His primary accomplishment was building a base of angry people.
I would say the US drastically changed a few ways: 1) the public’s perception of the media [Trump’s antagonism exposed just how partisan it is across the board], 2) the US strategy with regards to China [Biden seems to be quietly adopting many aspects], 3) a significant adjustment of tax strategy and offshoring of profits [it was a major shift in how offshore profits are treated], 4) healthcare regulations [hospital price transparency and drug pricing had some people shitting bricks and it’s just started].
Now you can argue those moves were bad, but to argue nothing changed is short-sighted.
It’s not that dissimilar to a large corporation. I’ve seen leaders (not even CEOs) push in a certain direction and it’s clear years later it made an impact.
These are ephemeral changes, the type that flap back and forth frequently with presidential changes.
That's why things like ACA are far more monumental - they're codified, much harder to undo.
Trust in media has been in steady decline for decades now.
Either could be reversed, as has happened in previous administration changes. Our tax code and rates are pretty malleable, if the last forty years is any indication.
You don't repeal laws, you nullify them. The ACA is small potatoes in that regard. They're not coming for the ACA, they're coming for the whole union.
What state gun laws are intended to supersede or nullify federal ones?
None of this is new or shocking. It's largely the way the republic has operated from day one.
There was no reason to believe that they would get what they wanted policy-wise from a Democrat or from a different Republican candidate. The next best thing is to make all of the bad people angry, which they did get.
If any of the criticism had gone beyond the level of "crooked Hillary" then I could buy this theory of Trump as expose. But it never did.
The point was that he said things like "kung flu" and it drove the bad people insane. Or "I can't call Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas any more because she's not an Indian."
I think the goal was a transformative presidency that cemented Trump as one of the best presidents. But he just didn't have the aptitude to pull that off.
Also his tax reform led to lower and middle class families paying significantly less federal income taxes while at the same time increasing treasury deposits.
Tax reform and criminal justice reform were part of his agenda and those were accomplishments.
His entire term was a wake up: we have all tied ourselves to a ship that is not unsinkable.
That's what his supporters thought/hoped but I'd say that didn't really pan out the way they thought, either.
That depends on what you believe Trump's agenda was.
I hope you're not taking his 2016 electoral campaign statements regarding what his agenda is at face value...
If not that, then ... what?
Not much got done, certainly not in the spirit of lasting change or advancing conservative agendas.
Is that a joke? What on earth would you judge someone on (with regards to their agenda) other than the commitments they make as a candidate?
I don’t care about whether someone accomplished a “secret unpublished” agenda, if it’s all revealed after the fact.
Obviously, I care about the changes made during the presidential term, but when it comes to “evaluating whether they fulfilled their agenda”, it seems farcical to say “I hope you weren’t actually considering the public commitments they made about their agenda”
He didn't wreck the economy like democrats do, but he didn't cut spending which is the only sane thing to do.
We needed a Ron Paul, not Trump. Unfortunately governments are a reflection of people and most people are pissed at the government. Trump didn't create angry people, he channeled the anti establishment sentiment like Berlusconi did 30 years ago in Italy. Most likely, once they became the establishment the found out the system is engineered to be impossible to dismantle from the inside.
The only way out of this increasingly huge government is collapse.
Government tends to grow under every administration because that's what all the incentives inside government encourage. You get what you incentivize.
Libertarianism is a political loser because a libertarian political platform would ultimately be about making politics and thus politicians less important. No career politician is going to really do that, and you can't get to high office without making it a career unless you're a fluke like Trump. I think a lot of people supported him for that reason, but unfortunately he was the wrong kind of fluke.
BTW the worst president of the last 100 years was not Trump. It was George W Bush for the Iraq war alone. Trump was obnoxious and might have been dangerous if he had more actual power, but he did not do anything to even approach the damage Bush did with that decision. I also doubt there would have been a President Trump had Bush not burned the US' reputation to the ground.