Perversity, thy name is Trump. Instead of making America great, he debased its stature globally. Instead of projecting strength, he conveyed American torpidity and ineptitude. On the geopolitical stage, his bullying and bluster, after the puerile novelty of his antics wore off, failed to achieve breakthroughs in the hotspots of Iran, Korea, Russia, the South-China Sea. In the end, his sorry denouement on January 6, 2021, invited horror and ridicule the world over. His unfaltering trait has been to project his own weaknesses and failures onto others, imagining somehow that the more perspicacious would not notice while the credulous simply take him at his word. Trump’s claims of American “carnage”, betrayal, and decline became prognostications of his own perfidy and ineptitude. That very carnage he claimed during his 2016 inauguration, he actually brought forth two score and eight months later.
Still, unexpectedly, he has done some good: he has shaken America from the hubris that animated its post-Cold War thinking. He has shown the world America’s flaws. He abrogated or undermined obligations, such as the JCPOA, the Paris Agreement, and even NATO. This in turn gives pause to both friends and enemies and forces reassessments and even realignments.
To friends, America’s flaws are to be corrected and repaired. To her enemies, the same flaws encourage them to see her in a more nuanced way and less as an existential threat to them. Surely, a country so divided as to eviscerate itself over the jejune wearing of masks, and so incapable of mustering the unity to contain a pandemic surely cannot be much of a threat! Still others, counting on an American guarantee of protection, must reexamine their options.
Trump and Trumpism has been analyzed and critiqued by many who have dissected it — and will doubtless continue to do so as his presidency recedes into history. Outside his acolytes and claims of “making America great again”, what were the positive outcomes of his four years? It’s far too early to write a definitive history, but an initial assessment seems possible; his definitive achievements were:
- Avoided a war with China and others.
- Revealed American institutional weaknesses.
- Unmasked the racist, white nationalists.