Let’s say you go on a road trip. For the first three days, things go well, and everyone is having a good time. On the fourth day, the driver crashes the car, which explodes in a massive fireball. Would you call that a successful trip?
In spite of all the disasters that occurred on his watch, Trump’s diehard loyalists continue to insist that we should judge his presidency on the basis that “the first three years were good.” They are all too willing to give him a pass on the fourth year, to credit him for the good of his presidency while absolving him of blame for the bad.
If Trump does not deserve blame for the fourth year, then why does he deserve credit for the first three? Trump and his supporters could say, with some truth, that the disasters of 2020 stemmed from forces beyond his control. It could just as easily be said that many of the successes of the first three years – the good economy, the destruction of ISIS, the relative global peace – stemmed from factors at least partly beyond Trump’s direct control.
Now let’s go back to our road trip. Imagine your driver had a whole bunch of excuses for why he crashed. He was getting bad directions from the GPS. It was dark and rainy and he couldn’t see clearly. There were a bunch of potholes in the road.
Some of these excuses might even be legitimate. And yet they do not absolve the driver of the responsibility to get the car safely from Point A to Point B. Legally, he is still at fault. And you would probably not feel safe getting in a car with him behind the wheel again.
Why, then, should we trust Trump with a second shot at driving the car?
Let’s take a minute to remember the hell of 2020. First, all our civil liberties were taken away by smirking bureaucrats. We were literally confined to our homes. Then the government let people out of their homes, but only to riot and destroy the property and livelihoods of productive citizens. We were told that the rioters were noble freedom fighters, while those who tried to hold indoor church services were murderers.
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2020 was one long national humiliation ritual. That would have been bad enough with a Democrat at the helm. But overseeing it all, and intervening only intermittently at best, was the man who had run for president on the basis that he would stick it to the establishment.
Presidents cannot be held responsible for everything that goes wrong in the country. But they can be held responsible for not doing everything within their power to fix things. Trump could have fired, or sidelined, Fauci. He could have pressured governors to keep their states open. He could have sent in the National Guard to crush the Fiery but Mostly Peaceful Protests and restore order to America.
Oh, but Trump would have lost if he took more decisive action? Well, he lost anyway. At least he might have lost with dignity.
Oh, but Trump was getting bad advice? All this proves is that Trump is a weak man who listens to bad advice, and who broke his promise to hire all the best people for his administration. The deep state stopped him? Well, he should have stopped the deep state.
Gone are the days when presidents like Harry Truman, men raised in a manlier and more forthright era, would take as their motto, “The buck stops here.” Trump’s most valiant defenders seem to do nothing these days but pass the buck. It was everyone’s fault but Trump’s… while the successes of his administration are entirely his to brag about.
At the very least, Trump should offer up a public reckoning of his myriad mistakes. He should acknowledge that he dropped the ball pretty badly in 2020, and elaborate on the lessons he learned, and the measures he will take to stop it from happening again in a potential second term. He has not done so. Nor will he. Apology is not in his vocabulary.
Let’s look at our world today. A faltering economy. A growing illegal immigration and fentanyl crisis. Wars breaking out all over the globe. Humiliation for Republicans in the past several election cycles. Is this America made great again? If Trump was so great, why is everything so damned awful? And why will the second four years fix things, if the first four years didn’t?
Now, let’s say the driver who crashed the car told us, somewhat superciliously, that despite all his failures, we had no choice but to let him drive again, because the other driver is even worse and probably has dementia. This may be true, but wouldn’t you have a right to feel insulted by such a poor choice being laid before you? And wouldn’t you be searching for a third potential driver? One with a good driving record, perhaps?
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