Now that Joe Biden is officially ensconced in the Oval Orifice, it's time for an honest look at Trump's political record over the past four years. Of course, most on the "right" seem to see him as a near-martyr for liberty, while the "left" sees him as the devil incarnate. Is the truth somewhere in between, or completely off the chart of normal discourse?
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A short list of complaints
Trump was a liar
All politicians lie, but Trump seemingly couldn't help himself when it came to dishonesty. He lied about completely irrelevant titles and awards. He lied about business relationships. It seemed like a compulsion to make himself look bigger and better.
Trump was a warmonger
OK, so he wasn't the complete bloodthirsty lunatic Hillary Clinton probably would have been, and he didn't escalate the perpetual militarism, but he was no peace candidate. This was my one point of real optimism when he was elected, and he failed to deliver. His choices in advisors and appointees quickly demonstrated his lack of understanding as he aligned himself with the old guard of war hawks from the Bush era. Now we have Obama's right-hand man, and I anticipate an increase in interventionism as the most probable outcome to Trump's defeat.
Trump was a fiscal failure
His tax policy was perhaps an improvement, but he was a spendthrift who continued the trend of ballooning deficit spending, and 2020 saw an unprecedented increase in both the money supply and the level of political control over the economy. Are we really surprised that a businessman who went bust so often can't understand budgets and thrift? He also had the usual party insiders advising him, and the Republicans are not the party of fiscal responsibility, no matter what they claim every election cycle.
Trump was a nationalist
Trump was not a racist per se, but he was xenophobic in the sense that he opposed freedom of trade and travel across national borders. "Foreign" and "dangerous" are synonyms to the nationalist mind. The desire for control over others is exhibited by the conflation of property lines and national borders. "Good fences make good neighbors," the saying goes, but that is because individuals cooperate better with clearly-defined spheres of authority. Government territorial claims are gang turf, not homesteads.
Trump's trade war was another example of nationalism blinding policymakers to economic reality. Trade is a complex web of goods and services and currencies in a constantly-shifting equilibrium. Political intervention is always destructive to the efforts of market actors, and creates winners and losers where the market created mutual benefit. This is especially obvious in foreign trade, if you bother to look at all.
Trump was anti-gun
The bump stock ban under Trump's regime was the most blatant and arbitrary infringement since the National Firearms Act 1934. It affected only a small portion of the population, but the size of the victim group is irrelevant. At least Clinton's infringements grandfathered what people already owned. Bureaucrats re-wrote the regulations without even a nod to Congressional legislative authority and turned thousands of Americans into "felons" overnight.
Trump failed to end the "War on Drugs"
The government lost the war, but continues to inflict murder, theft, and kidnapping on the population in the name of continuing the fight anyway. Vices are not crimes, and the puritanical punishment programs need to end now.
Misguided Accusations
This list above is incomplete, but there is only so much I feel the need to type to make my point. I would, however, like to point out that many of Trump's mainstream critics exhibit a blindness in their haste to condemn Trump as well. Here is one example leveling five accusations at Trump.
Refugee and Asylum Rights
Instead of addressing the matter in terms of individual rights to travel and trade, they appeal to legality, which is not the strongest foundation. The UN is an abomination, and their Universal Declaration of Human Rights probably warrants an in-depth critique at some point. However, in short, it and other documents cited all rely on the belief that rights are granted by political authority, while I contend that rights are based on spheres of individual authority defined by reason and action.
Children’s Rights
This is a subset of their first point, not a new point. Trump's administration violated the rights of numerous people at national borders based on nationalist nonsense, not actual crimes. His aggression against children is absolutely abhorrent, but just another manifestation of one he committed regularly.
Reproductive Rights
Trump "...cut funding to the U.N. Population Fund and withdrew from the World Health Organization." Good. These are outside the Constitutional limits of government authority anyway. Same for the accusation that he "...has also undermined the Title X national family planning program by blocking funds for health-care providers that also offer abortion services..."
If the allegations of mass hysterectomies have any basis in fact, that is a monstrous crime. No argument there.
However, complaints about insurance policies and legal mandates for LGBTQ rights completely miss the mark in their assumptions about the nature of rights for all involved in any exchange.
Racial Disparities and Discrimination
The label of racist has been applied so often by the left as to be meaningless filler in their screeds against the right. Often, they lie as blatantly as Trump, such as when they continue to insist he refused to denounce white supremacists, or claim he called them, "very fine people." This kind of hysterical nonsense clouds real discussion of the topic. I don't deny Trump is a nationalist xenophobe, but charges of racism do not follow automatically.
Trump certainly failed to roll back the abuses of the US "Just Us" system, and the enforcement of many prohibitions continues to disproportionately harm minority communities, but this is not evidence of racism. it is a systemic racial disparity in the enforcement of unjust laws. Strike the root instead of calling, "racist."
Global Human Rights Abuse
I'd say the failure to end war and occupation is sufficient to make this claim, but that is not the intent of this particular journalist.
The article's complaint begins with his more open attitude to North Korea is not support for that regime's abuse, but an opportunity to create openness for improvement. If anything, normalized relations with North Korea creates an opportunity for improved conditions, just as Obama's policies had potential for Cuba.
As for the complaints about political friendliness with tyrannical regimes where abuse is widespread, this is hardly unique to Trump, and claiming it is some kind of unique evil betrays a partisan blindness. I don't know about this particular publication's history, but the left has always turned a blind eye to Democrats who are friendly with evildoers.
As for slashing foreign aid, good. That is outside the scope of federal authority in the first place, even if we grant the assumption of political legitimacy at all.
Conclusion
The complaints against Trump from the left, like the complaints against Obama from the right during the previous administration, betray a philosophical flaw. They all love the precedent of power concentration even if they hate the president who does it. They don't even bother with Constitutional objections to these abuses, much less philosophical objections based on universal principles of individual liberty.
The control freaks all want control, they just disagree over the details of how to inflict it on us. Look past the rhetoric and strive to build our own beliefs on a stronger foundation than partisan bickering.
If you disagree with my assessments here, chime in below with a comment. Let's have a serious discussion. If you don't have a HIVE account, you can join via PeakD here. I'll even delegate some Hive Power so you can comment more.