We’ve suffered much worse than Trump before and come out on top.
I want to agree with your sentiment, we have indeed been through, strictly speaking, much worse CONDITIONS. We have had administrations wielding the same level of power, a government trifecta with a stacked supreme court. We have been through depressions, we have been through wars, we have been through close calls that have nearly leveled the Western world. We have survived coup d'etat plans, insurrectionists, domestic and foreign terrorism. Strictly speaking of conditions, we have been through times that were a million times worse than what we are going through today.
But these things mentioned above, for one, almost none of the wars we have fought have been threats to our homeland. The last time something like that happened were the Indian Wars, and even then we had the Indians cowed from the very beginning, they were only a real threat out West, and even then not an existential one. For two, for the wars that could have posed serious threats to the homeland or to our ability to conduct ourselves abroad, we had some of the best leadership we could ask for. Washington, Lincoln, say what you want about Roosevelt, I'll probably agree with you, but he was an excellent wartime leader, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Grant, Sherman, Patton, you could write up a list with about 30-50 names if you wanted to. And for our minor and proxy wars, the worst blunders we've had were not existential threats, and could be managed by men of lesser skill.
As far as depressions, terrorism, insurrections go, we have had excellent or at the very least middling leadership that have, either quickly or with time, pulled us out and we escaped mostly unscathed. But these are all problems that are easy to rally people on. You can rally people for or against wars easily, you can rally people against terrorists and insurrectionists, you can rally people around fixing a depression or a recession. The great issue of our day is not this war, or terrorists, or the economic hellscape that we live in, these are all problems that make sense, rather it is the crisis of corruption in the nation, and this is something that is difficult to rally people against. It is easy to say our leaders are corrupt, it is nearly impossible to get people to agree to a solution. All solutions are bound up in other political affairs, meaning every reform we attempt to pass has knock-on effects that will upset SOMEONE. The consequence is that we achieve nothing, while those in power fleece us.
Trump is a president who possesses power that past presidents have dreamt of, and few have had. The man has the House and Senate under his thumb, the Executive branch is purged and packed with loyalists, he has a Supreme Court full of people who he appointed, or have consciously allied with him. They have ruled that he has immunity against all punishment for anything done in office. The only thing he could ask for really is a supermajority in the Senate so he could avoid the filibuster, but then he's quite keen on executive orders to sidestep Congressional approval on issues. Admittedly, many of these executive orders have been challenged, and some have even been thrown out by his packed Court, so take my statement with a pinch of salt there. But my overarching point is: A President with an exceptional control over the government and law, and look at what he does with it.
He starts pointless wars, he engages in market manipulation, he enriches his friends, family and allies, he threatens American allies except for the one, he spends government money litigating and challenging his enemies, he uses his influence to censor negative coverage of him, he makes a fool of our nation abroad with big puffed up threats, he institutes ridiculous economic policies that backpedal on 80 years of free trade policy WITHOUT fixing the problems that people have with it. Look at what he doesn't do, he does not challenge monopolies, mergers, or market manipulation, he does not make any attempt to reform the housing market, or to regulate corrupt business practices, he does not attempt to reform healthcare, he does not challenge lobbyists or dark money. This is to say nothing about the man making vague statements about third terms, or about interfering with elections, or about being a dictator. Call them jokes, maybe, but I would expect that the man who is apparently victim of rigged elections, and ballot stuffing would want our elections to be free of interference.
Our great problem of the day is not the conditions themselves, which are certainly bad, but not catastrophic, it is the fact that the people in power have no interest in fixing it, no interest in meaningful change, they are payed off, they are in bed with one another. In fact they are often aligned with the people who cause economic and societal problems for the average person, because they stand to gain in power, money or influence. They have no respect for our institutions, and only see the government as a vessel to enact their will and the will of their backers upon the country, and the world. Nothing will improve until we improve the quality of our leadership, and the strength of our institutions against corrupt men. This is what will destroy our country, not a recession, not a war, not a terrorist attack or a coup, but powerful men, corporations, and organizations devouring the nation alive, destroying the systems of power that have kept us afloat in our worst days, with only the approval of a plurality of the population.
long rambly post, sorry!
