- Trump did not provide effective leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Trump is an authoritarian threat to American democracy.
- Trump interfered with and attempted to influence Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the House of Representatives’ impeachment effort.
- Trump's 2016 campaign welcomed and amplified Russia’s social media campaign to influence the presidential election.
- …and a host of lesser issues.
The rest of this post expands on these points. Follow the links to view my sources.
Did not provide effective leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.
I agree with the recent editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, which stated: “When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”
Trump chose to “downplay” (in his words) the coronavirus problem, instead of coordinating a national action plan. Here are just a few examples.
- Delegated pandemic response to state governors.
- Told states to handle their own medical equipment procurement (“We’re not a shipping clerk.”) Argued with states about how many ventilators they needed.
- Slowed down testing, as he stated at a campaign rally in June. [Trump suggests US slow virus testing to avoid bad statistics. AP News. June 21, 2020]
- Refused to follow his own experts’ advice on wearing a mask and social distancing. [Face coverings recommended, but Trump says he won’t wear one. AP News. April 4, 2020. ] [Trump, still infectious, back at WhiteHouse — without mask. AP News. October 5, 2020.]
An authoritarian threat to American democracy.
Trump has made a number of statements that deeply trouble me:
- “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total and that’s the way it’s got to be. … It’s total.” [Washington Post]
- “I have an Article II where I can do whatever I want as President.” [C-Span]
He fired FBI Director James Comey while the
FBI was in the midst of investigating Russia's interference in the 2016
election. This was a move of astounding proportions for anyone (such as me) old enough to
remember Nixon firing special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the
Watergate investigation. It's hard to be certain of Trump's reasons, because at first he blamed it on the handling of Hillary Clinton's e-mails. But I am inclined to believe the statement he made to Russian diplomats after the firing: "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." The implication is that firing Comey took the pressure off.
He raised the possibility of postponing the 2020 election (the sort of thing dictators do) and declined to commit to an orderly transition of power after the 2020 election before voting even began.
During the final weeks of the 2020 election, he tried to use his presidential power against his political rivals – a tyrant’s tactic. Specifically, he pressured Attorney General William Barr to indict Biden and other political adversaries, and ordered Secretary of State Pompeo to declassify Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
During the 2020 campaign, Trump engaged in what could be termed voter suppression tactics. He attempted to discourage use of mail-in ballots (which tends to hurt Democrat voters) by seeking to limit the number of drop boxes. Just a few months before a record number of ballots needed to be mailed, he threatened to cut funding to the US Postal Service. His political appointee launched a cost-cutting initiative at the USPS during the same time period.
Trump also encouraged his mail-in vote
supporters to vote twice unless they could get proof their ballot was tabulated. See my post on this topic.
Mueller Investigation
Trump attempted to interfere with and
influence the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Special Counsel’s March 2019 report stated that the investigation:“...found
multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence
over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and
obstruction investigations….The President’s efforts to influence the
investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons
who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his
requests.” (volume II p. 157)
- The investigation “established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some cases, the Campaign was receptive to the offer.” (volume 1 p. 173)
- "Trump Campaign affiliates promoted dozens of tweets, posts and other political content created by the IRA.” (volume I p. 33. The IRA is the Internet Research Agency, a Russian organization that “conducted social media operations targeted at large U.S. audiences with the goal of sowing discord in the U.S. political system.”). Those campaign affiliates included Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Michael Flynn.
“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.”
Nevertheless, Congress declined to impeach Trump for these acts. Instead, they waited until the Ukraine affair came along.
Impeachment
In its impeachment report, The House of Representatives stated that Trump solicited the interference of Ukraine in the 2020 election and obstructed the House investigation into the matter. According to The House Judiciary Committee’s December 2019 report:
“President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 US Presidential election… by a course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 US Presidential election to his advantage” ( p. 2).
“Trump abused his power of his high office through the following means: 1) Directing the White House to defy a lawful subpoena by withholding production of documents sought therein by the Committee. 2) Directing other Executive Branch agencies and office to defy lawful subpoenas and withhold the production of documents from the Committee. 3) Directing current and former Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with the Committees.” (p. 3)“President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.” (p. 3)
It is worth remembering that the Ukraine affair was not the first time Trump encouraged a foreign government to assist him against a political rival. At a July 27, 2016 press conference:
"...just thirteen minutes into the press conference, Trump addressed himself directly to a foreign adversary in a way that no reputable presidential candidate ever had before. 'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,' Trump said, referring to those of Hillary Clinton's e-mails that had been deleted. 'I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.' ...here was the Republican Party's candidate encouraging - soliciting - Moscow's interference in his race against Clinton." (Donald Trump vs. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President. Michael S. Schmidt. Random House. 2020. page 57.)
Senate Select Committee Report
In August 2020, the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence reported that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign:
- encouraged and amplified the messages of the Russian social media campaign to interfere with, influence 2016 election. (page vii)
- promoted and disseminated Russian-hacked Wikileaks documents
- sought to maximize the impact of Russian intelligence and leaks to aid Trump's electoral prospects, sought advance notice about those leaks, and encouraged further leaks. (page vii)
Other Issues
- Undermined longstanding relationships with allies, damaging the world leadership position and credibility of the United States.
- Did not provide effective leadership on climate change. Doubted the truth of climate change (“I think science doesn’t know”). Left the Paris climate accord and dismantled various Obama-era environmental policies.
- Trump commuted the prison sentence, fine and probation of Roger
Stone, a convicted felon. Trump's attorney general William Barr withdrew the
government’s prosecution of Michael Flynn, despite Flynn’s admission that he
was guilty.
- Did not provide effective leadership in response to Charlottesville protests. Would not speak out against white supremacists.
- Refused to make public his tax returns.
- Threatened to cut federal dollars for
certain big cities that "have permitted violence and the destruction of
property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to
counteract these criminal activities.” It seems that most of those cities are in states with Democratic governors.
- Sept. 29, 2020 debate: Ungentlemanly (and unpresidential) conduct towards Biden which resulted in a debate that I view as a low point in US political history. This is only one of many egregious examples of how Trump has generally lowered the standard of political behavior. His crass public attacks on a wide range of people have degraded the tone of public discourse and set a terrible standard for young people. If this is how the game is to be played, how can we expect any decent person to get involved in politics?
- Trump would not condemn the Proud Boys far-right organization when asked to do so during the September 29 debate. Instead, he said that Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.” That was bad enough, but the next day, he said: “I don’t know who Proud Boys are. But whoever they are they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.” This is just one example of his penchant for saying one thing today, and then distancing himself from it later. He did something similar in 2016 regarding David Duke. The man is not trustworthy.
Trump famously promised to "drain the swamp." But as amply demonstrated by all of the above, he has made it much worse. And now, having committed this litany of outrages to writing, I hope to put it behind me once and for all. Of course, that will be much more difficult if Trump is re-elected.
