Opinion: Trump’s Great Legacy

Donald J. Trump, says goodbye this January 20 to the White House. He will give way to Democrat Joseph Biden and will end, for now, one of the most controversial administrations of recent years in the United States.

But, although the New Yorker leaves the presidency, he leaves several legacies and records achieved during his term:

It leaves a relatively strong North American economy, at least before the pandemic. With the lowest unemployment figures (which came with the same trend since the Obama administration) in recent decades.

He leaves a heavily charged Supreme Court on the conservative side. Although let's be honest, it is a legacy of the entire Republican Party.

He leaves 74 million votes, being the Republican candidate with the highest number of votes in history.

He leaves good relations with North Korea and Russia, without making any significant progress in nuclear arms control.

He leaves several peace accords in the Middle East, but none with the Palestinians or any promise or agreement from the Israeli Government to stop the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

He leaves a Republican Party torn between loyalty to a cult figure and conservatives loyal to traditional politics away from chieftains and party-centered.

He leaves a country mired in a health crisis, with the country with the highest number of infections (23 million 600 thousand) and deaths (about 400 thousand) on the planet. In a country where, thanks to their lack of leadership, the simple act of wearing or not wearing a mask is considered a political act.

He leaves us with a trade war between the two greatest economic powers in the world: the United States and China.

It leaves us with a completely divided society, with both sides taking to the streets to march in a country in which carrying arms is a right and where many fear it could unleash in a period of political violence.

He leaves us a world panorama without a clear leader. The Western world had entrusted its leadership to the person who occupies the White House, but during the Trump period, there was a vacuum in that position that no one knew how to fill properly.

Also read: USA: How easy will the political transition be?

He leaves the White House with two impeachment processes, a record for any American president and it only took 4 years.

He leaves an Inter-American Development Bank with a US president for the first time in history. This, over and above the institution's tradition of only choosing Latinos to give it a vision of development closer to the countries receiving the loans.

He leaves us with racism and misogyny widely accepted by extremist groups and some not so extremists. Where for many, the serious problems of the United States are caused by illegal migration from Latin and Arab countries. He leaves a European Union more independent and distant (in principle) from its greatest ally. This may generate a new world panorama for the coming years.

But he also leaves behind other themes that, clearly, were not among his legacy plans:

He leaves a completely blue Congress, with a Senate and a Democratic House of Representatives that will give the new president greater freedom of governance.

He leaves an active social movement in the United States as a counter-response to the right-wing movements and groups that were born or strengthened during the Trump presidency.

He leaves a Democratic Party with 81 million votes, the highest number in American history.

Let us hope that we realized what an American dictator who aspires to destroy democracy looks like and that we hope, Trump is the vaccine so that in the future, there are already antibodies that opportunely detect any other chieftain with a pretense of totalitarianism.