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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 1/9/21

Donald Trump Has Been the Worst President in the History of the United States

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Karl Grossman
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And Trump, The Washington Post report has recorded, has uttered more than 20,000 falsehoods in his term in office.

And then there have been the Trump disinformation machines led by Fox -about which Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would smile.

But this is far more than a media problem.

Trump tapped into a vein of racism and other poisons in the United States.

He soon will be out of The White House but Trumpism, so horribly, will still be here.

"You have to summon an act of will, a certain energy and imagination, to replace truth with the authority of a con man like Trump," George Packer wrote in the current issue of The Atlantic.

Trump's "barrage of falsehoods -- as many as 50 daily in the last fevered months of the 2020 campaign -- complemented his unconcealed brutality," writes Packer.

"Two events in Trump's last year in office broke the spell of his sinister perversion of the truth," he says: COVID-19 and a free election.

"The beginning of the end of Trump's presidency arrived on March 11, 2020, when he addressed the nation for the first time on the subject of the pandemic and showed himself to be completely out of his depth. The virus was a fact that Trump couldn't lie into oblivion or forge into a political weapon -- it was too personal and frightening, too real. As hundreds of Americans died and the administration flailed between fantasy, partisan incitement, and criminal negligence, a crucial number of Americans realized that Trump's lies could get someone they love killed," says Packer.

He continues: "The second event came on November 3"-- the election.

And that is what Trump and his followers who attacked the Capitol sought to undo. And, on the same day, Trump enablers in Congress were trying to undo it by having the votes of the Electoral College denied.

"The election didn't end his lies -- nothing will...But we learned that we still want democracy. This, too, is the legacy of Donald Trump," Packer concluded.

Yes, most Americans still want democracy, but the history of authoritarian takeovers shows that a relatively small group of fanatics can beat the majority.

And we still are left with those toxic issues that Trump capitalized on.

Another component here is the enabling of Trump by all those Republicans.

Margaret Sullivan wrote a piece earlier this week in The Washington Post, headed "We must stop calling Trump's enablers 'conservative.' They are the radical right."

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Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York at Old Westbury and host of the nationally syndicated TV program Enviro Close-Up (www.envirovideo.com)

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