The-Ave.US

That’s the title of an article by Chris Cillizza, who frequently writes about politics for CNN. The article quickly descends into statistics (More Republicans than Democrats like Trump) and scholarly rankings (ranging from near-last to dead-last). If you want to wade through those details, go here. It’s not a very long article. (After all, how much can you say about opinion polls and scholarly rankings?)

If you want to know what I think, I’ll tell you. If you don’t, quit reading here.

I think Trump was a bad president. Here are some of my reasons:

• He was a liar.
• He was dishonest.
• He exploited the office to line his own pockets.
• He was self-aggrandizing (the presidency is supposed to be public service).
• He only cared about what was good for Donald Trump (e.g., getting re-elected).
• Instead of focusing on the nation’s needs, he was obsessed with his personal popularity.
• He was uncurious, ignorant, and didn’t even read the PDBs (presidential daily briefings).
• He demanded loyalty and gave none in return.
• His policies were mostly bad (white supremacy, tax cuts for billionaires, cozying up to our adversaries and spurning our allies, etc.)
• He has no real accomplishments.
• He badly bungled the major crisis of his presidency, at a huge cost of American lives.
• He attacked the foundations of our democracy in numerous ways.
• He had no respect for Constitutional or legal constraints on power, or the role of the press in a free society .
• He had no political skills; he was a bully.
• He viciously attacked opponents and sought revenge against critics.
• When he lost re-election, he tried to overthrow the election.

Trump indisputably had the worst character and most toxic personality of anyone who ever served in the job, deepened and exacerbated our country’s partisan divisions, and just didn’t accomplish much. Voters turned out in multitudes to rid themselves of him. There’s just no basis for calling him anything but a bad president.

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