Yeah, but what's he going to do after breakfast. My guess is he'll go back to his old job in four years.
Perhaps, via a bloody insurrection by his goons, not as a result of a democratic election. He was accorded 34% approval when he was dumped, and his subsequent squalid behavior made him only more repulsive to the American people.
The unresolved question is whether he is secure in being now recognized as the WOAT, or has any competitors for that distinction.
A bloody insurrection, a deadly pandemic: Historians weigh in on Trump
The video evidence of Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol, threatening politicians and trying to overturn a democratic election, will probably haunt Trump for as long as people write about American presidents, political analysts and historians said...
"He knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it," said Wineapple, author "The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation."
"Trump moved from demagoguery to tyranny," she said.
Many historians had already said Trump would rank low for a tumultuous single term that included the COVID-19 pandemic, a previous impeachment, lies about his actions and those of others, business conflicts of interest and alienation of global allies...
Then came his election loss to Joe Biden and the aftermath.
Trump's unprecedented efforts to reverse the results, his demands that supporters "fight" before the attack Jan. 6 on the U.S. Capitol, the resulting second impeachment and the Senate trial solidified Trump's probable rank in the lower tier of the nation's 46 presidents, political analysts and historians said.
"It will always be remembered by how it ended," presidential historian Alvin Felzenberg said. "It will also be remembered for its divisiveness and his personal attacks and his lack of respect for political institutions."...
Trump was fated to be a poorly rated president before the insurrection, historians said, thanks to a term filled with contentiousness.
At times, Trump seemed to invite the support of white supremacists and political extremists, the kind of people who staged the insurrection Jan. 6, historians said, citing his sympathetic comments about "very fine people, on both sides" after a white nationalist demonstration in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counter-protester was killed.
Trump refused to release his tax returns and to create a blind trust for business holdings that made money during his presidency. He sought repeatedly to interfere in investigations into Russian interference in his 2016 election victory.
Trump's pressure on the Ukraine government to investigate Biden and his son before the 2020 election led to his first impeachment. The Senate, then controlled by Republicans, acquitted him.
Though COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 485,000 people in the USA,
Trump downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, promoted untested therapies and pressured state governments to lift economic restrictions designed to block the spread of the virus.
Chris Whipple, author of "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency," said that for all his "norm-shattering" – "the mad tweeting, the rampant corruption, the science denial, the war against immigrants" – Trump will be remembered in history for two things.
"His fumbling of a lethal pandemic that cost half a million American lives and his incitement of a bloody insurrection against a free and fair election," he said. "Weighed against those twin legacies, nothing else will matter."
Some of the insurrectionists said they acted on
Trump's exhortations... vandals roaming the hallways looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and even
Trump's own vice president, Mike Pence.
Trump "will be remembered as the president who prevented the peaceful transition of power," said Jennifer Mercieca, author of “Demagogue for President: the Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.”
"He refused to accept that he lost, he spread conspiracy theory, threatened officials and called his loyal followers to Washington and incited insurrection," she said...
The insurrection seals Trump's fate as "the worst president in history," said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University. In an article for The Atlantic, Naftali said there are three reasons for his verdict, all based on Trump being "a serial violator" of his presidential oath...
"He's certainly in the bottom tier," Felzenberg said. "Maybe at the bottom."
Partisanship can be largely discounted as a factor because, besides the irrefutable empirical data, historians will be able to make a strong case for the Cry Baby Loser being the WOAT by accurately quoting his political allies:
"We just had a violent mob assault the US capitol ...
No question the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob,
the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame."
Representative Elizabeth Cheney (R)
"There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible
for provoking the events of the day... A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name.
These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags and screaming
their loyalty to him... "Having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing
crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole
which the defeated president kept shouting... "
Senator Mitch McConnell (R)
Presidential historians will, no doubt, hasten to acknowledge the fanaticism of a cult that mindlessly worshipped the failed casino operator and faded reality-tv performer, but their dogmatic veneration will not be given serious consideration in any objective assessment concerning his quest for be recognized as the WOAT.
Even if he only shows his best side throughout his declining years of financial and legal exposures, he will be the leading contender.
projects.fivethirtyeight.com
news.gallup.com
