With the nation’s 250th birthday, here’s a quick comparison to other US leaders.
He single-handedly tanked the economy with high prices resulting from tariffs and the Iran War. Trump’s defunding government agencies and scientific research, along with hyperinflation, has created an impossible job market (the uptick of unemployment nearly one percentage point over the past few years obfuscates the real job market). He has also gone after a national core value, democracy, attacking free speech whether in libraries, education, or protesting on behalf of Palestinian rights. The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is a clear symbol of his failed leadership: Trump tried to turn it blue for July 4th, but instead it became green with algae.
While LBJ oversaw an immoral, ruthless, and ultimately failed war in Vietnam, at least he passed civil rights legislation and poverty-reducing Great Society policies.
George W. Bush undertook a reckless war against Iraq; although unjust, one of the main objectives—to overthrow Saddam Hussein—was met, even if afterwards creating a liberal democracy failed miserably and, ultimately, led to ISIS ruling across swathes of the Middle East. Domestically, Bush governed during a recession in his first term that resulted from the dot-com bubble bursting, but he did not fundamentally attack the democratic core of United States, although the Patriot Act presaged the Trump era.
Because of Donald Trump’s monumental failure as a wannabe dictator, MAGA is fracturing and progressives are rising.
Joe Biden oversaw the post-Covid period during which inflation costs, which rose under Trump I during the pandemic, continued to rise because of international supply chain bottlenecks and the Ukraine War. He also gave the green light to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, a policy that Trump continued during his second term. However, Biden’s domestic policies and legislation included the forgiveness of student loan debt, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the latter of which included the largest investment in clean energy in US history.
Ronald Reagan conducted covert wars against Latin American governments and his neoliberal policies ultimately helped lead to Trump. However, his negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty were instrumental in leading to the end of the Cold War.
Barack Obama, like Reagan, got into his own covert wars, through supporting Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War and expanding drone strikes. He also was responsible for creating chaos after his “leading from behind” regime change war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Yet, domestically, he passed Obamacare, which led to an additional 17 million Americans having health insurance. He also helped pull the economy out of the Great Recession.
President Bill Clinton, a scandal-plagued presidency during the pre-9/11 era, oversaw a healthy economy, but represented the Democratic Party’s embrace of neoliberalism and “tough on crime,” “super predator” policies. While flawed and foreshadowing what was to come, he would not be considered a failed president.
Jimmy Carter, a leader during stagflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis, has been perceived as a failed president. While his handling of each problem could have been improved, he did not create stagflation, which came about from a mix of high oil prices and the Fed’s stimulative economic policies. His offering asylum and medical treatment for the last shah of Iran in the US was in line with US imperial policy. Despite his crimes against the Iranian people and the new Iranian government’s demand that he be returned to Iran to receive justice, Carter refused.
Lastly, Richard Nixon, the most corrupt recent American leader before Trump, authorized the burglary to increase his chances of winning reelection and, after a cove-rup, resigned in shame. He also expanded the failed Vietnam War to Cambodia and Laos, though he had campaigned on ending the conflict. Yet, he created the Environmental Protection Agency and reestablished ties with China, though to do so turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s genocide against a nascent Bangladesh. Nixon did attempt to curtail democracy but nowhere near as systematically as Donald Trump has during his second term.
At every turn, Trump has tried to erode US democracy and the good of the people during his second term. While campaigning to end both inflation and the Ukraine War, he has not ended the war and caused prices to skyrocket thanks to his tariffs and his immoral and illegal war against Iran. He has redirected taxpayer money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the US Agency for International Development (predicted to cause the deaths of 4.5 million children under 5 years old), and scientific and medical research to fund tax cuts for billionaires, expand the brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by a factor of nine, and now seeks $1.5 trillion in Department of Defense funding (that’s $10K a year per taxpayer if divided evenly).
His Iran War caused about 3,500 Iranian deaths and 4,300 Lebanese deaths. While the US and Iran have a ceasefire, Israel isn’t abiding by it. As of this writing, Trump is still threatening the complete destruction of Iran, which is not ideal if you are honestly negotiating for peace.
From a US imperial perspective, the war has failed on every front: The Iranian regime is more powerful than ever; the Iranian population has largely gotten behind its government during the war; Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz now; Iran acts as a check on Israeli use of force in Lebanon; and the US bases, from which American forces retreated from during the fighting, may be closed in the Gulf countries and move to Israel. For those who relish in military victories, it is a loss for America.
Donald Trump may be up there as the biggest loser in history, but for now, it’s safe to say that he is the biggest failure in recent American presidential history.
There is an upside to utter failure though. While establishment Democrats have offered tepid criticism against Trump’s authoritarianism and immoral wars, progressives have made headway whether it’s the Mamdani-backed progressives winning their primaries in New York, Graham Platner winning the primary in Maine, or Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)’s use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza. Even Tucker Carlson has condemned his past Islamophobia and vociferously condemns the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the decimation of southern Lebanon and Beirut.
Because of Donald Trump’s monumental failure as a wannabe dictator, MAGA is fracturing and progressives are rising. Anti-Trump protests have broken record numbers and anti-ICE demonstrations at places like Delaney Hall are pushing back as strong as ever.
Surely, just after the 250th anniversary of the US, these were things worth celebrating.