On a cold and drizzly day in Washington DC four years ago, Donald Trump painted a gloomy picture of a divided, crime-ridden United States in his inaugural address and promised “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
As he left the White House for the last time on January 20, ‘carnage’ is precisely what he’s leaving behind.
Despite the positive picture of achievements that many of his supporters portray, Trump’s legacy is one of chaos that has badly shaken America’s standing on the world stage.
Domestically, Trump will be remembered for many ‘firsts’. He’s the first President to be impeached twice, the first to snuggle up to White Supremacists and the fringe far-right, and the first to truly test the foundations of America’s democratic institutions by spreading baseless conspiracy theories to contest an election.
That’s to say nothing of his bungling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far left over 400,000 Americans dead and devastated communities from coast to coast. One hopes he’s the only American leader ever to suggest that injecting bleach is a cure-all.
He’s also, of course, the first President to be accused of inciting an insurrection against his fellow Americans. The image of the US Capitol being overrun by a mob of supporters wearing red MAGA hats and waving ‘Trump 2020’ flags is not something that the world will ever be able to unsee or forget. I know I won’t.
These failures are just the tip of the iceberg. Books have been – and will continue to be – written detailing many, many more. His lack of ability as a leader with the strength and intelligence to bring Americans together will forever cancel out whatever accomplishments he might tout.
It’s telling that the majority of his own team, including John Bolton, Jim Mattis, John Kelly and, at the end, Mike Pence, turned on him or became fierce critics.
The image of the US Capitol being overrun by a mob of supporters wearing red MAGA hats and waving ‘Trump 2020’ flags is not something that the world will ever be able to unsee or forget
Personally, I have a hard time understanding how anyone, anywhere, can argue that he’s leaving the US in a better place than he found it.
One of the best assessments I’ve seen so far came from former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta, who said that “future historians will say that it was perhaps the worst presidency the United States has had because of the person Trump is and because he had little respect for the values associated with the presidency, did not believe that there were any rules that constrained him and generally undermined the strength of the United States at a very critical time, both at home and abroad.”
The ‘abroad’ part of Panetta’s statement is extremely important. For me, the lasting legacy of Trump will be that it was under his watch that the US surrendered global leadership. Rather than use the enormous power of the US presidency for good, he wooed people like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, attempted to disengage from the Word Health Organisation and recklessly abandoned America’s Kurdish allies in the middle of the fight against ISIS.
Trump will be forever be remembered as a man who highlighted the worst aspects of the United States
Again, those are just a few of many examples. Collectively, these fiascos, along with America’s handling of Covid-19 and the Capitol insurrection, have shattered positive perceptions about the United States that many have long held. He proved that America can be as unstable as anywhere else in the world under a certain set of conditions. In many ways, his legacy will be that he – personally – created those conditions.
Put simply, reversing the most damaging aspects of Trump’s administration should be Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s top priority.
Clearly, they think so as well: Biden’s first day in the White House saw a flurry of executive orders aimed at dismantling some of Trump’s signature policies, such as the border wall, the travel ban targeting a number of Muslim-majority countries and the withdrawal from the Paris climate deal.
The new press secretary expressly said that Biden priorities include mending frayed relationships and regaining America’s place as a global leader.
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President Biden’s first day in the White House saw a flurry of executive orders aimed at dismantling some of Trump’s signature policies
The new beginning
For Biden and Harris, this is just the beginning. The following days, weeks and months will see many more such announcements, more so once the pandemic is brought under control and the Biden administration can focus more on other things.
In the eyes of many friends and acquaintances of mine, however, the damage is done. “I will never see America the same after the last four years,” an Arab friend recently wrote on Twitter. “It was just too much to deal with.”
Sadly, many people agree with that assessment. But maybe – just maybe – Trump will be forever be remembered as a man who highlighted the worst aspects of the United States, allowed it to take a look at itself and take a course correction.
As a realist, I have a hard time believing that will happen. But one can but hope. Perhaps, one day in the future we can all look back and think that at least some good came out of these ugly, messy, and chaotic four years.
These opinions are only that of the author and not of Arabian Business or ITP.
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