Trump Returns?

I had an interesting email the other day praising the Accomplishments of Donald Trump while he was President.  

So, in fairness, I started to check.

Obamacare

Trump didn't repeal Obamacare — he accidentally bolstered it.  (not much of an achievement from his supporters point of view.)

Defence Spending

The move: The 2018 strategy rewired the Defense Department’s vast bureaucracy away from a focus on fighting insurgents and terrorists in the Middle East toward a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia. As a result, the military is changing how it trains personnel, which technologies it buys, and the geographic areas of the world where it prioritizes its forces.

The impact: Already it has led to a reordering of the Pentagon budget and new investments supported by a bipartisan majority in Congress, including billions of dollars to beef up the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific.

The upshot: Despite differences in tone and rhetoric, this is a refocusing of the United States’ military posture that is expected to continue in the Biden administration.  (looks like a plus for Trump)

Coronavirus

Trump failed to provide workplace guidance, making safety harder for workers. (we all know what a tangle Trump got into over the virus, need we go further?)

Religion in schools

Trump boosted religious organizations in education. (may please some of his core supporters, most folks won’t even notice)

Oversight

Trump's Interior Department set a new standard for ignoring Congress.  A dangerous precedent

Cannabis

Legal marijuana spreads across most of the country.  (I suspect the country is split on this one, but who knows?  Next step - legalise heroin, thus depriving the Taliban of most of their income?)

Loan forgiveness

Trump curbed relief for defrauded students.  ????

Shell companies

Trump made it easier to prosecute financial crimes like money laundering.  A plus!

Poverty

Trump shrank the food safety net — a lot.  Can’t see how this is a plus?

Overtime pay

Millions of workers lost access to extra pay for long hours. ( Popular with whom?)

Drones

Trump imposed a near-ban on government use of Chinese drones  (Clear win for Trump, but does the public care?)

Taxes

Trump goosed the economy with tax cuts that didn't pay political dividends (open to question at the moment)

Robotcalls

Trump cracked down — mostly successfully — on unwanted calls and texts ( a good policy and clearly a win for Trump)

Climate science

Trump exiled climate scientists from Washington—literally.  The Agriculture Department went to great lengths to quietly quash scientific research conducted by its employees or funded by government dollars, in particular research about how the agriculture industry could play a critical role in combating climate change. Secretary Sonny Perdue was aggressive in reshaping USDA, most overtly by relocating many of the department’s research scientists out of Washington to the Midwest.  The Agriculture Department went to great lengths to quietly quash scientific research conducted by its employees or funded by government dollars, in particular research about how the agriculture industry could play a critical role in combating climate change. Secretary Sonny Perdue was aggressive in reshaping USDA, most overtly by relocating many of the department’s research scientists out of Washington to the Midwest.

The move: Officials refused to publicize dozens of studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change on the agriculture sector. The department even stopped the release of a plan on how to respond to the climate change crisis.

Foreign Workers

The administration, however, said U.S. employers are abusing the work visa because they want to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor. The administration’s most recent rules sought to limit the types of jobs foreign workers can apply for, while also requiring employers to pay them more.

The impact: Some changes — including those that narrow the definition of a "specialty occupation" and that require employers to pay foreign workers more — were expected to reduce the number of approved H-1B visa petitions by one-third. Those efforts have since been halted in court. Businesses seeking these non-immigrant worker visas also saw an increase in requests to provide more evidence in their applications and a higher rate of visa denials.

Toxic chemicals

Trump impeded regulation — even though Republicans wanted it.

Trump took a big swing at finally fixing health-care technology

Sexual harassment

Trump rescinded rules protecting workers at federal contractors

On the eve of the #MeToo era, Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress repealed transparency safeguards designed to protect hundreds of thousands of people working for companies bidding for federal contracts from sexual harassment. Business groups vehemently opposed the requirements, which they dubbed the “Blacklist Rule,” arguing that the regulation was so broadly worded that potential contractors could be barred from doing work with the government based on allegations alone.

Immigration

A big crackdown on legal immigrants

While it was no surprise to anyone who followed his 2016 presidential campaign that Trump wanted to crack down on illegal immigration at the southern border, his administration also imposed tighter restrictions on legal immigration, even of the high-skilled workers he claimed to want in the country.

The move: The Department of Homeland Security has pushed through restrictions and changes to the H-1B visa program that allows U.S. businesses to hire high-skilled foreign workers for “specialty“ jobs. Businesses rely on these workers to fill jobs they say they can’t fill with home-grown workers

Farm aid

Trump doled out billions in aid to farmers  (popular in Missouri!)

Banking

Trump rolled back rules on banks designed to prevent another financial crisis

Trump fulfilled a major GOP priority in 2018 by signing the first big bank deregulation bill since the landmark Dodd-Frank Act was enacted in 2010. It was a victory for the nation's lenders, which spent years fighting to roll back rules enacted in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. Republicans and moderate Democrats had been working on some of the proposals well before the 2016 election, but the Trump administration played a key role in making it possible.

Housing segregation

Trump rolled back rules on racially segregated housing

Trade rules

Trump made trade a top priority, but had only mixed results

Trump prioritized trade concerns far more than any other president in recent history, pursuing a hyperactive agenda that flummoxed allies and adversaries alike. In particular, Trump shifted the United States toward a more nationalist trade policy characterized by an aggressive use of tariffs and sharp criticism of China, the European Union and the World Trade Organization.

The move: Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement supported by most other Republicans and ran roughshod over the rules-based trading system to pursue his political objective of boosting U.S. industry. He imposed tariffs on more than $350 billion worth of Chinese goods and on billions of dollars’ worth of steel and aluminum imports. He struck a trade deal with China that eliminates many agricultural trade barriers but left many other serious trade issues unaddressed. He also used the threat of withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement to strike a more protectionist version of the agreement with Canada and Mexico.

The impact: Trump elevated concerns about China’s trade practices and acquisition of American technology to a new level and helped usher in what many now are calling a cold war between the world’s two largest economies. He also weakened the World Trade Organization through his willingness to hamstring the group’s dispute settlement system and to unilaterally impose tariffs to punish trading partners and protect domestic industries.

The upshot: Trump leaves office with a mixed record on trade. The new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement has groundbreaking provisions on labor enforcement and costly new rules for North American automakers. Trump fell far short on his promise to negotiate bilateral trade deals to make up for his decision to pull out of the TPP, although he did negotiate a number of partial trade deals with the EU, Japan and Brazil and borrowed heavily from the TPP in his NAFTA update.

Overall this is a mixed bag.  The idea that Donald Trump did nothing whilst in office is clearly wrong.  But, any good must be balanced with his clear mistakes.

The Bad and some downright Ugly, we have to balance the books

The beginning of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump included statements that would have ended the campaign of any other politician. Has an announcement speech ever looked so much like a flashily produced political suicide? Did he really just call a key part of the electorate criminals and rapists?

Ever since his blunt, racially divisive debut in Trump Tower in June 2015, Trump has proven that gaffes do not singe his hide like they do the fragile and fretful politicians who tiptoe through the typical campaign for public office. Time and again, Trump poured gasoline on himself and lit a match. Time and again, pundits predicted fatal self-immolation. Instead, Trump often rode the ensuing firestorm like an Atlas rocket. His poll numbers actually went up after he insulted John McCain’s war record. What mainstream politician has ever said something like that, much less received a boost out of it? The only thing more stunning than Trump’s dismantling of campaign norms has been how consistently he has flirted with disaster.

He has insulted brown people, black people, Muslim people, Jewish people. He has insulted women. He has insulted the grieving parents of a dead soldier. He has mocked a disabled person and expressed admiration for dictators. He has ham-handedly pandered to a politically critical portion of the population by posting to social media a picture of gringo Tex-Mex captioning it, “I love hispanics!” He has suggested he could shoot somebody and not lose votes. He has openly talked about the possibility of the assassination of his opponent. Twice. And these are just the insults, not the demonstrable falsehoods.

Some examples:

1. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” June 16, 2015, announcement speech.

It helped him dispatch 16 challengers in the extended primaries of a party of which he has been an off-and-on member, and it has taken him to Monday night, to the first of three debates against Hillary Clinton—his best chance yet to get an edge in the race to become the 45th president of the United States. Amid the pre-debate speculation that he could say something at the debate that would cost him the election, it’s difficult to imagine what he could say that would do what so many other statements of his were unable to and end his campaign.

Here are 37 of his gaffes that could have been fatal—but somehow weren’t.

1. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” June 16, 2015, announcement speech.

2. “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” July 17, 2015, Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Trump was referring to Senator John McCain, a former Navy pilot who was tortured during his five-and-a-half years as a POW during the Vietnam war.

3. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” August 7, 2015, CNN interview about Megyn Kelly, one of Fox News’ moderators in the first Republican debate.

4. “Well I really watch the shows. You really see a lot of great, you know, when you watch your show and all of the other shows, and you have the generals and you have certain people that you like.” August 16, 2015, interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” trying to name his foreign policy advisors.

5. “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” September 9, 2015, in Rolling Stone, talking about GOP candidate Carly Fiorina.

6. “It has not been easy for me ... My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.” October 26, 2015, on NBC’s “TODAY” show.

7. “@mygreenhippo #BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa. Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP.” October 22, 2015, retweet by @realDonaldTrump.

8. “I want to know who are the soldiers carrying suitcases with $50 million? How stupid are we? I wouldn’t be surprised if those soldiers, if the cash didn’t get there.” October 1, 2015, speech in Keene, New Hampshire, suggesting U.S. soldiers embezzled cash intended for disbursement to officials in Iraq and Afghanistan.

9. “Now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy. ‘Ah, I don’t know what I said! I don’t remember!’” November 24, 2015, physically mocks New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital condition called arthrogryposis that affects his joints.

16. “If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. … For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.” February 18, 2016. Press release from the Trump campaign.

17. “Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don't know.” February 28, 2016 on CNN, asked if he’ll disavow the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The judge was appointed by Barack Obama, a federal judge. Frankly, he should recuse himself because he’s given us ruling after ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative. What happens is the judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great. I think that’s fine.” May 27, 2016, rally in San Diego, in which he criticizes Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who, on the basis of his Mexican ancestry, Trump alleges cannot judge fairly in a lawsuit related to Trump University.

It’s against two NFL games. I got a letter from the NFL saying ‘This is ridiculous.’” July 30, 2016, in an interview with ABC about the presidential debate schedule. The NFL categorically denied sending such a letter.

You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?" August 19, 2016, at a rally in Dimondale, Michigan, explaining why African Americans should vote for him.

So we have to ask how did he overcome these seemingly fatal mistakes?  Let’s add to the list his dysfunctional personal life.  It seems almost impossible for him to win and to rermain a viable Republican candidatefor the next election.

Conclusion:  the general perception of Donald Trump is just about spot on.  He should get credit for overcoming so may obstacles to become President - most of them of his own making.  he remains a deeply unattractive character who will not be missed on the political scene.