Eliyahu Kamisher -
Over five years ago Donald Trump descended the golden elevator of his Trump Tower in New York to announce a longshot presidential run.
He was then a fringe outsider in the Republican party, a reality television star known for hawking steaks and dress ties, whose candidacy was mocked by political elite.
But Trump’s infamous speech that day attacking Mexican migrants as “rapists” would portend a volatile brand of politics that since overtook the Republican party and ultimately the White House.
The consequences of four years of Trump reign in the White House reached a crescendo earlier this month when a horde of his supporters ransacked the Capitol building, led to the death of a police officer, and temporarily halted the confirmation of president-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
“Throughout his presidency, Trump has defied the Constitution and broken laws, norms, practices, and precedents, for which he must be held accountable now and after he leaves office,” a group of over1,000 historians and writers said in a open letter advocating for a second impeachment of the president.
“No future president should be tempted by the example of his defiance going unpunished.”
Trump notched notable policy achievements and defeats, sprouted a conspiracy movement unprecedented in US politics and undermined faith in the foundations of US democracy.
In the near-term, Trump’s political movement has resulted in a historic failure for the Republican party with the loss of both chambers of Congress and the White House to Democratic control, marking the first time such a drastic shift has taken place since1932.
He leaves the country ravaged by a pandemic that he consistently downplayed and mismanaged, while infamously pondering whether disinfectant could be a possible cure and turning public health guidelines like mask-wearing into culture war issues.
“A historian has to always account for the possibility that 50 years later a president would look better in some ways than he did to his own generation. That having been said Donald Trump is not going to change the record,” Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian said on MSNBC in December.
“He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die.”
Trump’s embrace of conspiracy, anger and self-interest has elevated an extremist strain of politics in the general public that has long been suppressed by party leaders. Now, with over 74 million Americans voting for Trump, and a large chunk of those voters believing that the Democrats stole the election, Trump has enabled much of American society to live in a false reality that could impact on many aspects of Biden’s term in office.
While Trump built a base of hardcore supporters he also galvanised a majority of the country against his brand of vitriolic politics, with Arizona and Georgia, two long-held bastions of conservatism, flipping for Biden after decades of Republican rule. Trumpism also catalysed a burgeoning strain of left-wing progressive politics that appear poised to define the Democratic party for years to come. — dpa
Following years of the Republican party openly and tacitly approving Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric many Democratic lawmakers, typified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are pushing for less bipartisan compromise and more wide-ranging policies on climate change, criminal justice and immigration reform.
Domestically Trump’s biggest policy achievement among many Republicans is successfully appointing three Supreme Court judges to the bench. His nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett just days after the death of liberal court icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg has decisively swung the court’s ideological balance toward conservatism, which will likely play a pivotal role on issues of abortion, gun rights and health care access for decades to come.
Trump also imposed hard-line immigration policies that saw a wall fortified along parts of the US border with Mexico. He prevented the entrance of asylum seekers into the country and separated over 3,000 children from their parents at the border. Over two and half yearssince Trump ended the child separation policy authorities have yet tolocate the parents of 611 children, according to a January court filing.
The president also oversaw a foreign policy that shunned European allies, fomented a trade war with China while upending the Iran nuclear deal and embracing Israel’s occupation over the Palestinians.
Biden may be able to quickly undue the impact of Trump’s legacy on some foreign policy issues. Europe, for instance, is greeting a Biden presidency with open arms after years of Trump’s embittered policies towards the region. Biden has also pledged to re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement, granting the US another opportunity to lead global climate change policy.
Trump’s legacy will likely prove more long-lasting in other arenas.It is unclear if Biden can revive the Iran nuclear deal after theTrump administration imposed suffocating sanctions on Tehran and killed top general Qassem Soleimani, an action that nearly launched a war between the countries.
“While the world was already in growing disarray, and while US influence was already declining, Trump dramatically accelerated both trends,” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote. “The bottom line is that he is handing off a country and a world in far worse condition than he inherited. That is his distressing legacy.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s policies toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran appear to have created a new status quo in the region that has entrenched Israel’s control over territories claimed by Palestinians and established a new US embassy in Jerusalem that would be logistically and politically untenable for Biden to move back to Tel Aviv.
As Biden brings an end to Trump’s chaotic tenure on January 20 the future of Trump in the Republican party and in US politics remains unclear — after all, he has yet to face a Senate trial. But his lasting impact will undoubtedly endure. — dpa
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