The Economist: A Look Back at the Disastrous Reign of Trump

Excerpts from one of the world’s leading news magazines

The defeat of Donald Trump marked the end of one of the most divisive and damaging presidencies in American history.

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Populists (Republicans) in power have handled the coronavirus ineptly. President Donald Trump downplayed it, promoted quack cures and disparaged face masks. Thanks partly to his incompetence, Americans were more likely to die of Coviod-19 than people in almost any other rich country. Curbing a pandemic requires sober communications, patient organization and respect for science. Mr Trump offered none of these.

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Donald Trump took to withdrawal with gusto, pulling the country out of a long list of international arrangements, including the Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal and – in the middle of a pandemic – the World Health Organization. As America has stepped back, emboldened authoritarian leaders have stepped forward, posing a challenge to democracies everywhere.

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Trump openly referred to “The Deep State Department”, repeatedly (if unsuccessfully) proposed slashing its budget and attacked experience diplomats, such as those involved with policy towards Ukraine, whose only crime was to do their job. Career diplomats were virtually shutout of senior policymaking roles, and the share of political appointees to ambassadorial roles--- their main qualification often being the size of their political donation – reached new heights. American diplomacy is in crisis.

In foreign affairs, the new administration will represent a dramatic change in tone from its predecessor and more continuity than many expect.

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The year ahead in America will be a big improvement on its awful predecessor. The country was wracked by such a series of scandals and disasters in 2020, that by the time voters limped to the polls, Donald Trump’s impeachment trial ten months earlier barely warranted mention. Thanks to Trump a quarter of a million Americans were dead of Covid-19. Over 10m jobs had been lost. The racial grievances highlighted by the Black Lives Matter protest – some of the biggest in American history — had been inflamed by the president’s race-baiting on the trail. Mr Trump’s refusal to accept the election result then put even the country’s democracy in doubt.

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Mr Trump…exploited and inflamed division. Even if Mr Biden had won the landslide the left had hoped for, America would have remained deeply divided.

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For four years, Chinese officials have grumbled that President Donald Trump is an unpredictable bully, sometimes guided by his own selfish interests but at other moments by advisers who hate the Communist party.