Trump's Pros and Cons (A Partial List)

Primary election season is right around the corner and as things now stand, there won't be much of a contest for the nomination for President in the Democratic Party. As long as President Biden insists that he's running, the nomination will almost certainly be his for the taking.

In the Republican Party Donald Trump is the clear front-runner, but that could change if and when Florida governor Ron DeSantis enters the race.

For the present, though, here's a brief summary of Mr. Trump's pros and cons.

Ruth Wisse quotes from Victor Davis Hanson's book The Case for Trump which covers Mr. Trump's first two years in the White House, but those two years saw a flurry of accomplishments. She writes:

“massive deregulation, stepped up energy production, tax cuts, increased border enforcement,” as well as near-record-low minority unemployment, a strong stock market and low inflation rates. In foreign affairs, the Abraham Accords are enough to secure Trump’s reputation.

Of domestic successes I [Ms. Wisse] would single out the influence of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in trying to keep schools open during the pandemic, promoting charter schools, and shutting down the government’s assault on due process in sexual-misconduct proceedings.

To these could be added his appointment of federal judges and Supreme Court Justices whose rulings are based on the Constitution rather than ideological whim.

Moreover, his Vice-president and most of his cabinet secretaries during the second half of his tenure look like giants compared to those who have succeeded them in the Biden administration.

Finally, the amazingly rapid development of a covid vaccine during Trump's last year in office as well as his strength in standing against an establishment that subjected him to constant libels and legal harassment throughout his presidency were extraordinary.

On the other hand, Jim Geraghty at National Review gives us the other side of Mr. Trump: He writes that the former president is,

a man who is facing rape charges in a civil trial; dined with white nationalists; lamented that Jewish leaders “lack loyalty”; called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution”; used racial slurs to publicly berate his own former secretary of Transportation;

demanded that his own Secretary of State stop denouncing the Chinese and emphasized how much Xi Jinping was helping the U.S. with Covid-19; insisted that all of Florida’s growth and success in recent years is because of “SUNSHINE AND OCEAN,” and has nothing to do with the decisions by its state government;

repeats the most inaccurate and unhinged left-wing critiques of DeSantis; rewrites history on the pandemic and shutdowns;

and just recently said, under oath, while discussing his infamous “grab them by the p****” comments, that, “Historically that’s true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that’s largely true, unfortunately — or fortunately.”

It's a sordid litany, to say the least.

Conservative Republicans are faced with a difficult choice in next year's primaries. Do they vote for policies, most of which they loved under Trump, or do they vote for character, most of which they loathed under Trump?

Unfortunately, if the 2024 race is between Trump and Biden, voters will be confronted, as in 2016, with a choice between two very deeply flawed human beings, so perhaps the odious characters of each will cancel the other out.