A historian from the future looks back: What will be most remembered of Trump's presidency?

[marmar]

A historian from the future looks back: What will be most remembered of Trump's presidency?
Historians will remember Trump as an aspiring dictator who failed because he was too dumb to understand COVID-19

By MATTHEW ROZSA
JANUARY 23, 2021 11:00AM


(Salon) How will historians remember Donald Trump?

One hundred years ago, America nearly slipped into a dictatorship. The nation was saved primarily by two things: The fact that the man who wished to be its fascist dictator, President Donald Trump, was too stupid to realize how to correctly respond to a worldwide plague, and the fact that he was a physical coward.

The first fact was by far the most important. When the COVID-19 pandemic began to ravage humanity in 2020, Trump responded in the worst ways possible: He downplayed the threat despite knowing that it was a deadly and contagious disease, defunded and sidelined agencies and individuals with the scientific expertise to contain the pandemic and failed to coordinate a coherent and effective federal response. He also promoted pseudoscience to his supporters, kept trying to prematurely reopen the economy and set a bad example by personally refusing to wear a mask, inevitably catching the disease himself. Although he was wealthy and powerful enough to receive the medical care necessary to survive to the end of his presidency, more than 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19 by the end of his term because of his poor leadership... roughly the same number as died during World War II. This meant that Americans comprised roughly 20 percent of the total worldwide COVID-19 deaths, even though the United States had just four percent of the world's population.

....(snip)....

Trump's efforts to become a dictator only increased after that. He violated the First Amendment by moving to punish Twitter after the social media company fact-checked him, tried to kneecap the Post Office so that people who voted by mail (who, due to the pandemic, were more likely to be anti-Trump) would be less likely to have their votes counted and insinuated that if re-elected he would seek 12 more years in office, even though the Constitution only allowed him four. He also repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the voters' verdict if he lost in the 2020 election (he also did this in 2016), conditioning his supporters to believe that the only possible outcomes were either that Trump would win or that the election would be illegitimate. Ominously he told a white supremacist and misogynist group known as the Proud Boys to "stand by" during one of his presidential debates; Trump adviser Roger Stone was notoriously connected to the violent group, and they played an outsize role in Trump's eventual coup attempt. ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/01/23/a-historian-from-the-future-looks-back-what-will-be-most-remembered-of-trumps-presidency/

[marble falls]

1. January 6, 2021.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Something we don't know about yet.

[SallyHemmings]

4. You are probably correct.

[Karadeniz]

3. This is a portrait of fascism.

[JohnnyLib2]

5. Astute and very satisfying article!

Thanks for posting.

[onecaliberal]

6. Doing NOTHING while thousands die each day. NOTHING

[Nitram]

7. A historian from the future might very well think the withdrawal from the Paris climate change

accord was the most significant failure of his administration. That historian might be living in a world where many coastal areas are underwater.

[RockCreek]

8. This. N/t