Whether you are in favor or against the outgoing US President Donald Trump, no one can deny that his tumultuous rule has reached no comparison in modern American history. NU.nl looks back on the last four years in three parts. What is Trump’s political and social legacy? Part 1: How Trump brought his own definition of ‘presidential’.
When is he going to act presidential? That question predominated in American media during the early months of the Trump administration. When he let go of his unprecedented confrontational tone for a moment, it was concluded that perhaps the moment had really arrived.
Many commentators thought that the New York real estate mogul and reality star would moderate his tone under the heavy burdens and duties associated with the world’s most powerful political office. Their assumption was that some of the presidency’s deference would descend like a mantle on Trump.
But Trump’s idiosyncrasies weren’t a campaign trick. His anger and fickleness, his predilection for conflict and aversion to prevailing norms, his journey from scandal to scandal, his unprecedented animosity towards the media, the rejection of facts and experts and the creation of an ‘alternative reality’ – they would remain.
Asking when someone is going to act “presidential” isn’t as relevant if they have very different ideas about what a president should do.
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Donald Trump announces the start of his presidential campaign in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York in June 2015 (Photo: ANP)
From controversy to controversy at breakneck speed
Trump had made a populist promise to his voters: he would finally give “ordinary Americans” control of politics again. According to him, the establishment was corrupt to the core. Washington DC, according to him, was’the Swamp‘(‘ the swamp ‘) and he – the ultimate outsider – was the man who was going to drain that.
During the campaign he had shown that he completely disregarded business as usual. He made his political entrance as the main driver of the racist theory that President Barack Obama was illegal because he was said to have been born in Kenya. Trump’s main electoral promise was to build a thousand-mile wall on the border with Mexico; at rallies he dismissed Mexican migrants as “rapists and murderers”. Political opponents were given a derogatory nickname and relentlessly attacked on Twitter.
One riot followed another and the media and the opposition ran breathlessly, but nothing really hurt Trump.
‘Finally someone for us’
He spoke to and mobilized many people who had lost faith in politics. His supporters were not always enamored with his rude statements and unpolished behavior, but that did not outweigh their relief: here was finally a politician who was willing to fight for them, did not care about political correctness and said what he thought – not such a slick, but fundamentally unreliable career driver.
Trump’s rise was a symptom of social problems and political divisive fungi that had been going on for decades. He became the focus of widespread dissatisfaction with the deterioration of rural America’s infrastructure and the excesses of globalization: languishing industries, lost jobs, suicides and painkiller addiction. And yes, for the fears of conservative white voters, faced with the demographic changes that will eventually make them a minority.
His obsessive belief that every aspect of life and contact with another is a battle to be won and his refusal to ever show weakness made him a tireless champion in the eyes of his followers. Trump became both the epitome of their anger and the bearer of their hope, counting on their unconditional allegiance in return.
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Trump supporters attend a campaign rally in Georgia on January 4, 2020. (Photo: ANP)
Trump Party
With that movement behind him, Trump managed to win over the Republican Party completely. He had been struggling with her identity for years and the party establishment, despite fierce efforts, was unable to repel him. Prominent Republicans who denounced him “crazy madman” of “pathological liartook a turn and became his fiercest defenders during his presidency.
On the other end of the political spectrum, Trump was hated like no other president in modern American history. He refused to admit mistakes, pursued an unprecedentedly harsh conservative policy, insulted foreign allies, showed admiration for dictators, had autocratic tendencies himself, and dealt with the principles of the democratic constitutional state.
What vexed his critics most was that he used the power of office to thwart political opponents and consistently refused to recognize Congress’s controlling role over the presidency.
Trump constantly pushed the limits of his power and tried to redefine what “presidential” means. He became the first president to be impeached twice.
Best/worst president ever
According to many of his supporters, he was the best president ever, according to many the worst. However you turn it, the Trump administration has brought about changes that will reverberate for decades to come, both in the US and around the world.
In the next two parts of the ‘Legacy of a President’ series, we look at Trump’s presidency from two perspectives. In the eyes of his followers, what has he accomplished – and what, according to his critics, has he destroyed?
These parts will be published on NU.nl in the course of Wednesday afternoon.
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