Joe Biden has become president. I accepted this fate long before many Trump supporters did. I knew it would be difficult to prove extensive election fraud, let alone actually get a fair hearing of it from an establishment that was determined to get rid of Trump.
I don’t think Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court should have tried to overturn the results. It was fine for some members of Congress to challenge the certification process, if nothing else to draw attention to the likely fraud that took place. But I don’t want the federal government overturning the Electors sent by each state. It would set a very bad precedent for the future.
I don’t care that Trump continued to talk about fraud from the day after the election right up until the events of January 6. I think he obsessed a little too much about it at the expense of other things, but I have no problem with him fighting and speaking out against a perceived injustice.
To some extent, Trump is to blame for allowing some of the election fraud to the degree that it took place. He wasn’t ready for it. He didn’t have the boots on the ground. He didn’t have a ground infrastructure in places like Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia to monitor these things. Sure, it still would have been difficult. It is difficult when the whole establishment is against you. But it still could have made a difference with more preparation. The Trump team (if there was one) could have also challenged many of the state rulings early on that permitted changes for rules regarding mail-in ballots.
Trump went out very defeated. The establishment had been going after him for five years, and they finally got their victory over Trump. The second impeachment of Trump was just a victory lap.
Biden is now president. With all of the announcements and executive orders being issued, I have seen nothing good so far. You would think that I could find one good thing out of many, but they are all bad from what I have seen so far. I’ll have much more to say about Biden/ Harris in the time ahead. For now, I want to write about the end of Trump’s presidency. It was unique in the fact that he was an anti establishment candidate, at least in rhetoric, who managed to get in.
2020 – A Year of Disaster
There is a lot of rhetoric when it comes to people discussing the president. In every presidential election, we tend to hear the same line: “This is the most important presidential election of our lifetime.” This is a rather sick joke when talking about Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama.
In the case of Trump, there was something different. A lot of Trump’s policies ended up not being much different, but the rhetoric was unique. Trump also exposed the establishment/ deep state to the general public as never before. Sometimes it was inadvertent, but it became quite obvious that the ruling class despised Trump. They also despise his supporters.
2020 was a different year. I can’t help but think it would have been much different had Trump not been president. Maybe we would have seen a virus scare. Maybe we would have seen riots and protests across America. But I tend to think these things would have been much more mild without Trump.
In a sense, Trump gave us mass panic over a virus and massive rioting across the country for several months. Trump didn’t actually give us those things, but the establishment gave us those things, probably as a way to get at Trump. It could also be seen as a form of punishment to the under class for daring to put Trump in office and in continuing to support him.
Still, these things happened on Trump’s watch. It was mayors and governors who locked things down starting in March 2020. But Trump was goaded into supporting these measures. He originally came out and said that the virus isn’t a big deal and that Americans should go about their lives. After he said this, they made him pay. They made us all pay. And we’re still paying.
Trump didn’t have to go along with the virus hysteria. He was certainly better on the issue than most others in the establishment, but Trump could have been much better. In many ways, he was a coward. He showed weakness on this issue, so they pressed it harder.
I can’t directly blame Trump at all for the riots, even if the establishment and its media encouraged them because Trump was in office. But when election time came around in November, it was hard for many people to say that their lives were made better by the Trump presidency. I, myself, said that I might prefer for Biden to win if it meant that all of the lockdowns and hysteria would end. I wasn’t giving in to the demands of the Mafia. It wasn’t my fault that people were total suckers in 2020 and went along with all of the hype of a virus to the point of accepting massive lockdowns and other mandates.
I also thought Trump showed incredible weakness by touting the vaccines. If you remember back to 2016, there was actually talk about Trump setting up some kind of a vaccine safety committee and getting Robert Kennedy Jr. to head it up. Of course, this never happened, and Trump ends his presidency by bragging about bringing vaccines to the populace quickly, which are largely untested. They certainly weren’t tested on the most vulnerable people in our society, who are supposedly the people who need the vaccine the most.
The Ending
Trump left office with a whimper. He talked about his wonderful accomplishments, but I didn’t see most of what he talked about as accomplishments. Much of it can be undone by the Biden presidency in no time.
Trump could have gone out with a bang. He could have pardoned Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, two individuals despised by the establishment. Instead, Trump only found the boldness within him to pardon the likes of Steve Bannon and Lil’ Wayne.
Maybe Trump was threatened. Maybe he cut a deal with the devil. Maybe he was assured that he wouldn’t be criminally prosecuted as long as he didn’t pull any stunts like pardoning Assange or Snowden.
I have defended Trump many times because of the idiotic accusations against him. Russiagate was a hoax. The impeachment (number one) over Ukraine was rather ridiculous. In fact, Trump sort of knew what he was doing in terms of investigating the Bidens. They really were doing corrupt and criminal things.
With that said, I thought Trump left on a bad note. It wasn’t his fault for what happened on January 6, as he did not advocate any violence. But he didn’t necessarily handle it well afterwards. And since he was kicked off social media, it was difficult for him to respond anyway. He should have been prepared for the coordinated censorship. He should have already told his followers to follow him on other platforms. Again, it was another failure to anticipate on his part.
Trump left looking weak and broken, but we all know we haven’t heard the last from him. Whether or not he’ll run in 2024, I have no idea. I also don’t know how much the left and the establishment will continue to obsess over him now that he is out of office.
Anyway, all of those predictions about how Trump wouldn’t leave office were never true. I had no doubt that Trump would leave office if defeated.
Foreign Policy
Trump was completely inconsistent on foreign policy. But as I’ve said many times, I would rather someone who is inconsistent than someone who is consistently bad.
We didn’t get any new major wars. This is the first time in at least 4 decades for any presidency. That was a major positive.
Of course, Trump was a disaster in many ways. He ordered the assassination of an Iranian official and almost started a war there. He pulled out of the agreement with Iran, which was one of the few decent things done by the Obama administration. He dropped bombs on Syria due to allegations (likely false) that Assad was using chemical weapons on his own people. Trump started to interfere in Venezuela, but luckily that went nowhere. Trump continued the brutal war and sanctions against the people of Yemen. He continued all of the wars that he inherited, and his administration continued to drop bombs in many places.
Trump talked about withdrawing troops in several places, but he could never quite seem to get it done. It is a problem when you hire a bunch of war hawks in your administration. This was a major fault of Trump in his whole presidency. He surrounded himself by people he couldn’t trust. Many of them despised Trump, but they put on a fake face for him and pretended to support him. The few people who actually did support Trump ended up being prosecuted by the FBI.
I thought one shining moment of Trump’s presidency was when he met with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Trump handled him very well and showed diplomacy. Can you picture Hillary Clinton ever doing that? Could you picture Biden or Harris doing that? Trump showed that there was really nothing to fear over North Korea, and a little diplomacy can ease tensions quickly.
Economics
Trump was decent on some things and horrible on others. He cut taxes, including the incredibly high corporate tax rates. That was a major positive.
Trump also managed to actually roll back some regulations, which is something that is almost never done. We live in a bureaucratic administrative state. He didn’t come anywhere close to ending that or even reforming that. But Trump probably did about as well as could be expected in not growing the number of regulations more.
Trump was horrible on the issue of protectionism and tariffs. This showed his lack of understanding in economics. It also exposed the lack of understanding of many of his supporters.
Trump was horrible on the issue of spending. The deficit exploded on his watch in 2020. This is just a continuation of previous administrations. He, of course, did nothing to address the long-term problems with the debt and unfunded liabilities.
Trump was critical of the Federal Reserve and nominated a controversial figure (to the establishment) to the Fed (Judy Shelton), but he was all over the place. When he criticized Powell, it was because he was being too tight. Trump wanted lower interest rates and more monetary inflation.
In some ways, I think it is good for Trump to be out of office now. The stock market is in a major bubble. It was probably already in a bubble when he was first elected, just as he pointed out in 2016. If that was a bubble then, I don’t know what to call now. Biden and Harris can deal with the popping bubble. They will try to blame Trump, but that will be a tough sell for many.
Trump did very little to improve the economic situation in this country. The Federal Reserve and the overall spending are the biggest problems, and he just made things worse. No politician is going to “fix” these problems. They will fix themselves, if that’s the word you want to use, when the government can no longer keep the game going. We will have to see higher price inflation first before that happens.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Trump presidency was a mixed bag. It wasn’t great for liberty except that he helped to expose the establishment. He made many Republicans realize that the Mitt Romneys of this world are not their friends. Following in Ron Paul’s footsteps, Trump made it ok to be a Republican and not be a war hawk.
Trump was entertaining for me in many ways. I will actually miss his pettiness to a certain extent. Trump just about ruined stand-up comedy. I can’t watch any of the late night shows on television any more, as they just obsess over Trump, and they aren’t funny.
I think it is time to move on. Biden will be a disaster, but at least people will have to find someone else to blame. They will still blame Trump and his deplorables, but it won’t be as effective. My hope is that Trump supporters will show opposition and gain some principles in the process. Now that Trump is out of office, they can start complaining about the debt.
Biden and the establishment are fully back in the driver’s seat. But there are 75 million people who voted for Trump who aren’t going away. They voted for Trump because they are dissatisfied with the system. They feel that the system has failed them, and they are largely correct.