Trump's response to a deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,
was one of the most controversial moments in his presidency.

It was emblematic of Trump's struggle to bring the country together after
tragedies, and more generally. His response also typified his controversial
record on race relations and white supremacy.

Trump blamed "many sides" for the violence at the rally, which resulted in
the death of a counterprotester, Heather Heyer. He later said there were
"very fine people on both sides."

The former president was excoriated by Republicans and Democrats alike over
his response and his failure to offer a swift and forceful condemnation of
white-supremacist violence.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, often one of Trump's fiercest
defenders in Congress, at the time said the former president's words were
"dividing Americans, not healing them."

"President Trump took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral
equivalency between the white supremacist, neo-Nazis and KKK members,"
Graham added.

In the wake of the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis
police and the nationwide protests that followed, Trump also failed to rise
to the occasion. He's done far more to divide the country than bring it
together.

The former president had peaceful protesters tear-gassed near the White
House so he could pose for a photo with a Bible at a nearby church. He's
consistently demonized anti-racism demonstrators, and controversially sent
federal agents into US cities to squash unrest and intimidate the local
population. Trump has elevated conspiracy theorists and people who've
threatened protesters with guns.

Historians have warned that Trump's tactics mirror those of authoritarian
regimes.

Trump has frequently employed racist rhetoric during his presidency, but
especially during times of heightened racial tensions.

Polling has shown that the vast majority of Black Americans view Trump as
racist, and his approval rating with this demographic stood at 14% in late
2020, according to Gallup.
Failure: America's global image is in shambles
Trump NATO SS
Reuters

America's global image declined significantly under Trump, who repeatedly
insulted key US allies while cozying up to dictators.

The former president's tendency to push important allies away and isolate
the US, including by pulling out of landmark international agreements like
the Paris climate accord, had a palpable impact.

People across the world expressed negative views on Trump. Pew Research
Center in January 2020 released a survey of 32 countries that showed a
median of 64% said they do not have confidence in Trump to do the right
thing in world affairs, and just 29% expressed confidence in the president.

Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic also left the US embarrassed
on the world stage, and created a void in global leadership that China has
rushed to fill.
Failure: Family separations and the deaths of migrant children
Homestead Florida
John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Trump in 2016 campaigned on reducing undocumented immigration, pledging to
take a hardline approach.

He made good on that promise when coming into office, but was accused of
human-rights abuses and violating international law by the UN.

The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy on illegal border
crossings led to the separations of at least 5,500 families and saw
children placed in cages.

The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics at the time described
the practice as "nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse."

After widespread backlash, Trump issued an executive order in June 2018 to
halt the family separations, and a federal judge ordered the Trump
administration to reunite all those it had separated. But the fallout from
the separations is ongoing.

Trump falsely blamed his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, for
the policy that saw thousands of children separated from their parents.

At least six migrant children died in US custody, leading to widespread
condemnation of conditions in detention facilities.

The UN human-rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, in July 2019 said she was
"shocked" by the US government's treatment of migrant children and the
conditions they faced in detention facilities after crossing the border
from Mexico.

"As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am
deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in
overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and
with poor sanitation conditions," Bachelet, the former president of Chile,
stated.
Failure: Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan
trump rouhani iran 4x3 trump
Michael Gruber/Getty Images; Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images; Samantha
Lee/Business Insider

Trump's decision to unilaterally withdraw the US from the 2015 nuclear deal
in May 2018 has induced chaos throughout the Middle East.

It remains one of Trump's most unpopular decisions in the global arena, and
has been condemned by top US allies who were also signatories to the deal.

The former president failed to thwart Iran's aggressive behavior in the
region through a maximum pressure campaign, meant to squeeze Tehran into
negotiating a more stringent version of the pact.

After a series of incidents in the Persian Gulf region in 2019, tensions
between Washington and Tehran reached historic heights and sparked fears of
war. These fears were exacerbated after Trump ordered a strike that killed
Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani, in early January 2020. The strike led
Iran to retaliate and fire on US troops in the region, and dozens were
seriously injured.

Iran also abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal, which was designed to prevent it
from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump's decision to pull US troops out of northern Syria in October 2019
was also among his most disastrous foreign policy moves. In doing so, Trump
effectively abandoned US-allied Kurdish forces who bore the brunt of the
US-led campaign against ISIS to a Turkish military invasion.

The withdrawal induced a humanitarian crisis and created a security vacuum
that Russia, Iran, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an accused war
criminal, all benefited from.

Trump repeatedly pledged to end "endless wars," zeroing in on Afghanistan.
He wanted to remove all US troops from Afghanistan by the November
election, but that didn't happen.

Meanwhile, The New York Times in June 2020 reported that US intelligence
officials determined Russia paid bounties to Taliban-linked Afghan
militants to kill US troops.

The Trump administration didn't take any known responses. Though the White
House claimed Trump was not initially briefed on the matter, reporting from
multiple outlets suggests otherwise. Trump in a July 2020 interview said he
had not confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin on the matter.
Failure: Replacing the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
John McCain
Screenshot/CNN

The late GOP Sen. John McCain's iconic "thumbs-down" vote denied Trump a
full congressional repeal (even a "skinny repeal") of former President
Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.

But Trump did have success in dismantling parts of the law. His tax bill
included a rollback of the tax penalty for those who did not enroll in
healthcare.

Trump never offered a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. As a
candidate Trump promised "insurance for everybody" and a more immediate
replacement to the nearly decade-old ACA. But he didn't deliver on that as
president.
Failure: Impeachment
In this Dec. 18, 2019, photo, President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign
rally in Battle Creek, Mich. Using stark �Us versus Them� language, Trump
and his campaign are trying to frame impeachment not as judgment on his
conduct but as a culture war referendum on him and his supporters, aiming
to motivate his base heading into an election year (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Associated Press

Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives on December 18, 2019.

The House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump, one for abuse
of power over his dealings with Ukraine and one for obstruction of Congress
over his efforts to stonewall the impeachment inquiry.

Trump urged Ukraine to launch investigations into his political rivals as
he simultaneously withheld about $400 million in congressionally approved
military aid from the country, which is fighting an ongoing war against
pro-Russian separatists.

The former president was acquitted in a Senate trial, but will still go
down as just the third president in US history to be impeached. GOP Sen.
Mitt Romney of Utah also made history by voting to convict Trump, marking
the first time ever that a senator voted to convict a president from their
own party.

On January 6, 2021, Trump provoked an attempted coup at the US Capitol in
relation to his baseless claims of mass voter fraud and refusal to concede
to Biden. Five people were killed.

Trump was impeached by the House for inciting a violent insurrection over
the Capitol riot. He's the only president in US history to be impeached
twice.
Failure: COVID-19 pandemic
Trump, Dr. Fauci, Birx briefing masks mask
Jabin Botsford/Getty Images

Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely go down as one of the
biggest disasters in US history. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have
died, and millions are unemployed.

On the day Trump left office, there had been more than 24.3 million
confirmed COVID-19 cases in the US and over 405,000 reported fatalities.
The US has the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world. As of January 20,
the US COVID-19 death toll was on the verge of surpassing the total number
of American service members killed during World War II.

Despite this, Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus and
contradicted top public-health experts, flouting recommendations from
advisors on his own White House coronavirus task force.

In March 2020, Trump privately admitted to veteran reporter Bob Woodward
(on tape) that he was deliberately misleading the public on the dangers of
the virus in an effort to avoid inducing panic.

Public health experts have cited Trump's nonchalant approach to the virus
and tendency to reject science as one of the primary factors in why the US
emerged as the epicenter.

Trump refused to accept responsibility for his failed response to the
pandemic, blaming China instead.
Failure: The US economy
Trump
Tom Brenner/Reuters

Trump often took credit for the robust US economy before the pandemic,
ignoring that much of the growth began during the Obama administration.

The US faced one of the worst economic crises in its history under Trump,
which was intrinsically linked to his disastrous response to the COVID-19
pandemic.

Coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020 and reduced consumer spending led to
tens of millions of job losses as whole segments of the economy sputtered.
The economy has since begun adding back jobs, but is far from a full
recovery as the US struggles to contain the coronavirus and Biden takes
over.

Roughly 22 million jobs were lost from February to April. Though nearly
half of those jobs have been recovered, the unemployment rate is still at
7.9% (estimated to be about 12 million people). The pre-pandemic
unemployment rate was 3.4%.

As Trump left office, the US national debt was at the highest levels since
World War II. And US economic growth was set to average just above 0% for
Trump's first term because of the pandemic recession, according to The
Washington Post.

Though the economy is still far from recovered, Trump also failed to bring
Congress together to pass a second coronavirus stimulus package prior to
Election Day as Americans across the country struggled to cover rent and
other bills. The GOP-controlled Senate instead prioritized confirming
Trump's Supreme Court nominee, essentially placing the economy and the
livelihoods of Americans on the back-burner.

As of Election Day 2020, Trump had not signed a coronavirus relief bill in
roughly half a year. He finally signed a $900 billion relief package
shortly after Christmas in late 2020.
Failure: Contracting COVID-19
trump walter reed
ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images

As the president of the US, Trump is the most heavily protected person on
the planet. The fact he contracted COVID-19 in October 2020 stood as a
catastrophic failure and a national-security crisis for the US.

The president routinely flouted public health recommendations before
getting infected. Less than a week before he was diagnosed, Trump mocked
then-presidential candidate Joe Biden for routinely wearing a mask in
public.

Top public health experts have repeatedly urged Americans to wear a mask or
face covering, touting the practice as the best tool available in fighting
the virus.

Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 just days after essentially holding a
super-spreader event in the Rose Garden at the White House to announce his
Supreme Court nominee. Attendees did not socially distance, and many were
seen without masks.

Well over a dozen people in Trump's orbit tested positive for COVID-19
after the event.
Failure: Damaging democracy
trump wind
President Donald Trump. Getty

Trump eroded democratic norms in many ways during his tenure.

He repeatedly attacked the media, leading UN experts to warn that Trump's
rhetoric raised the risk of violence against journalists. He threatened to
deploy combat troops to American cities, over the objections of their
elected leaders, and ordered illegal actions like demanding poll workers
stop counting ballots.

Trump's relentless dissemination of disinformation on an array of topics,
particularly the electoral process, led historians and experts on fascism
to compare him to dictators like Benito Mussolini.

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), a project that monitors the health of
democracy across the world, in its 2020 report said the US has become more
autocratic in the Trump era.

"The United States � former vanguard of liberal democracy � has lost its
way," V-Dem's 2020 report said, adding that the US "is the only country in
Western Europe and North America suffering from substantial
autocratization."

The former president's rhetoric was often viewed as a source of
encouragement by far-right extremist groups, and Trump frequently
equivocated when asked to condemn such people.

Though President Joe Biden was the clear winner of the 2020 election, Trump
refused to concede. Trump rejected the results and made baseless
allegations of fraud.

Even as world leaders began to congratulate Biden, a major sign of Biden's
legitimacy, Trump continued to deny reality.

After weeks of rejecting the election result and attempting to overturn the
outcome, the president provoked an attempted coup at the US Capitol on the
day lawmakers met to certify Biden's Electoral College victory. He riled up
his supporters in an inflammatory speech, urging them to march on the
Capitol and "fight like hell." They listened.

The pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 destroyed property
and clashed with police. Five people were killed in the process. Trump was
subsequently impeached for inciting the violent insurrection.

After the violence, Trump released a video acknowledging that a new
administration would take over, but he did not explicitly concede.

Trump's refusal to concede breaks from a democratic tradition in the US
that dates back to its earliest days when President John Adams lost the
1800 election and peacefully stepped aside for Thomas Jefferson, a member
of another political party, to take over.

The former president undermined the political system in the US and sowed
doubt about the integrity of the country's elections. Every president prior
to Trump allowed for a peaceful transition of power after they'd served two
terms or lost an election.

Trump also skipped Biden's inauguration. He's the first outgoing president
since 1869 to refuse to attend the inauguration of his successor.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biggest-accomplishments-and-failures-
heading-into-2020-2019-12#failure-damaging-democracy-15