The pandemic was good for at least one thing: It prompted some old law school buddies and me to begin meeting occasionally by Zoom. Although the pandemic has ended, the calls have not.
One of those calls prompted today’s column. A few weeks ago, one of my buddies said: “I don’t think Donald Trump is merely the worst president ever. I think you could make an argument that he’s the worst American ever.”
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Eureka! I’m always up for a challenge.
Let’s start with the easy part — “worst president ever.” Where shall we begin?
Maybe Trump’s criminal and legal record?
Trump is the first president in history to have been convicted of multiple felonies. He’s also the first president to have been found liable for civil fraud, sexual assault, and defamation. He’s also the first to have been impeached twice by the House of Representatives. And he’s the first to have been criminally indicted for the mishandling of classified government documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
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That’s an awful lot of firsts.
But there’s more.
Most presidents, while in office, at least pretend to represent the whole country and to promote national unity. Not our man Trump. He tweets about the “Dumocrats,” thrives on demonizing blue cities, withholds catastrophe relief funds from states that didn’t vote for him, and otherwise delights in creating cultural cleavages.
And the empathy! Former FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller died? Trump was “glad he’s dead.” Former President Joe Biden is suffering with cancer? Trump told reporters not to feel too sorry for Biden, because he was a “vicious person.”
The man is filled with concern for both country and humanity. (Hey, Trump likes Putin, who’s got “a lot of great charm and great pride.” And Trump “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un. Jeff Epstein was a “terrific guy.” And he wishes Ghislaine Maxwell “well.” So there’s that.)
How about handling crises? Trump handled COVID-19 like a pro, comparing COVID to the seasonal flu and insisting in early 2020 that the country would be open for business by Easter. Trump didn’t want cruise ships to dock in the United States, for fear of increasing the number of COVID diagnoses on his watch. Trump promoted quack cures for the disease and undermined public health responses in the name of partisan politics.
But that’s just disease.
Surely he did better with the crisis of, say, war.
We first attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a period of stalled diplomacy. Reasonable minds could differ over the desirability of those attacks. But you couldn’t disagree about phraseology. Trump insisted that it was incorrect to say that those attacks had merely substantially undermined Iran’s nuclear weapons program; one had to say “obliterated” to convey the full extent of the damage.
And then Trump attacked Iran again, with the stated purpose of destroying the already obliterated nuclear weapons program. Or regime change, or to prevent imminent threats to the United States, or — I don’t remember any more. It’s so exhausting, and it’s been nearly six months.
But now the war’s over! Or not. And the Strait’s closed! Or not. And we’ll bomb Iran back into the Stone Age! Or not. And we’ll negotiate! Or not. And the military’s been destroyed. Except Trump will run away in a catering truck — taking the pretty blonde with him, but leaving the secretary of state behind.
So Trump’s been a bad president.
But worst American ever?
There’s some serious competition here: The traitorous Benedict Arnold. Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Jim Jones (of drinking the Kool Aid to the tune of over 900 people dead at Jonestown). Steven Paddock (who blew away 58 people from that upper-story room in the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas).
Did Trump do anything that could compare?
Rape’s bad.
Fraud’s bad.
But I need something worse; I need something to compete with real villainy.
What else?
Hmmm.
There’s undermining trust in American institutions, by labeling the press the “enemy of the people.” There’s sowing distrust in the United States government, by spewing massive amounts of false information and insisting that truth — How big was the crowd on Inauguration Day? Who won the 2020 election? — is secondary to personal loyalty to the president.
But for one to believe that Trump was the worst American ever, one would have to believe even worse things than that. One would have to believe that Trump sowed distrust in American elections, by spreading unverified claims of voter fraud. Or that Trump incited a crowd to storm the Capitol in the hope that he could overturn the result of the 2020 election.
Worst American ever?
I’m afraid I didn’t convince myself.
Nathan Bedford Forrest — slave trader; Confederate general; in command at the Fort Pillow Massacre where nearly 300 Union soldiers were slaughtered; and. after the war, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — was the worst American ever.
Trump’s number two. .
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].