The Case Against Trump | Donald Trump Is an Enemy of Freedom

WHEN IT COMES TO LIMITING THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF GOVERNMENT AND PROTECTING INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES, AMERICA’S 45TH PRESIDENT HAS BEEN ACTIVELY MALIGN.

- MATT WELCH

WE DO NOT view Lyndon Johnson’s presidency through the lens of the Texan’s legendary vulgarity; the Great Society and Vietnam War loom much larger on his scorecard. Nor do we judge George Washington’s generalship by the Continental Army’s autumn 1776 squandering of New York—every leader of consequence has bad days or weeks in the face of unprecedented challenge.

So before assessing Donald Trump’s worthiness to receive a second term, let us set aside the two cudgels wielded most often by his media and Democratic tormentors: the 45th president’s polarizing personality, and his administration’s scattershot response to a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Focusing on Trump’s deeds, instead of words, from Inauguration Day until just before the first reported U.S. death from COVID-19 on February 29, is a clarifying, even liberating, exercise. At a time when so much of American discourse is about symbolism instead of policy, adjectives instead of nouns, feelings instead of facts, this approach waves away the toxic political fog and drills down into the bedrock of this presidency. What has the Manhattan real estate developer actually built in Washington; how has that already impacted the lives of his constituents; and what lasting changes are likely if his job performance is ratified by the voting public in November?