Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said on Monday night that Donald Trump will likely rank among the worst presidents in U.S. history, citing the number of Americans who have needlessly died and suffered under his failed leadership.
While Beschloss wasn’t ready to definitively call Trump the worst president in history before his presidency has officially ended, the historian said that the passage of time will not help Trump’s legacy in the way that it has helped previous presidents.
“A historian has to always account for the possibility that 50 years later a president would look better in some ways than he did to his own generation,” Beschloss said. “That having been said, Donald Trump is not going to change the record. He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die.”
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Presidential historian @BeschlossDC says Trump will be remembered as a president who “was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die.” pic.twitter.com/aiGxaedEgA
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) December 29, 2020
Beschloss said:
A historian has to always account for the possibility that 50 years later a president would look better in some ways than he did to his own generation. That having been said, Donald Trump is not going to change the record. He was largely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who did not need to die. Millions of others who suffer from COVID who did not need to suffer. An economic calamity that is afflicting people tonight in a way that is not going to be alleviated by $600 or $2,000 while the president sits in Palm Beach and the vice president sits in Vail on a ski slope and the secretary of the treasury is in Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. This is really Neros fiddling while Rome burns.
Trump’s legacy is one of death and suffering
Previous presidents have led the country at moments of crisis, but none has managed such difficult times as incompetently and irresponsibly as Donald Trump.
His reckless and unstable leadership has caused much more death and suffering than necessary, and his inability to show any sense of compassion or empathy for millions of suffering Americans has only made this period of history darker.
As former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt said earlier this year, Trump’s legacy will be one of mass death, suffering and economic collapse. Nothing over the final 23 days of his presidency – or the next 50 years of American history – is likely to change that.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
