Why is Donald Trump «the worst American President of all time»? The historian Max Boot, who is also a columnist for the American newspaper The Washington Post, explains in detail the reasons that justify this title for the magnate and current head of the White House.
Boot wrote an opinion article, published last Wednesday, April 8, in the aforementioned newspaper, in which he explains that the adjective he uses against Trump does not come from a visceral position but with all the logical sense of perspective and «the passage of time».
This, Boot alleges, has allowed him – as a historian – to reconsider a previous analysis carried out on Trump, whom he had described as the «worst president of modern times» but not as the worst in history.
Boot’s reconsideration is based on the «catastrophic management» that the US magnate has had in relation to the coronavirus pandemic, which due to its ineffectiveness and impudence when taking urgent preventive measures against COVID-19, caused it to spread massively and exponentially in the United States, making the country the global epicenter of the outbreak.
By the day Boot published his article, the United States had a total of 476,818 positive cases of COVID-19, with 17,842 people dead and 26,541 recovering from the disease. But an important fact is that the rate of infections per million inhabitants in that country, at that date, was 1.446,85 people, when the world average is 209,79.
For that date, the contagions in the US were almost a third of the total infected in the world, which stood at 1 million 631 thousand 310 people; and was about to move to the first place of death on the planet; It was only surpassed by Italy, which then had 18,849 deaths out of 98,401 that were registered on a global scale.
Two weeks later, the regrettable figures presented by the United States have worsened, it is the first country in the world in all the negative indicators that show the behavior of the pandemic on a global scale.
After 3:00 p.m. on April 20, the United States presents a total of 766,664 infections with 40,931 deaths, 14,451 of them in New York City alone, and only 71,581 people recovered. While in the world there are 2 million 447 mi 920 infections with 167,592 deaths and 643 thousand 245 recovered.
History will not absolve him
Boot explains that he had been reluctant to label Trump as the worst president in United States history. «As a historian, I know how important it is to allow the passage of time to gain a sense of perspective».
«Some presidents who looked dreadful to their contemporaries (Harry S. Truman) or just plain mediocre (Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush) look much better in retrospect. Others, like Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson, no longer look as good as they used to», he says.
“I had already written, on March 12, that Trump is the worst president of modern times, but not of all time. That left open the possibility that James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding, or someone else, could be judged more severely. But in the past month, we’ve seen enough to remove the ‘modern times’ classification. With his catastrophic management of the coronavirus, Trump is already the worst president in the history of the United States».
For Boot, the only major competitor that remains for that dubious honor is Buchanan, «whose indecision contributed to us ending up caught in the Civil War, the deadliest conflict in US history».
But while Buchanan «could still be the biggest loser», Boot explains, «there is good reason to believe that the Civil War would had broken out anyway. Instead, there was nothing inevitable about the magnitude of the disaster we are currently facing».
«The situation is so critical that it is difficult to accept». The Atlantic highlights: “During the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, the economy suffered a net loss of approximately nine million jobs. The recession of the pandemic has seen almost 10 million applications for unemployment benefits in just two weeks ”; the figure as of this date already exceeds 17 million unemployed and by May 1, 2020 it could reach 34 million people without work.
The New York Times estimates the unemployment rate is around 13%, the highest since the end of the Great Depression, 80 years ago, quoted Boot.
Trump does not listen
Much worse than that is the mortality rate. We already have more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country. Trump declared on February 26 that the epidemic would soon be «almost at zero.» He now contends that if the death toll is 100,000 to 200,000 – a higher number than all American deaths in all of our combined wars since 1945 – it will be a demonstration that he has done «a very good job». No. It will be a sign that he is a miserable failure, because the coronavirus is the most predictable catastrophe in the history of the United States», he explained.
Warnings about the attacks on Pearl Harbor and September 11 were evident only in retrospect. This time, no top-secret intelligence was required to see what was coming. The alarm was activated in January in the media by experts and by Democratic leaders such as the now presidential candidate, Joe Biden; Although Trump alleges that the World Health Organization (WHO) withheld information from him, as well as China, which is why he decided not to finance it any more.
«A team of Post reporters wrote on April 4: ‘The Trump government received its first formal notification of the coronavirus epidemic in China on January 3. Within days, US spy agencies confirmed the seriousness of the threat to Trump, including a warning about the coronavirus – the first of many – in the presidential daily report», But Trump was not listening».
The Post article is the most thorough dissection of Trump’s failure to prepare for the impending storm. Trump was first informed about the coronavirus by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on January 18. However, according to the Post`s report, «Azar told several close associates that the president believed he was being ‘alarmist’ and Azar had a hard time getting Trump’s attention to focus on the problem».
When Trump was first publicly asked about the virus on January 22, he stated: “We have it fully under control. It is one person who comes from China ”. In the days and weeks after Azar alerted him to the virus, Trump spoke at eight rallies and went golf six times, as if he had no worries in the world.
Trump’s inability to focus on the problem, the Post notes, «sowed significant confusion in the public and contradicted urgent messages from public health experts». It also allowed for several bureaucratic errors to go unaddressed as serious flaws, such as conducting sufficient diagnostic tests or storing sufficient protective equipment and respirators.
Countries as diverse as Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, South Korea, Georgia and Germany have done much better, and will suffer far less. South Korea and the US discovered their first cases the same day. South Korea had 200 deaths on April 8, four deaths for every million people. The mortality rate in the US (25 per million) is six times worse and is increasing rapidly.
«This failure is so monumental that it makes our recent failed presidents – George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter – look worthy of Mount Rushmore in comparison. Trump’s April 3 announcement of the firing of the intelligence services inspector general that revealed his extortion attempt on Ukraine shows that he combines the ineptitude of a George W. Bush or Carter with the corruption of Richard Nixon», emphasizes Boot.
The historian notes that Trump, as he characteristically does, «is working harder than ever to blame others – China, the media, governors, former President Barack Obama, the Democratic impeachment managers, everyone except his golf caddy. – of his mistakes. His mantra is: «I do not take any responsibility».
«It remains to be seen whether voters will believe his excuses. But no matter what happens in November, Trump will not be able to escape the relentless judgment of history. Somewhere, a relieved James Buchanan must be smiling», stated Boot.
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