facts And Information
One of the few things that Republicans and Democrats could agree on during Trumps tenure is that they didnt share the same set of facts. In a 2019 survey, around three-quarters of Americans said most Republican and Democratic voters disagreed not just over political plans and policies, but over basic facts.
Much of the disconnect between the parties involved the news media, which Trump routinely disparaged as fake news and the enemy of the people. Republicans, in particular, expressed widespread and growing distrust of the press. In a 2019 survey, Republicans voiced more distrust than trust in 2o of the 30 specific news outlets they were asked about, even as Democrats expressed more trust than distrust in 22 of those same outlets. Republicans overwhelmingly turned to and trusted one outlet included in the study Fox News even as Democrats used and expressed trust in a wider range of sources. The study concluded that the two sides placed their trust in two nearly inverse media environments.
Some of the media organizations Trump criticized most vocally saw the biggest increases in GOP distrust over time. The share of Republicans who said they distrusted CNN rose from 33% in a 2014 survey to 58% by 2019. The proportion of Republicans who said they distrusted The Washington Post and The New York Times rose 17 and 12 percentage points, respectively, during that span.3
Serving And Protecting Our Veterans
Reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve care, choice, and employee accountability.
- Signed and implemented the Forever GI Bill, allowing Veterans to use their benefits to get an education at any point in their lives.
- Eliminated every penny of Federal student loan debt owed by American veterans who are completely and permanently disabled.
- Compared to 2009, 49 percent fewer veterans experienced homelessness nationwide during 2019.
- Signed and implemented the HAVEN Act to ensure that Veterans whove declared bankruptcy dont lose their disability payments.
- Helped hundreds of thousands of military service members make the transition from the military to the civilian workforce, and developed programs to support the employment of military spouses.
- Placed nearly 40,000 homeless veterans into employment through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.
- Placed over 600,000 veterans into employment through American Job Center services.
- Enrolled over 500,000 transitioning service members in over 20,000 Department of Labor employment workshops.
- Signed an executive order to help Veterans transition seamlessly into the United States Merchant Marine.
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‘putting Democracy To The Test’
Kathryn Brownell is a history professor at Purdue University, focusing on the relationships between media, politics, and popular culture, with an emphasis on the American presidency.
What’s Trump’s key legacy?
Broadly speaking: Donald Trump, and his enablers in the Republican Party and conservative media, have put American democracy to the test in an unprecedented way. As a historian who studies the intersection of media and the presidency, it is truly striking the ways in which he has convinced millions of people that his fabricated version of events is true.
What happened on 6 January at the US Capitol is a culmination of over four years during which President Trump actively advanced misinformation.
Just as Watergate and the impeachment inquiry dominated historical interpretations of Richard Nixon’s legacy for decades, I do think that this particular post-election moment will be at the forefront of historical assessments of his presidency.
What else stands out to you?
Kellyanne Conway’s first introduction of the notion of “alternative facts” just days into the Trump administration when disputing the size of the inaugural crowds between Trump and Barack Obama.
Trump harnessed the power of social media and blurred the lines between entertainment and politics in ways that allowed him to bypass critics and connect directly to his supporters in an unfiltered way.
Trump Bids Farewell To Washington Hints Of Comeback
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. His presidency over, Donald Trump bid farewell to Washington on Wednesday but also hinted at a comeback despite a legacy of chaos, tumult and bitter division in the country he led for four years.
Goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form, Trump told supporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland where he received a 21-gun salute as part of a military send-off before boarding Air Force One for his last time as president.
Trump was already in Florida, at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, by the time Joe Biden was sworn in just before noon as the 46th president of the United States.
Trump was the first president in modern history to boycott his successors inauguration. He also refused to participate in many other symbolic passing-of-the-torch traditions surrounding the peaceful transition of power as he continued to stew about his election loss though he did leave behind a note for Biden. Biden declined to say what Trump had written, but described it as a very generous letter.
He will be forever remembered for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol two weeks before Bidens swearing-in that left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer, sent lawmakers scrambling for safety and horrified the nation.
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Colossal Rebuilding Of The Military
Rebuilt the military and created the Sixth Branch, the United States Space Force.
- Completely rebuilt the United States military with over $2.2 trillion in defense spending, including $738 billion for 2020.
- Secured three pay raises for our service members and their families, including the largest raise in a decade.
- Established the Space Force, the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947.
- Modernized and recapitalized our nuclear forces and missile defenses to ensure they continue to serve as a strong deterrent.
- Upgraded our cyber defenses by elevating the Cyber Command into a major warfighting command and by reducing burdensome procedural restrictions on cyber operations.
- Vetoed the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act, which failed to protect our national security, disrespected the history of our veterans and military, and contradicted our efforts to put America first.
Defeated terrorists, held leaders accountable for malign actions, and bolstered peace around the world.
Addressed gaps in Americans defense-industrial base, providing much-needed updates to improve the safety of our country.
Failure: Family Separations And The Deaths Of Migrant Children
Trump in 2016 campaigned on reducing undocumented immigration, pledging to take a hardline approach.
He made good on that promise when coming into office, but was accused of human-rights abuses and violating international law by the UN.
The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal border crossings led to the separations of at least 5,500 families and saw children placed in cages.
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics at the time described the practice as “nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse.”
After widespread backlash, Trump issued an executive order in June 2018 to halt the family separations, and a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite all those it had separated. But the fallout from the separations is ongoing.
Trump falsely blamed his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for the policy that saw thousands of children separated from their parents.
At least six migrant children died in US custody, leading to widespread condemnation of conditions in detention facilities.
The UN human-rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, in July 2019 said she was “shocked” by the US government’s treatment of migrant children and the conditions they faced in detention facilities after crossing the border from Mexico.
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Deeply Partisan And Personal Divides
Trumps status as a political outsider, his outspoken nature and his willingness to upend past customs and expectations of presidential behavior made him a constant focus of public attention, as well as a source of deep partisan divisions.
Even before he took office, Trump divided Republicans and Democrats more than any incoming chief executive in the prior three decades.1 The gap only grew more pronounced after he became president. An average of 86% of Republicans approved of Trumps handling of the job over the course of his tenure, compared with an average of just 6% of Democrats the widest partisan gap in approval for any president in the modern era of polling.2 Trumps overall approval rating never exceeded 50% and fell to a low of just 29% in his final weeks in office, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.
Republicans and Democrats werent just divided over Trumps handling of the job. They also interpreted many aspects of his character and personality in fundamentally opposite ways. In a 2019 survey, at least three-quarters of Republicans said the presidents words sometimes or often made them feel hopeful, entertained, informed, happy and proud. Even larger shares of Democrats said his words sometimes or often made them feel concerned, exhausted, angry, insulted and confused.
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Your View: Here Is Why Donald Trump Is A Great President
In response to a previous letter this is my take on why Trump deserves to be called a great president.
He is probably the first president in history to keep or try to keep every promise he made during his campaign. Im sure Ill miss some but here are a few I can think of in no particular order: build the wall, cut taxes, support our vets, end burdensome government regulations, support coal and natural gas making our country energy independent, appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court, defeating Isis, keeping and securing oil fields, dealing with other countries like China to get rid of unfair trade deals to bring more jobs to the U.S., supporting our law enforcement officials, getting tough on and actually talking with North Korea and getting out of the Iran nuclear deal.
These are just a few. There is one big one still left undone.
That is draining the swamp in Washington, and that swamp is turning out to be awful deep. Its going to continue to be an uphill battle, but I think he just might get it done.
Don Buckingham
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Remaking The Federal Judiciary
Appointed a historic number of Federal judges who will interpret the Constitution as written.
- Nominated and confirmed over 230 Federal judges.
- Confirmed 54 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, making up nearly a third of the entire appellate bench.
- Filled all Court of Appeals vacancies for the first time in four decades.
- Flipped the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits from Democrat-appointed majorities to Republican-appointed majorities. And dramatically reshaped the long-liberal Ninth Circuit.
Appointed three Supreme Court justices, expanding its conservative-appointed majority to 6-3.
- Appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
- Appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.
- Appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
He Drives The Left Crazy And Hes The Only Thing Standing Between America And Socialism
Theres just something delicious about the way that Donald Trump gets into the heads of the Left. He drives them nuts. Theyve finally met their match in this president. He doesnt cower to their attacks he punches back harder than hes ever been hit. And the truth is, hes far better than the alternative.
This November, its up to you to vote wisely and pick the candidate that aligns with your vision of America.
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Did Trump Damage American Democracy
Did Trump permanently damage American democracy? This question has spawned a veritable cottage industry of hand wringing over the state of American democracyunderstandably so. Never before have we had a president who schemed to overturn legitimate election results, who attacked the press and the civil servants who worked for him, who admired dictators, who blatantly profited from his public office and who repeatedly lied to the public for his own selfish purposes. But while Trumps four years of rhetoric have been a shock to democratic norms, did they inflict permanent damage on our democracy? My answer is a qualified no. The guardrails of democracy held. The institutions designed to check autocracy are intact.
Successful democratic systems are not designed for governments composed of ethical men and women who are only interested in the public good. If leaders were always virtuous there would be no need for checks and balances. The Founding Fathers understood this. They designed a system to protect minority points of view and to protect us from leaders inclined to lie, cheat and steal. Fortunately, we havent had many of those in our 200-plus years of history, which is why the Trump presidency sent such shock waves through a large part of the body politic.
Did Trump weaken the powers of Congress? No.
