For almost four years President Trump accomplished more good for the country and the world, in my opinion, than any other president in my lifetime. Few other human beings could've withstood the withering criticism from the media, the constant vitriol from the left, the years of allegations of phony scandals, congressional investigations and impeachment and still managed to amass the achievements he did.
Despite unprecedented adversity, he gave us a robust economy, record employment among minorities, peace in the Middle East, a record number of exceptional judges and Supreme Court justices, development of a Covid vaccine at what has been near-miraculous speed, and much more, but he seems almost determined in these last few weeks to undo what could have been an outstanding legacy of accomplishment.
I was open to the argument that the election was stolen and was willing to wait for the evidence to be made public. Whatever testimony there was to that effect, however, (for example, that of the truck driver who claimed to have transported thousands of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania on election night) as well as every promise of imminent revelations of Democrat chicanery, seemed to vanish like morning mist.
If there was anything substantive to such allegations it certainly hasn't been widely publicized and demonstrated. Instead, those who promised them, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Lin Wood, for three examples, ended up looking foolish, dishonest or insane.
Neither the president nor his spokespersons have gone beyond mere assertions of wrong-doing and actually laid out the case for malfeasance. Perhaps insiders know more, but those of us looking on from outside are asking why we're not being given the overwhelming proof we've been promised.
To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, President Trump refuses to go gently into that dark night, but has chosen to rage, rage at the dying of the light. He claims he's been cheated and has sought redress in the courts as is his right, but none of the almost sixty lawsuits filed on his behalf, many heard by conservative judges, have resulted in a win for the president. Perhaps some of the judges are corrupt political hacks, but can they all be corrupt hacks?
The confusing message sent to voters in Georgia, first suggesting they shouldn't vote in the senate runoff and then saying they should, and his completely unnecessary squabble with the state's Republican governor and attorney general on the eve of a crucially important election, may well have contributed to the Democrats' winning control of the Senate and implementing the most radical agenda this country has ever seen.
Nor did it help that just prior to the runoff Mr. Trump drove a wedge into the Republican caucus by proposing a $2000 payout to every American. Such largesse was seen by many Republicans as irresponsible, and it forced the Georgia senatorial candidates into a dilemma. Either support it and be seen as recklessly pandering for votes, or defy the president, forfeit his support and alienate many Georgia voters.
Now with the Democrats in control of both the White House and both houses of Congress, much that Mr. Trump has accomplished will be undone and his legacy diminished. The burden of responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs will fall to some extent on his own shoulders, though he's not likely to accept that burden.
The attempt by some in Congress yesterday to forestall the inevitable by refusing to certify the verdict of the states seemed like a call for Congress to usurp the authority of the states to control their own electoral process, and it would've set a very dangerous precedent. It doesn't seem like a tactic that Constitutional conservatives should be adopting, and it's only going to make a deeply fractured Republican party more likely.
At the same time, thousands of apparent Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, and some of their number resorted to vandalism and violence, bringing disgrace upon the movement they say they embrace and besmirching further the president's last days in office.
It's been alleged that the violent perpetrators were really leftist antifa infiltrators wanting to make Trump supporters look bad. Perhaps. Here's a suggestion: Arrest them all, charge them with whatever they can be charged with and then sort out who's who, just like they should've done in Portland, Seattle and a dozen other cities last summer. Indeed, had the mayors and governors in the cities and states beset with last summer's mayhem taken a strong stand against it yesterday's hooligans would've been less likely to think they could riot with impunity.
It's a shame that the Trump presidency is ending this way. It's a denouement that Shakespeare might've written, full of chaos, confusion and death. I imagine that a lot of people who were hoping the president would run again in 2024 are now having second thoughts.