Trump’s ‘Accomplishments’

Not for the first time, David of Theology Archaeology and I have a disagreement. This time it concerns the performance of Donald Trump and his Republican Party, and the upcoming US Election. This will also touch upon the Black Lives Matter subject.

Initially my dissection of David’s points relates to this post. As you’ll see, I’ve left some comments querying David’s position.

David is calling upon Americans to vote for Trump and the Republicans, as he believes the Democrats are sinful and do not respect the law, because many Democrats openly support BLM. David has framed BLM as being a bunch of violent rioters, which is unfair on the majority of peaceful protesters who often end up facing off against emboldened far-right thugs, who are emboldened because of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and the utter failure of Republicans to address the on-going problems of racism and police violence.

It’s interesting that David speaks of the election being compromised. Trump is openly moving to cripple the postal service, as he feels postal votes will likely go against him. This is a blatant case of stacking the deck in his favour.

Moving on to David’s second article, posted to display a factual argument for why Trump deserves a second term, I would firstly draw attention to these two paragraphs:

We have seen in different comment sections, different commentators who have placed annotated lists of Mr. Trump’s accomplishments. We have also seen far too many people hold his negative points over his and every Trump supporters’ head claiming those disqualify him from enjoying a second term in office.

That second part is neither fair nor honest. People are not perfect and it is not right to hold them to their failings depriving them of the opportunity to learn and grow from their mistakes.

What I find noteworthy is that we are supposed to give Trump the opportunity to learn and grow, but this is apparently not something being extended to Democrats?

When we look at Trump’s record, we need to balance the good against the bad. Trump’s failures are not to be white-washed, and it is important to hold him and the Republicans to account. That is in fact entirely honest, as opposed to looking at positive elements and using them to unreasonably dismiss any criticism.

There’s another interesting paragraph from David.

Holding people’s past sins over their heads continually is wrong and ignores the command to forgive and to help those who are not as strong as others when it comes to moral failings.

This is interesting because David goes on to take a dig at the sexual affairs of Democrat presidents, which is surely a matter of the past?

Moving on, David lists some of Trump’s achievements, and admonishes the notion of cherrypicking, but let’s take a balanced view…

From Politifact:

Trump issued a number of campaign promises back during the 2016 election campaign. He has kept 24% of them, broken 49% of them, and stalled on others. Despite leading a Republican government that at one stage controlled every branch of the US political machine, Trump’s major failures include not repealing Obamacare, not getting Mexico to pay for the unfinished and extremely expensive white elephant that is the border wall. His administration has presided over one of the worst responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, in no small part due to Trump’s dismissive attitude and his initial rejection of face masks.

Despite what David might think, pointing out these failures does not equate to hate. There would be many reasons to hate Trump, given his firebrand approach, his attitudes towards women, and his Twitter tantrums. However, in the end, his record as a president is what is under scrutiny, and the facts do not present a good picture. It is upon this that he is found wanting.