The Record on the Trump Presidency

 As the sun rises on January 18, 2021, we now find ourselves less than 48 hours from the end of the Trump Presidency. As such, it seemed like a good time to do a brief overview of what his administration accomplished over the last four years. Here, in my opinion, are ten things that were particularly noteworthy (not, necessarily, in any particular order). 

1. The Trump White House appointed more than 200 judges to the federal bench, nearly as many as President Obama did in two terms. While he appointed fewer than his three predecessors did in two terms, his impact will be most clearly felt in the 54 appellate court Judges appointed. It is not an exaggeration to say that President Trump restructured the federal judiciary in a single term. 
2. Of course, all of that would have been window dressing had he not accomplished a long time Republican goal of creating a conservative super majority on the Supreme Court. The politicization of the court was covert for years, became more overt with the failed nomination of Robert Bork, and fully flourished with the refusal to even vote on Merrick Garland. But for everything the Trump Administration did or did not accomplish for the GOP faithful, one thing that is indisputable is that McConnell's gambit with Garland's nomination not only paid off, but in spades when coupled with the retirement of Anthony Kennedy and the untimely death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Supreme Court Judge's judicial philosophies can be hard to pinpoint (see David Souter as example 1a). Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative stalwart by most any objective analysis, has already taken on a ton of water for failing to be "conservative enough." Time will tell if Gorsuch has a similar approach to Chief Justice Roberts, or if Kavanaugh or Coney Barrett surprise by being more moderate than Justice's Thomas and Alito. But Trump's reworking of the court to move the center to the right of Chief Justice Roberts is an outcome that will be felt for a generation at least. That is a long lasting accomplishment. 
3. Donald Trump broke all the rules of diplomacy with North Korea, got some photos out of it, and leaves the USA with a far bigger problem than he inherited. North Korea has continued to invest in and advance not only their nuclear weapons program, but also their delivery systems. Turns out, there are reasons for "conventional wisdom" in cases like North Korea, and reasons why prior administrations, Democrat or Republican, approached the problem in fairly similar ways. You can't just go rogue with foreign policy and expect it to work out well.
4. To that end, the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Iranian Nuclear Deal was consequential, and also a complete disaster. Many of my Trump apologist friends and family like to point to the Iran agreement as a failure of the Obama Administration, without knowing anything about the complexities of nuclear non-proliferation or the difficulty of actually delivering a multi-national agreement like the Iranian Nuclear Deal. As far back as 2014 there were strong signs that the Iran deal was working; instead, now we are left with a rapidly advancing Iranian nuclear program, the USA with a damaged reputation for future negotiations, and increasing likelihood of conflict with Iran leading to some sort of war. Simply put, the Iranian Nuclear Deal was the best of a series of bad options the world was left with to contain the Iranian nuclear program; Trump's hatred of all things Obama, coupled with he and his team's lack of skill in international relations, have led the world far closer to the Iranians crossing the breakout threshold and creating their own nuclear arsenal. 
5. President Trump took office with a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. He ran promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He never could quite get the votes to repeal (insert John McCain thumbs down) and he never published anything remotely resembling a plan to replace. This talking point was a fraud on Republican votes; he never intended to replace the ACA with anything, just as President George W Bush campaigned openly in 2004 about an Amendment to the Constitution barring same sex marriage, but never intended to act on it. 
6. President Trump undoubtedly moved the party to the right, making it so that staunch conservatives like John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Jeff Flake had to leave political office because they quickly became "Republicans In Name Only." You see the same thing happening right now with Liz Cheney. They eat their own, and the last four years have made that vibrantly clear. 
7. Under Trump there were tax cuts. He may not have been able to deliver repeal and replace, but his unified GOP government at least cut taxes. Of course, more than 60% of the savings went to the top 20% of income earners in the country, while corporations continued to find ways to dodge paying taxes. And the tax cuts didn't really impact economic growth. TL;DR? The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the deficit got larger, and most of us didn't really see much change at all. 
8. President Trump may not have been able to do anything else of legislative consequence, but he did take unilateral action whenever and where ever he could. One area that will likely have long lasting impact was his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. Climate change is real, and it is an existential threat to not only the USA but every living being on this planet. I cannot believe that Republicans haven't found a way to make this into a winning issue; the economy of the future will be dominated by those who master clean energy. That said, this action was short sighted and, again, seemed mostly driven by not liking it simply because the prior administration did it. Similar to the attempted action with the ACA, and the action with the Iranian Nuclear Accords. As well as pulling out of NAFTA only to renegotiate an extremely similar deal. Seems like you might be able to say that President Trump didn't like his predecessor. 
9. Of course, on his watch the GOP also lost the 2018 midterm elections in historic fashion, and he became the first President since Benjamin Harrison (1888) to lose the popular vote twice. This may say something more broadly about the GOP coalition, however, as they have now lost the popular vote for the Presidency in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. 
10. Finally, President Trump became only the third President to be Impeached, in 2019, and then became the only President to be Impeached twice, in the waning days of his Administration. He is now the record holder; it is not uncommon for members of the House to submit Articles of Impeachment, but it is rare for there to actually be a hearing, for their to be a vote on it. Numerous times during the George W Bush administration there were rumblings of potential Impeachment, but it never came to pass. Trump managed to commit Impeachable offenses throughout his time in office, to the degree that he was actually Impeached twice. 

Certainly a history making four years.