Trump’s chaotic reign could soon end, but his impact will be felt for years to come

After four years of tweets, insults and controversies, there’s one thing Washington insiders of all political stripes can agree on, writes John T. Bennett: Trump has changed American politics forever

He might have been good for the economy, but Trump’s antics have turned off most Americans, according to a new poll (AP)

Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency – from “American carnage” to impeachment to downplaying a deadly pandemic – could be on the brink of entering its final weeks as four years of governing by tweet and redefining the highest office in the land.

But Washington insiders of all political stripes say even if he no longer occupies the White House come late January, he has changed American politics for years to come.

The 45th commander in chief lurched from controversy to controversy and endured one self-inflicted wound after another during his term. He insulted his Democratic foes, torched bipartisan legislative agreements, presided over a lengthy government shutdown and told his countrymen one thing about the coronavirus he eventually contracted while telling a journalist he knew it was highly contagious and “deadly stuff.”

But he also energised millions of conservative, blue-collar voters who long felt exploited by the US political system, slashed taxes, put hundreds of right-leaning judges in federal courts – including three Supreme Court justices – and struck new trade pacts while keeping the United States out of foreign military conflicts.

His antics have appeared to turn off most Americans: a new poll from The Independent shows him trailing nationally by 14 points, a three-point increase in his deficit from just a few weeks back. The same survey, conducted earlier this week by JL Partners, found Trump doing worse; 28 percentage points worse with white voters who lack a college degree – a pillar of his 2016 base – than he did four years ago. 

Despite myriad scandals and controversies – and a pandemic that has killed at least 228,000 people in the US – 45 per cent of respondents to The Independent’s poll said Trump has been “good” for the economy. But JL Partners noted “voters are quite split on whether Donald Trump has tarnished the office of the president: 42 per cent agree, and 40 per cent disagree”.

Trump inherited leadership of a country that was already deeply divided, but his constant efforts to keep his conservative base energised for his re-election bid, including his hardline policies and words about immigrants and what his critics saw as sexist remarks about women and racist messages to white supremacist groups, only deepened those divisions.

“I believe absent Trump, the country would not be as politically polarised as it currently is,” says G William Hoagland, a former Republican Senate aide now with the Bipartisan Policy Centre. “Among his failures were not uniting the country, and only focusing on his base and further increasing polarisation. He pandered to subgroups … for election purposes.”

But some analysts say the Democrats’ failures over the years leading up to Trump’s election gave rise to his popularity in 2016 as a candidate among key voting blocs they say the party ignored for too long.

“The Democrats have focused on identity politics, middle-class voters in the cities, millennials, communities of colour; and therefore white working-class voters didn’t have a voice,” according to Harris Beider, professor of communities and public policy at Birmingham City University’s School of Social Sciences.

“Then Trump comes and says, ‘You know what , I’m on your side.’ Donald Trump was a ‘hope-and-change’ candidate, just as Obama was,” he adds. “Sometimes this makes people very angry, asking, ‘How can Obama be compared with Trump?’ But actually, some of the people that we spoke to during our research had voted Obama in 2008 and voted Trump in 2016.”

Among his failures were not uniting the country, and only focusing on his base and further increasing polarisation. He pandered to subgroups … for election purposes

But Ford O’Connell, a Republican political strategist, says “this president has taught the party some important lessons … He has left his imprint on the Republican Party.”

“Trumpism is not ending. It will probably be a hybrid, with fiscal conservatism,” O’Connell says. “And he taught Republicans to have a backbone when the Democrats and media are attacking them.”

White House and Trump campaign aides do not dispute that their boss chose to spend his term governing from the far right, even when he appeared for weeks or months willing to compromise with House and Senate Democrats before blowing up major legislation. Trump continues in the campaign’s final days and weeks to describe the pre-coronavirus economy under his watch as a powerhouse that is bouncing back from the Covid lockdown.

“We are doing numbers, and wait until you see that number of GDP,” he said of a gross domestic product figure due out the day before election day during a campaign rally on Monday in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “I don't know what it is. The Fed said it may be a 35 per cent increase in GDP, the Atlanta Fed. They came out last week, you saw that? I'll take 25 per cent, right now. I'll take 15 right now. I think the record was like 7 or 8. But they said it could be 35 per cent.”

“You see car sales through the roof, housing starts through the roof,” he said in the key battleground state that political analysts say could decide the race. “There’s great things going on.”

Even some Democratic strategists give him credit for the pre-pandemic economy, but they say he mostly maintained the growth rate under former President Barack Obama.

Trump should get credit for “reducing taxes and making corporate taxes more competitive with other countries’ rates. He has had some success in leveling the playing field on trade issues,” says one Washington analyst, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The president also has reduced significantly various environmental and economic regulations … And he maintained the economic growth path he inherited, meaning after the 2008-09 recession.”

The president could again pull out a surprise Electoral College win. His chances of winning the national popular vote look all but gone, with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading coast-to-coast by around eight percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average of several surveys.

Trumpism is not ending. It will probably be a hybrid, with fiscal conservatism. And he taught Republicans to have a backbone when the Democrats and media are attacking them

But America’s is not a system based on the popular vote. He and Biden are jockeying to secure the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win, and the longtime New York real estate tycoon and former reality television host, along with a shrewd team of tacticians on which he is again leaning, proved adept four years ago at running a campaign focused exclusively on an electoral win.

The incumbent was in Michigan on Tuesday revving up his loyalists and predicting another surprise win there. He also mocked Biden because he is “working my ass off” compared to the former VP’s lighter public schedule.

Trump struggled to find his comfort zone as chief executive early in his term, but settled into the job and appeared to form a full grasp of its vast powers by the start of his third full year in office. Ironically, his impeachment by the House and subsequent Senate acquittal appeared to help him learn more about the office.

He became more emboldened by his acquittal, striding into the East Room of the White House the morning after the Senate voted to keep him in office, hosting a copy of that day’s Washington Post like a boxer hoisting a championship belt over his head. It was one of myriad images of the always defiant, swashbuckling president that will define his legacy.

To be sure, his was a presidency defined as much by his tough-talking words – and tweets – as the hardline policies that caused appreciative rally crowds in the campaign’s final weeks to pack makeshift venues at regional airports and lavish him with loud applause and “We love you!” chants.

But his term also was defined by outrageous comments that angered Democrats but left his conservative supporters howling their support as much for the offended opposition party than what he actually said.

White House correspondents were amazed one sunny and hot August day in 2019 when the president, during one of his wild “Chopper Talk” gaggles as he and journalists yelled questions and answers over the loud hum of Marine One’s idling engines on the South Lawn, declared, “I am the ‘Chosen One’.” (He was referring to allegedly being sent by a higher power to negotiate better trade deals for the American worker.)

“I’m a very stable genius,” he declared around a year after taking office. Democratic critics and some in his party who objected to his brash antics took umbrage. The comment became fodder for late-night talk show hosts’ jokes and countless online memes.

The Trump era could end in a matter of weeks, but the embers that fueled the movement remain. Many parts of his gloomy inauguration speech resonate with millions of Americans now as much as they did three years ago.

“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” the newly sworn in president said in January 2017. “Crime and gangs and drugs … have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealised potential,” he said, vowing his “total allegiance to the United States of America” while declaring his election should be assigned a “special meaning” because it marked the “transferring [of] power from Washington DC, and giving it back to you, the people.”

That moment represented a clean break from the hope-based presidency of his predecessor, Barack Obama, the country’s first black president. The line carried with it a slew of racial and class undertones, echoing fears among his mostly white base about a country changing too quickly demographically and economically for them to keep pace – and power.

Trump’s speech that day offered a clear sight path into his view of the country and the world, and economic conditions have changed little for many Americans – including among his core supporters. Those forces will shape each political party for decades.

But national and battleground state polls suggest Trump’s style of governing, a made-for-television reality show that was calibrated almost exclusively through a political lens, wore thin with key groups like college-educated white women and seniors. They could be poised to select a very different approach to the job.

In a “closing argument” video titled “Rising” released on Tuesday morning by his campaign, Biden says once again the election is a “battle for the soul of the nation”.

“I believe that even more deeply today. Who we are, what we stand for, maybe most importantly, who we are going to be. It’s all at stake,” the former VP added. “This is our opportunity to leave the dark angry politics of the past four years behind us … To choose hope over fear, unity over division, science over fiction. I believe it’s time to unite the country to come together as a nation but I can't do it without you.”

Still, even if Biden is sworn in on 20 January, Trump’s term and influence will echo forward, analysts say.

“In a lot of ways,” says O’Connell. “The Republican Party would still be the party of Donald John Trump.”