Alan Zendell, October 29, 2023

Judging by how historians have analyzed the rise and fall of prior civilizations, it’s possible to begin to frame the legacy Donald Trump will leave behind. Whether he ultimately wins the 2024 Republican nomination for president or is convicted of any of the shocking number of felonies he is accused of committing, one part of his ultimate legacy is already clear. It’s the kind of thing cliches are made of, not something for which he will be remembered fondly. The Emperor Nero may or may not have fiddled while Rome burned, but what’s the first (and perhaps only) thing you thing of when you hear his name?

Trump will always be thought of as the politician who lowered the bar for acceptable behavior to the point where it is submerged out of sight. His narcissism will be a warning to future Americans that no one who cares more about themselves than our Constitution or the lives and well-being of all Americans can ever be allowed near the White House again. His divisiveness and appeals to the dregs of our society – neo-Nazis, White supremacists, heavily armed extremist militias – revealed a dark, shameful seam in our self-image that we may never live down.

His decisions that unnecessarily sacrificed more than a half million American lives to COVID exposed his ignorance, callousness, and a dangerous disdain for science. His personal values, fraudulent business practices, public treatment of women, pandering to assault weapon advocates, the religious right, and billionaires, and his obvious lack of respect for our military and its combat veterans paint a picture of a small, hateful human being. But the part of his legacy that will be continue to plague us long after he’s gone was his ability to redefine of the meaning of truth.

The undoing of facts, the promulgation of lies, and the self-serving work of “influencers” whose only priority was the shifting of wealth and power was well underway before Trump became a politician. Futurists, psychologists, and sociologists have long understood the risks of an unregulated internet that allows everyone from a terrorist cult leader to an immoral politician to grandma posting her favorite recipes to say whatever they please, unchecked by facts, common sense, or any sense of public responsibility.

Yet, despite their warnings, which recently morphed into a fear of Artificial Intelligence, we have allowed the things we most needed to have confidence in to erode. When every extremist point of view has its own media machine run by people skilled at tapping into hate and grievances, logic and rational thought take a back seat to slander, libel, and outright lies. We only watch news channels that agree with our biases, we don’t answer our phones or open our emails unless we recognize the caller, and even with constant vigilance, our best hope for privacy is the massiveness of the internet.

Remember when Americans respected authority figures, educators, and scientists, when there were trusted sources we could turn to for truth and fact-checking? There may not ever have been a time when money didn’t trump justice in America, but the ability of someone with millions to spend on bribes, influence peddling, and controlling Congress has never more blatantly influenced our lives … which brings us to what may be the most dangerous aspect of Trump’s legacy. Take a step back, forget your biases for a moment, and consider the spectacle we have made of ourselves before the world since Trump hijacked the Republican Party.

A man who served as president, who demonstrated that he has no regard for the Constitution he swore to defend, who is under ninety-one indictments by the federal government, one red state and one blue one, and who was impeached twice, once for inciting a violent insurrection at the Capitol aimed at overturning his 2020 election defeat is now the odds-on favorite to win his party’s nomination again. Add to that his oft-demonstrated adoration for autocrats and murderous dictators, and imagine how all this looks to people around the world.

How must our NATO allies feel about the real possibility that Trump could again be president? How must Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un relish the prospect of wrapping the ultimate narcissist around their fingers? Does the prospect of another Trump presidency and the worsening of the divisiveness he brought to America give Xi Jinping pause when he sets his sights on Taiwan? Do Trump supporters’ ability and willingness to paralyze our government strike fear in the hearts of Ayatollahs and the terrorists they sponsor?

Finally, there is the issue of moral leadership. How are we to teach our children moral values and common decency when our president sets exactly the opposite example, when our children’s textbooks are being censored and sanitized in an ever-more Orwellian reality? That’s the real legacy of Donald Trump. It reeks of dishonor and disgrace.