Donald Trump Did Some Good, But the Bad Far Outweighs It
Let's try to give Trump an objective and fair shake
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I keep hearing people comparing Donald Trump to Kamala Harris as if Trump is a normal presidential candidate. He’s not. But we should not dismiss Trump completely either, let alone think for a minute that the mainstream media is always fair to him. That dismissive approach only adds rocket fuel to the MAGA fires stoked by Elon Musk and others.
So let’s give Donald Trump a fair shake; objectively assess the good, the bad, and the ugly. You decide whether to normalize it.
‘I’m looking at his policies”
I read this quote from a Trump supporter in Georgia. It’s common in the normalization of Donald Trump to ignore or excuse his criminal record, civil record, numerous bankruptcies, multiple affairs and wives, and overall antics (“grab them by the ‘pu**y’”).
Instead, you’ll often hear his supporters compliment his straight-shooter approach. How he puts America first. How his policies are in the best interests of America and the world.
What these statements of support fail to consider is that the rule of law is the foundation for everything. Policies don’t mean much if the President does not view himself as subject to the law like every average citizen. This is especially true now in the wake of Trump v. United States, where the Supreme Court performed one of the greatest feats of legal gymnastics to give criminal immunity to Presidents for any “official acts.”
“Well, Trump just says a lot of stuff. He doesn’t really mean it. Why do you take him so literally?”
If you talk to enough Trump supporters, you’ve undoubtedly heard this retort. I would be sympathetic to its logic had January 6th not happened. I would be more willing to believe that Trump is merely engaging in bombastic puffery by saying he’ll be dictator only on “day 1” had he not spent the past 4 years lying about an election he knows he lost in 2020.
And for anyone still grasping at the possibility that there was such pervasive election fraud in 2020 that would have made a material impact on the election results, answer this – why did ~60 court cases all reject the substantive merits of every single challenge? Why did nobody challenge any down-ballot results (Senate, House, etc.) on the same ballots Trump had issues with? How did Dominion Voting and others win huge defamation cases against Fox News and others (hi Rudy!) where truth is an affirmative defense?
For the legally uninitiated, what that means is that Fox News and others could have easily prevailed in those libel cases had they demonstrated their election fraud reporting was true. They couldn’t, so they had to pay up ($787.5 million). Others in Trump’s 2020 election fraud circle lost law licenses and are facing personal bankruptcy. All because they couldn’t tell the truth.
While everyone else suffers the consequences of his 2020 election lies, Donald Trump is the presidential nominee once again. The same person who had the infamous (and recorded) phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State, asking him to find 11,780 more votes – the exact number he needed to win the state (which is why I’ve always argued that the Georgia criminal case is the strongest against Trump, if it ever even starts).
I rehash this 2020 history because it’s important. It paints the portrait of a man who’s happy to defy truth, facts, and reality so he can cling to power. It reveals someone who is happy to disrupt – or at least question – the peaceful transfer of power if it means he might be able to retain the presidency.
I would be all for laughing off silly statements from Trump if January 6th and the last four years of lies had not happened. But they did. And they should be the foremost consideration for assessing the character and fitness of a man who wants to be President once again.
Here’s a telling exercise – detail this objective history of Trump in writing, remove his name, and then ask yourself: would you hire this candidate for a job at your company?
An important rule of law consideration in 2024
Before we can even turn to Trump’s policies (some of which were good!), there’s another rule of law consideration for a future Trump presidency – how a new Trump administration would govern the executive branch. Trump has made incredible efforts to distance himself from Project 2025 (for good reason), but one area that overlaps with his Agenda 47 (what Trump calls his platform) is Trump’s views on the administrative state.
For those not familiar, the administrative state is the general term for all of the agencies that roll up to the President under the Executive Branch. It includes agencies that are not independent from the presidency like the Department of Defense, but it also includes independent agencies like the Federal Reserve (the President has historically been unable to fire people in these agencies).
Imagine a President who decides he doesn’t like the independence of certain agencies. He wants to be able to fire and hire whomever he pleases. He may want to even have a say in policy that the independent agency sets, such as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions. Even better, he plans to install a political party loyalist to run these historically independent agencies so he has direct control over their activities.
Donald Trump has promised to remove agency independence if reelected. Anyone who thinks the rule of law is essential for a thriving democracy should be concerned. It would allow Trump to install “yes-men” as the heads of agencies that rely on experts to set some of the most crucial and informed policies for the country.
No longer would election laws set an objective standard for the Federal Election Commission. Trump’s preferences on “election integrity” would rule. Just as the now politicized state election board in Georgia is threatening to unduly influence its elections by demanding all votes be hand counted, among other draconian measures.
No longer would the Federal Reserve be able to lower and increase interest rates as it sees fit based on economic data and monetary policy. Trump’s preferences on interest rates would rule.
I understand why Trump may want to remove some agency independence. He felt betrayed by certain government employees during his first administration. He’s convinced there’s a deep state of career bureaucrats out to get him.
With that said, of the encounters I’ve had with EPA and financial regulators during my career, they were all serious about one thing and it wasn’t politics. It was using their professional expertise to perform their jobs well.
For all of the deep-state fearmongering, we’ve yet to see any clear evidence, apart from a few leaks to the press during Trump’s first term, of civil disobedience or any efforts to sabotage him. To the contrary. When the Trump tax cuts were passed, for example, there were no rogue IRS agents who refused to execute them for partisan reasons.
With the erosion of agency independence, what we will see is the subversion of truth, facts, and justice in some of America’s most sensitive administrative agencies. They would all be subject and beholden to a new law and standard: Donald Trump.
I’m not sure why any business person would want this type of uncertainty. Where Trump could one day fire the head of the Federal Trade Commission (currently an independent agency), replace her with a MAGA loyalist, and have the immense power to punish companies that don’t bow to his authority.
For those who think the Supreme Court will check his behavior, simply read any of the cases from the end of their last term, including my write-up of Trump v. United States, to understand why nobody should have faith that the rule of law is alive and well in that judicial body. At this point, it’s reasonable to expect that the Court’s conservative majority will protect Trump at all costs.
Trump did some good though
I promised a fair and objective assessment of Trump the candidate at the outset, and it’s time to deliver the positives. Assuming you have convincing arguments to counter Trump’s rule of law threats and the serious concerns about his overall character and fitness for the office (not to mention his age at almost 80!), we can then turn to his policies. But competency and the moral makeup of a person who wants to rule the “free world” should always predominate.
When it comes to policy, Trump did some good. I’ll be the first to admit that his overall approach to China was long overdue. So many former Presidents and candidates talked tough about China, but Trump tried to do something. Yes, it resulted in a trade war, but it showed the Chinese that they couldn’t manipulate their currency and international trade with impunity.
And while I’m very concerned with statements Trump has made about handing Ukraine to Putin, he was right to demand more accountability from America’s NATO partners. For too long many NATO countries were skimping on paying their fair share while America covered the bulk of the costs to run the greatest defense alliance in the world.
Trump also had huge success with the Abraham Accords. These received little media attention, but they were probably the closest America has ever come to helping Israel normalize relations with a large subset of the Arab world.
The Arab world today and the world at large are far less stable than they were under Trump. To his credit, Trump started no new foreign wars. His economy thrived until COVID. Inflation was low, the stock market was up, and unemployment was down.
There was a lot to like. So I can understand why some people may say, “I’m looking at his policies”, but that takes an unreasonably narrow and limited view of the man.
The bad policies of Donald Trump
Staying on the economic theme, Trump was anything but fiscally conservative. He spent like the archetype of a big government-loving liberal that Republicans love to criticize. Even before the pandemic struck, Trump had racked up a significant amount of debt, ultimately adding more to the federal deficit than any president in history (~$7.8 trillion).
Speaking of the pandemic, Trump’s management of it was horrific. The U.S. was near the top in death rate amongst developed countries. Trump recommended that the American people try things like “bleach” to get rid of the disease. He promised that COVID-19 would miraculously disappear by Easter. He didn’t take it seriously until it was far too late.
I gave him credit for keeping the U.S. out of new foreign wars, but he arguably planted the seeds for the Biden Administration’s disastrous exit from Afghanistan. Yes, Biden ultimately made the call to evacuate and should bear the majority of the blame for its horrific execution, but Trump left him in a horrible situation. The Taliban was in its strongest military position in Afghanistan since 2001 when Biden entered office, largely due to Trump’s dealmaking skills that gave the Taliban significant legitimacy.
Before moving on from foreign policy, we cannot forget about Trump’s encounters with Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguably the most formidable adversary to the U.S. today. Trump’s performance at the infamous Helsinki Summit was embarrassing as he threw the entire U.S. intelligence community under Putin’s bus. Trump praised Putin while questioning his own people (note: the CIA is another independent agency that Trump could significantly influence and politicize by removing its independence).
This pandering to dictators and autocrats was an almost daily occurrence for Trump. Whether it was love letters to Kim Jong Un or complimenting Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Trump celebrated strongmen like no President has done in U.S. history.
These critiques have not even included possibly Trump’s most challenging issue: abortion. He has flip-flopped and changed his perspective on this topic so many times it’s hard to believe he would not sign a national abortion ban. It’s a bad topic for Trump because the vast majority of Americans want – at a minimum – the protections of Roe v. Wade when it comes to women’s health and rights.
The same is true with guns. The vast majority of Americans want minimum and uniform standards for gun control. Trump expects sympathy when crazy people with guns attempt to shoot him, but his policies have enabled mentally ill people to easily possess guns. Ask the parents of numerous schoolchildren who have been murdered about sympathy.
Trump may think his best issue is border control, and I would agree had he not sabotaged the bipartisan deal that would have fixed many of the asylum and immigration issues; a deal that was championed by one of the most conservative members of the Senate in James Lankford of Oklahoma. Trump blew up the deal so he could campaign on the issue.
Why the bad of Donald Trump far outweighs the good
Reasonable minds can differ on policy. I miss a world where we can debate in good faith on economic, foreign policy, and domestic issues. What there should be no disagreement on – in America at least – are the fundamental principles of democracy.
If a candidate has demonstrated a lack of respect for the rule of law, that should be an immediate disqualifier for the job of President. No matter their political affiliation. It’s the foundation for everything.
Combine that with a host of concerning policy actions and statements, and it’s nearly impossible to find enough positivity to warrant even some support. Unless, of course, your affection for the person outweighs all other factors.
But if you are willing to excuse the rule of law considerations, the moral character and criminal record, and the bad policies that left America in more debt than ever, you still have to be willing to accept the endless grift.
Trump recently launched “Official Trump Coins.”
He’s previously sold Trump Bibles, Trump Sneakers, and Trump NFTs. I’m not saying that previous politicians have refrained from profiting from public office, but we’ve never witnessed such brazen behavior by a President or candidate in American history. His carefree willingness to profit from his public position of trust is yet another example of questionable character and fitness.
While Republicans were running around these past four years investigating Hunter Biden and his business ties to China and Ukraine, nobody questioned Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner accepted billions of dollars from the Saudi government just months after leading his role in the Trump White House as senior adviser for Middle East policy.
Trump charged exorbitant amounts to his Secret Service detail and accepted inflated prices from foreign dignitaries at his Washington D.C. hotel while he was in office. Yet nobody from the Republican Party batted an eye.
With so much to criticize, it can easily appear that the mainstream media is out to get Trump if they don’t pick their battles. The countless legal actions against him can appear like “lawfare” (or the weaponization of the legal system against him).
But while I will be the first to admit that Trump did some good while in office and that he’s treated unfairly at times, we must be serious about why he’s motivated to run for President for a third time. Is it truly for a love of country? Is it really out of concern that America will never be great again without him?
Or is it actually for immunity from prosecution? Is it to save himself from criminal convictions and likely prison sentences?
When you understand Trump’s motives, you can understand Donald Trump’s behavior a little better. For any of the good he did during his first administration, it’s far outweighed by everything else and what he plans to do in the future.
If we realize that future, it will test the limits of American democracy.
Further reading:
Aliens: The Three-Body Problem and Humanity’s Greatest Test by John Polonis
Trump vs Harris for Small Businesses by J. Isaac Bowman
“Zionist” Isn’t a Dirty Word by Brianna Hoegler