Trump's Accomplishments

A common complaint from President Trump’s supporters is that those of the left hate him so much that they won’t even admit all of the great things he has accomplished for the nation.  He may be a jerk and a crook, one said, but he’s made America a better place in many ways that far outweigh his character flaws.  Right?  A fairly thorough recap of those claimed accomplishments appeared in the Dallas News a while back, and looks something like this:

·         His many judicial appointments, including two Supreme Court justices

·         Tax cuts

·         An expanding economy, with lower unemployment, more jobs, and higher GDP

·         Raising tariffs and otherwise remedying flawed trade deals

·         Massive reduction in regulations on business

·         Tougher immigration restrictions

·         Attacks on ObamaCare

·         Draining the swamp

·         Dialing back tensions with N. Korea

·         The toughest pressures on Russia of any US President

·         Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem

·         Defeating ISIS

·         More accomplishments in the first two years than any other US President

Why indeed wouldn’t an honest opponent admit Trump’s many accomplishments, even if they find fault with him in other ways?  The mainstream media is horribly guilty of this as well, hardly ever reporting the good things Trump does without finding fault.  That seems just mean spirited. 

Well, there are a few reasons.  A big one is that many of the claimed accomplishments cannot be backed up by the facts; in other words, Trump and his supporters want him to get credit for things he didn’t really do.  “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” pretty well summarizes the problem there. 

The other big problem is that Trump wants credit for things that the majority of Americans oppose.  We know that a majority of Americans did NOT vote for him for President, even with the dirty interference of our greatest adversary, the Russians, his own campaign of blatant lies, and illegal efforts to keep black, Latino, and Native American citizens from voting.  It is very clear that a large majority of Americans oppose him and his policies, as currently only 39% approve of the job he is doing.   https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx

Thus, for example, when Trump’s side boasts of massively reducing business regulations, the majority of Americans are greatly dismayed that this includes rolling back countless environmental protections.  A climate-change denier himself, he put men in charge of the EPA and Dept. of Interior who proceeded to thoroughly gut regulations that were protecting our clean waters, air, and lands.  The same kind of thing has happened in terms of consumer protection, housing, drugs, and other areas where the majority of Americans do NOT see reduced business regulations as a positive thing.

Attacks on ObamaCare fall into the same category.  After how many attempts to shut the program down – 5, 10? Oh, that’s right – more than 50 times – it still stands.  http://time.com/4712725/ahca-house-repeal-votes-obamacare/  The American people, and lately, many Republican members of Congress, are demanding that ObamaCare measures stay intact, even as Trump and his posse continue to rail against it.

Judicial appointments?  Well first of all, had Trump lost the presidency as undoubtedly would have happened in a fair election, none of this would be an issue.  There would be no conservative court appointees, no Gorsuch, no Kavanaugh, no dozens of lower court appointments the Republicans had held off on putting forward.  But apart from that, had the Republicans played by the rules, Obama would not have been denied his Constitutional right for Merrick Garland to be nominated to the Supreme Court.  You can justify that victory by the Republicans however you wish, but the fact is that it was unprecedented in American politics, a chicken-shit move in violation of the Constitution’s intent, and an unethical way for Republicans to gain control of the Supreme Court that ignored the wishes of the majority. 

Similarly, Brett Kavanaugh is the only jurist in American history who was confirmed for the Supreme Court, while being opposed by the majority of Americans.  https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/409305-more-americans-oppose-kavanaugh-nomination-amid-partisan-rancor-poll   Those on the right want to celebrate these judicial appointments, made possible by foreign intervention in our election, and by disgraceful, unconstitutional strategies?  Well shame on them, but those celebrations are not shared by the majority of Americans.

And this underscores a key point.  Millions of Evangelicals (who make up a big part of Trump’s base) have basically said that they’re willing to accept all of Trump’s flaws and egregious actions, because he got them conservative Supreme Court, and other, judges.  For years to come, these folks beam, the ungodly agenda of the liberal left, with gay marriage and abortion at the top of that list, will be beaten back.  Well look – the US is not governed by the Bible or the beliefs of Evangelicals.  They don’t like the liberal direction we’ve been going lately?  OK – but they are in the minority in that regard.  Fair elections across the nation show that most of us do, and these folks have no right to impose their religious beliefs on the majority, as their unethical and illegal methods have allowed them to do.

Moving on, there are stricter immigration controls.  Most Americans want that, but they do not want Trump’s “beautiful wall” and it most definitely isn’t being “paid for by Mexico,” as we were constantly promised.  Similarly, most Americans don’t appreciate the pointless political theater of sending thousands of US troops to the border, at a cost of millions, to protect against a caravan of peaceful asylum seekers – right before the midterm elections, just to fire up his base.  The only thing they like less is the deplorable way that ICE separated children from their parents, keeping the kids in prison-like settings, and then unable to return the children to their parents as the courts ordered.  Yeah – nobody except the most heartless righties liked that.

Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem?  This was extremely important to daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, along with whatever members of Trump’s base who are not frickin Nazis.  Otherwise, this isn’t something Americans as a whole wanted.

How about the “biggest tax cut in history” last year, aimed at helping the middle-class?  Well it turns out that a nonpartisan analysis shows it was only the 8^th largest tax cut since 1918.  Much more importantly, every non-political analysis also shows that the middle-class got a modest gain in the first year or so of the bill.  But after that, their taxes will actually increase.  What nobody denies is that almost all of the tax benefits go to businesses and the wealthy.  Further, economists point out that with the economy at full-employment and roaring along, these benefits to the wealthy are ill-timed, unnecessary, and will mostly just end up increasing the national debt.   

Speaking of the economy, Trump consistently brags about how he turned things around and has given Americans a stronger economy.  This is mostly false, for a couple of reasons.  First, economists have always reminded us that the President, of whatever party, has little impact on the economy.  Studies show that about 85% of what happens to things like unemployment, inflation, wages, and stock prices are the result of factors the President has no influence over.  But second, even if you don’t accept that, here are two charts to show how the economy has done in the last 10 years.

First is the unemployment rate, which was a healthy 4.8% when Donald Trump took office from Barack Obama.  It was 7.6% when Obama became President during the Great Recession.  Under Trump, the rate has continued to fall, sitting at 3.9% currently.  But as is clear below, by far the biggest improvement here was during the Obama years, not during Trump’s time.  It was hardly Donald Trump who turned the unemployment rate around!

 (Sorry!  I can't get the graphic to show up here.  Email me if you want to see it; otherwise, you should get the idea from the text.)

Then there is the stock market, generally seen as a good measure of how the country’s doing.  We see the same thing here: Obama started with the Dow Jones Industrial Average around 8,000.  It rose almost his entire 8 years, ending up around 20,500 when Trump took office.  That’s a 156% increase.  Since then, stocks have risen more, to 23,500, for another 15% increase.  So it’s pretty clear under whose watch stocks – and the economy as a whole – improved.  (Hint: Not Trump’s)  The bottom line is that Trump has no business claiming responsibility for our strong economy.

  (Sorry!  I can't get the graphic to show up here.  Email me if you want to see it; otherwise, you should get the idea from the text.)

But at least he “drained the swamp,” right?  Well here we apparently have a disagreement over what that means.  To me and the majority of people in America and elsewhere, it sounds like getting rid of corrupt and/or incompetent politicians, over-powerful lobbyists, and other sleazy influences in our government – right?  But the Washington Examiner, a pro-Trump newspaper, explains how it basically refers to “The Deep State,” the alleged group of people and institutions in favor of big, liberal government that seeks to dominate the people’s will and beat down freedom-lovers like our President. 

According to the Examiner, this includes the FBI, the Dept. of Justice, the “failed” NY Times, and every member of the mainstream media.  Well, this whole claim of a “Deep State” is bogus and falls apart when looking at the facts in a logical way (check out my blog on The Mainstream Media).  It’s a big, sad joke on Trump’s uneducated, conspiracy-minded followers.  But anyway, every time an FBI or DOJ employee loses power or their job – draining the swamp!  George Soros and his “rented evangelicals” outed?  Draining the swamp!  Making a false charge against CNN?  Draining the swamp!  And so here we’ll have to disagree, because the majority of people see the inexperienced, corrupt officials that Trump has put on his Cabinet and elsewhere, and they believe the swamp has gotten much worse under Trump, not better.

It is also obvious to the majority of people that President Trump is beholden to Russia’s Putin one way or another.  Even his own Secretaries of Defense, of State, and Intelligence heads have expressed shock and disbelief at how Trump has failed to take Russia to task for its interference in our country’s elections, to state that he believes Putin and not our own intelligence experts, to meet privately with Putin on multiple occasions – without even a US translator present.  These and other examples make it clear that there’s something very wrong, and probably treasonous, with the Trump-Putin relationship.  The President’s claim to have been harder on Russia than any other President is a classic example of him taking the truth and claiming the exact opposite.  Nobody but his own group of followers believes that.  The rest of us, the rest of the world, just sadly shake our heads at the ridiculousness of it.    

As for N. Korea, Trump met with its leader some six months ago and claimed a tremendous break-through between the two countries.  N. Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat,” he boasted in June, 2018.  And yet he’s never produced any substantive points of the agreement.  And yet our own intelligence agencies have confirmed that N. Korea continues to manufacture nuclear weapons, despite the agreement made in June.  And yet Korea experts agree that Trump was duped by N. Korea and its typical false promises.

ISIS defeated?  Mostly, although the recent US decision to pull out of Syria worries our defense people, and prompted Secry. of Defense Mattis to resign, in part because it can allow ISIS to rebuild itself.  Still – this may be the closest example of where Trump HAS actually overseen a great accomplishment.  And the only one.

But the others, all the others, are not.  There are no great accomplishments for the American people.  For Trump personally?  Yes.  In the minds of his shockingly misinformed followers?  Yes.  For the minority of Christian Evangelicals focused on only a few issues that most Americans disagree with?  Yes.  For big business, big polluters, the very wealthy, for Russia?  Yes.  The bottom line is that Donald Trump is not due any respect or admiration for his accomplishments, and the last thing we should feel about saying that is guilt