Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Another Third Term

Their glee was evident as they promoted a third term. The conservative panel on television was positively giddy as they speculated on a fourth term. But their gaiety, I thought, should be tempered. If there can be more than two terms for Donald Trump, then there can be a third term for Barack. And Obama would present a formidable opponent.

Trump will be 82 on the next inauguration day. That is Joe Biden’s present age. Trump is an amazing physical specimen, but 82 is 82, and of course, he would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a third term. Obama, on the other hand, will be 67 on January 20, 2029.

Also consider that Obama got a majority of the votes in 2008 and won by 52.9% to 45.7%. Four years later he won by 51.1% to 47.2%. Trump in his three elections, one of which he lost, has never gotten a majority of the votes. He lost the popular vote decisively twice and won only a narrow plurality in the recent election.

We, of course, don’t know what will happen during Trump’s present term, but in considering an Obama/Trump match, let’s compare Trump’s first term with what happened under Obama.

Inflation was low under Trump for most of his term, but it was even lower with Obama even though Obama inherited the Great Recession of 2007-2009 when the GDP dropped by 4.3% and unemployment peaked at 9.5%. That recession, which was the worst since the 1930s, started under George W. Bush. It ended under President Barack Obama. Of course, under Trump we had a recession in 2020 when the unemployment rate jumped in two months from 3.5% to 14.7%. This, of course, was largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the “misery index”—the sum of unemployment and inflation rates—soared under President Trump.

When Trump took office, the cost of gasoline (“Obama’s gas prices”) was lower than the averages during the next four years.

Trump seeks to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but under Obama a system was already in place to do that. Trump scuttled that in his first term.

Trump now touts “massive” deportations of undocumented aliens, but more people were deported under Obama than have been with Trump as president.

Homelessness, which jumped under President Trump, was lower under Obama.

Deaths per capita skyrocketed when Trump was in office and had increased even before Covid. The death rate was lower under Obama, and life expectancy, which fell in this country during the Trump presidency, was longer under Obama.

Obama has spoken eloquently in favor of combating global warming. Trump has labeled climate change “a Chinese hoax.”

Murder rates increased during Trump’s first term. They declined under Obama.  

Trump said that China posed a “tremendous economic and military threat” to the United States, but on his watch, China became the EU’s largest trading partner.

Trump has voiced much anguish over our trade deficits, but those deficits were larger at the end of his first term than when he took office. 

The national debt and deficits were lower under Obama than Trump.

Opioid deaths were higher under Trump than Obama.

We could go on, but the point is to be careful what you wish for. If the conservatives gushing for another run by Trump get their desire, I will join many others by chanting, Bring Back Barack.

Posted on by rjonakait

Trump Tribulations

Critics maintain that the Colorado Supreme Court decision that bars Trump from the ballot is antidemocratic. They are right, but merely stating that the decision is wrong because it is antidemocratic overlooks the fact that many provisions in our Constitution are antidemocratic. Take the Senate, for example. Every state gets two Senators no matter what the state’s population. States that contain far less than a majority of the people have the majority of the Senators. This is not democratic. The Constitution limits a president to two terms. This is not democratic. I don’t know if Colorado’s decision is correct, but it is not wrong because it is antidemocratic. The court was interpreting a constitutional provision that is inherently antidemocratic because it prohibits certain people from holding office. Its enforcement was meant to be antidemocratic. Of course, ironies abound when Trump supporters label the decision wrong because it is antidemocratic. Trump without proof, of course, maintained that Obama could not be president because Barack was not a natural-born citizen as the Constitution requires. Obama was a natural-born citizen, of course, but the provision remains antidemocratic. And, of course, Trump was not democratically elected as president. He did not get the votes of a majority of the People. He became president because he got the majority of the antidemocratic electoral college. It is also ironic that Trump supporters mock the Colorado decision by invoking the mantra “Let the people decide” when many of them refused to accept what the people decided in 2020.

The “misery index”—the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates—that soared under President Trump has dropped precipitously since Trump was dumped, but it is still not as low as it was under President Obama.

After criticisms of his remarks about immigrants polluting our national “blood,” Trump responded by saying that he had not read Mein Kampf. Trump frequently does not tell the truth, but when he says that he has not read something, the odds are overwhelming that this time he is not lying.

Homelessness, which jumped under President Trump, has not returned to pre-Trump levels.

Trump’s definition of the holiday spirit is different from that of the rest of us. On December 24, Trump posted on social media that special counsel Jack Smith is a misfit and a thug. Trump wished that various people would “rot in hell.” I wonder if he was sacrilegious enough to do this from a pew during a Christmas Eve service.

Deaths per capita skyrocketed when Trump was in office. It has fallen while Biden has been President.