Monday 18 January 2021

What will Trump be remembered for?

I'm not sure one should use the word "legacy" when summing up Trump's impact on the US and the world over the last four years. Legacy has a certan affectionate ring to it. It's an accumulation of good things representing what someone has achieved in high office. Whatever Trump did achieve has been undermined/ruined/destroyed by his refusal to accept he lost the 2020 election and his rabble-rousing speech culminating in the brutal attack on the Capitol and the desecration of America's democratic foundations. That's not a legacy. That's a condemnation. His real legacy - but without any affectionate ring to it - is his brand of populist politics which I fear is here to stay. Whoever takes up the Republican baton is going to have to apply the Trump populism rule or fail to win support among the millions of Americans who seemed to have been waiting all their lives for someone like Trump to cheer them on. Whatever Trump may have achieved or at least tried to achieve in terms of foreign and domestic policy, it will all be washed away when Joe Biden gets his feet under the table and sets course in an opposite direction. I'm thinking North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, immigration, education, welfare benefits etc. One mark of Trump's four years worth mentioning. He approved the execution of 13 people. There hadn't been any executions for nearly two decades before he entered the White House. Let us hope that all 13 committed the appalling crimes for which they were convicted. But I am totally against capital punishment, always have been. And killing 13 people in the name of the State is not a legacy that any American president should want to shout about.

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