1/25/21: In a procedural vote today, five Republican senators sided with Democrats to advance the impeachment of Reject-President Trump.
The other 45 Republican senators insisted that impeaching a
president who is out of office is unconstitutional. Also, if they had to vote
on the matter, they would know he was guilty of inciting a riot; but they would
be terrified to convict him and face the wrath of Trump’s base.
*
I THINK
it’s safe to say that most historians are unlikely to look back on the Trump presidency kindly. The New York Times
gathers a few early takes from leaders in the field.
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“He has tarred and feathered himself, and I think it will blemish him for a long, long, long time.”
William J. Cooper Jr., professor emeritus of history at
Louisiana State University
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“I
already feel that he is the worst,” said Ted Widmer, professor of
history at the City University of New York, noting that as bad as [James] Buchanan
was – and he was very bad indeed – he was “not as aggressively bad as Trump.”
“Andrew
Johnson and Nixon would be the two others in the worst category, and I think
Trump has them beat pretty handily, too. He has invented a whole new category,
a subbasement that no one knew existed,” Widmer added.
“I would say that before the election it depended on one’s political outlook,” with conservatives applauding his tax cuts, deregulation policies and judicial appointments, said William J. Cooper Jr., professor emeritus of history at Louisiana State University. “But from the election forward, I don’t see how anyone could feel that Trump’s behavior was anything but reprehensible or that he hasn’t completely destroyed any legacy he would have left.”
“He has tarred and feathered himself, and
I think it will blemish him for a long, long, long time.”
Douglas G. Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and a member of the advisory panel for C-SPAN’s Presidential Historians Survey, said that Mr. Trump “was a bad president in just about every regard.”
“I find him to be the worst president in U.S. history, personally,” Mr. Brinkley said, “even worse than William Henry Harrison, who was president for only one month. You don’t want to be ranked below him.”
Mr. Brinkley brought up Richard Nixon,
the only president ever to resign in disgrace. “At least when Nixon left, he
put the country ahead of himself at the last minute,” Mr. Brinkley said. “Now
he looks like a statesman compared to Trump.”
Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, said that Mr. Trump was the worst president in history, hands down, citing “the brazen, almost psychedelic mendacity of the man.”
(For more on Trump’s likely rating in history, see: July 1, 2021.)
FUN FACT: On the other hand, Rejected-President Trump will always have the four-foot tall replica of Mt. Rushmore given to him by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. At a cost of $1,100 (paid for by private donations), Gov. Noem presented the bust to Mr. Trump during his visit to her state. If depicts the four giants, but makes room for a pygmy: President Donald J. Trump.
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