 I wrote my first piece on this blog exactly four years ago today. It was an essay about how Trump had tweeted that day about Obama (at least he referred to him as President) going down as the worst President in history. Mind blown. Now here it is four years later and as I look at the landscape of what we used to call America, there is a pain in my soul for what has become of the country we all cherish. I said at the time that it was unfair to judge or rank a sitting President without a historical context. I was wrong! I probably said that because in all honesty, I did not believe, as others did, that Barack Obama was one of the great Presidents in our history. He was certainly competent and I could be proud of how he led our country for the eight years of his administration. Now, I'm not so sure. The best thing that could ever have happened to the Obama legacy was for him to have been followed by Donald Trump. A study in competence and dignity versus a study in incompetence and iniquity.  The United States has confronted challenges in its history and has always found the path back to solid ground. A civil war, the great 1918 Spanish flu pandemic on the heels of a great war, the great depression of the late 1920's and early 1930's, a second World War, the upheaval of the civil rights era of the 1960's but never in our history have we had to face three such cataclysmic events in the short span of six months. I can't help but believe that many of the challenges we face at current were self-inflicted by a President who was totally and completely unprepared and ill-equipped to handle the current environment. His particular brand of malignant narcissism has brought us to this point in history and the path to solid ground is not yet within our grasp.
As for the issue of ranking Presidents in terms of historical context, I believe we have enough of a context to rank Donald Trump as one of, if not the worst Presidents in our history. Nothing he has accomplished, what little he has accomplished, has enhanced or improved the quality of life for anyone living within our borders and a strong argument can be made for the complete and total destruction of decency and morality for which America was envied the world over. Now, the world laughs at America and pities those of us who saw this coming but were powerless to stop it. I have hope that brighter days are ahead of us and that we will get back to solid ground but I know without a doubt that we will never get there until we expel Trump and Trumpism from our government and restore the qualities and principles that made us a once-great nation.
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