The Return of Donald Trump: A Tragedy for America

Why the vibes are wrong and Donald Trump remains unfit for office

Given that we’re still in the first 24 hours of Donald Trump’s second term and there has been much talk of a “vibe shift,” especially in Silicon Valley, and newfound enthusiasm for Trump, I wanted to go on record here on Substack to say that my opinion of Donald Trump has NOT changed. I still believe that he is totally unfit to be President of the United States and that his original election and now reelection are tragedies for America.

Now if you’re someone who reads any online comments sections about politics, you’ll know that I will be immediately accused of having Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), the term Trump supporters use to describe strident critics of Trump. And while I believe that this term mainly serves as a way for his supporters to dismiss criticisms of Trump without actually having to actually grapple with the points being made by his critics, there is a “steel man” version of their argument.

After all, Trump’s supporters are right that economy was generally good in the Trump years before COVID, that the U.S. did not become entangled in new wars during Trump’s presidency, and that Trump (unlike say someone like Paul Ryan) did not work particularly hard to abolish Obamacare or cut social security or implement other traditional Republican economic priorities. Given this relatively successful (and arguably centrist) record they ask, why are so many folks still so stridently anti-Trump?

So in this post I want to answer that question, at least for me.

It comes down to three reasons:

• Trump’s character: I believe that Trump is the worst person to ever be a major party candidate for President in the entire history of the United States.

• Trump’s temperament: I believe that Trump temperament makes him unfit for office.

• Trump’s threat to democracy: I believe that Trump truly is a threat to our democracy.

Trump’s Character

A statement that Trump supporters frequently make is that we’re not electing someone to be President and not a role model. And while that’s true to a point, it’s also inevitable that the President does actually serve as a role model, as well as the head of the executive branch and the commander in chief.

It’s also true that many presidents have had manifold character flaws. Jefferson refused to free his slaves. Andrew Jackson was not only a slave owner but by virtually all accounts a combative and difficult person. Woodrow Wilson was a racist. Caro’s biography makes it clear that Lyndon Johnson was a big person in virtually every way including the size of his character deficits. Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton were all womanizers on the level of Trump, and it’s probably almost tautological that anyone with the ambition and self-belief to become President has an unhealthy level of both qualities.

Having said all that, while I’m not a Presidential historian, I believe every President has had virtues as well as vices and a record of public service when they entered the White House. Every President that is except Donald Trump.

Outside of a pro wrestler’s gift for entertaining bluster that he used to both gain notoriety in the 80s and then parlayed into a successful stint as a reality TV star in the 2000s, Trump has literally no virtues or substantive achievements before becoming President:

• He was a mediocre and belligerent student.

• He lied his way out of serving in Vietnam using a fake medical condition to avoid the draft.

• He was a terrible businessman. Despite being in the New York real estate business in the 80s and 90s (an incredible boom time) and inheriting huge amounts of money and connections from his father, he was in constant financial difficulty and only survived thanks to timely gifts from Dad. And to the extent that he was successful, it was through a combination of bluster and leveraging bankruptcy law and the expense of legal cases to avoid paying legitimate debts.

• He is a tax cheat on top of his tax avoidance.

• He has produced virtually nothing. His licensing deals range from the cringe (Trump steaks) to outright scams like Trump University.

• His one true success as an adult was playing Donald Trump on the Apprentice, which indeed was good fun. But the great irony, of course, is that the show was fun largely because it illustrates what a ridiculous buffoon Trump actually is. His behavior on the show was literally a parody of how successful business executives actually operate.

• He gives virtually nothing to charity despite his wealth. His foundation was essentially a scam.

• He cheated on his wives many times and has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 25 women.

• He played little role in raising his kids.

• He is a fabulist who exaggerates or lies whenever he perceives it to be in his interest.

• He is narcissistic who fundamentally cares only about how things affect him.

• He is genuinely mean and cruel, both intentionally and just reflexively.

Outside of his confidence in himself and being unafraid of being laughed at, there is not a single personality quality that Trump possesses which one would want in one’s children. To have someone like that as President has already been profoundly damaging for the country. Four more years is going to be that much worse.

Trump’s Temperament

Arguably even a terrible person has the capability to be an effective president. But Trump’s temperament means that he is not only a bad person but an incompetent one as well.

• He has no attention span and is incapable of investing the time to really understand issues and learn new things. It’s why he failed so miserably in his response to COVID, the one true test of his first term. It’s not that everything he did was wrong (Operation Warp Speed was obviously a success, though I do think Trump tends to gets too much credit for that; I predicted in early 2020 that the vaccine would be developed within the year), but his inability to concentrate, understand the issues, and deliver a consistent set of messages to the American people was a big part of the reason the American death rate was significantly higher than most comparable countries and the root cause of all the COVID related conflicts that emerged in American society.

• His narcissism and naked self-interest make him susceptible to flattery and corruption, both by fellow Americans and by foreign leaders.

It’s a stunning indictment how many former Trump Administration officials, including his Vice President, Chief of Staff, multiple Secretaries of Defense, and other cabinet members, have gone on the record to say he is unfit to be President. There has been nothing like this before in American history.

The Threat to Democracy

I don’t believe it’s hyperbole to say that Trump is a threat to democracy. But I also want to be very clear and specific about what i mean by that charge:

• First, I believe that Trump’s carelessness with the truth, which can range from hyperbole to outright lying, is corrosive to democracy. The Bannon “flood the zone” philosophy, which this Vox piece cleverly described as “manufactured nihilism”, is unfortunately effective; but the cost is a fundamental degradation of Americans’ ability to constructively disagree, a skill which is necessary for democracy to function effectively.

• Second, Trump’s refusal to abide by democratic norms, whether it is in the language he uses when engaging with opponents to the use of executive orders to override legislative mandates or court orders to the attempts to leverage foreign policy to punish his political opponents or enrich himself to his refusal to accept electoral defeat. Democracies rely on norms to function effectively; it’s the grease that allows the wheels of democracy to turn smoothly. If every conflict is a battle to the end that has to be resolved by the courts and the letter of the law, nothing ever gets done. By flagrantly disregarding norms whenever he perceives it’s in his interest, Trump may have triggered a vicious cycle of democratic decline that will eventually paralyze the country.

• Third, of course, was the effort to overturn the 2020 election (as well as his consistent refusal across all three of his Presidential runs to commit to abiding by the results of the election or even the results of the Republican primaries). And while January 6th was obviously a part of this effort, just as important were the constant baseless accusations of fraud before and after the election, the fake electors, and the pressure on officials in Georgia to find the votes he needed. In the end, of course, our country got lucky. The fact that the 2020 results weren’t actually that close prevented Trump’s claims from gaining any real momentum, and the fact that he won in 2016 and 2024 made his claims about fraud irrelevant. But imagine if in 2024 we had a truly close election like the one 2000. If all the votes had been counted as they should have been, Al Gore almost certainly won that election. But ultimately we are a country of laws and norms, and once the Supreme Court made its ruling Gore accepted it and spared the country from anarchy. Buf if Trump faced the same scenario that Al Gore did, is there any doubt that the country would have been in flames? A willingness for candidates to accept the results of an election that doesn’t go one’s way has been one of the foundational pillars of American democracy. The fact that Donald Trump has been reelected despite the fact that he clearly demonstrated he was unwilling to do so, has shaken that pillar, even though we didn’t experience a constitutional crisis this cycle.

In fairness to Trump’s supporters, I get how hard it is to refuse to support your preferred party’s nominee for President. So much power is tied up in the presidency that giving up on the office means giving up on all kinds of priorities that don’t have much to do with the President’s character or temperament. I understand why people wanted to find a reason to vote for Donald Trump even while recognizing his failings.

But at the same time, there has to be a line. Love of country needs to include having standards for who holds the highest office in the land. I believe it should have been crystal clear to anyone paying attention that Donald Trump falls far short of those standards. I think history will not be kind to those who supported him.