Worst President Ever?

This Yahoo / YouGov Poll was done between February 9th and 12th of a nationwide sample of 1,704 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Most Popular U.S. Presidents By Current Americans

 

These results are from surveys done by the YouGov Poll during the fourth quarter of 2025.

An Early Look At The Democratic Possibilities For 2028

We are still at least a year and a half away from the race getting serious for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. But there is already talk about who that nominee could be.

Julia Mueller in The Hill gives us a list of the most likely presidential hopefuls for Democrats. Here are her frontrunners:

Gavin Newsom 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Kamala Harris

Josh Shapiro

Andy Beshear

JB Pritzker

Pete Buttigieg

Gretchen Whitmer

 

I agree with her list. But right now, I think the four male governors (Newsom, Shapiro, Beshear, and Pritzker) have the best chance of being nominated. But it's still a long way before Democrats have to make up their mind about who to support - and things could easily change.

Do You Really Want The Precedents Trump Is Setting For Future Presidents?

Donald Trump is riding high right now. Even though his approval in the polls is low, he is being successful in completing many of his actions. He is seizing much of the power over the government purse from Congress. He is using the Justice Department to punish his critics and political enemies. He is putting pressure on media outlets in an attempt to censor what they report. He is deporting immigrants without due process (including many who are here legally). He is imposing new taxes of American consumers in the form of tariffs.

In short, he is in the process of creating expanding the power of the presidency - approaching the point of authoritarianism. And his MAGA cult is loving it. But they are being very short-sighted.

Trump's actions are setting precedents. And future presidents will be able to follow those precedents.

We still have elections in this country. And it is very likely that the next president will be a Democrat (especially considering Trump extremely low approval numbers). 

Now you might be thinking that a Democrat wouldn't act like Trump is doing. You might be wrong. Not all Democrats are as nice as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. We have had Democrats that pushed the envelope to accomplish things (like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson). The things they did were good for the country, but would a future Democrat, willing to push the envelope with the new powers Trump has created, do good or get his own retribution against right-wingers?

It could go either way. Our Founding Fathers knew that men are fallible, and even good men can go astray. That's why they created a presidency with limited powers, who must be answerable to Congress and the Supreme Court. 

Trump is breaking down our three-pronged government system and creating a powerful unitary presidency. Even his MAGA cult lovers need to ask themselves. Do you really want future presidents to have that kind of power?

Most Say Trump Can't Revoke Citizenship Of A U.S. Born Person

The chart above reflects the results of the YouGov Poll -- done on July 14th of a nationwide sample of 2,872 adults.

Most People Believe A President Must Obey Court Rulings

 

The charts above are from the Marquette Law School Poll -- done between May 5th and 15th of a nationwide sample of 1,004 adults, with a 3.6 point margin of error.

Obama Is The Most Popular Living President

 The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between January 21st and 27th of a nationwide sample of 1,001 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Trump Is Poised To Benefit Financially From The Presidency

In his first term, Donald Trump did something other presidents have not done. He used the office to make himself much richer. Now, in his second term, he is poised to do that on even a grander scale. Here is how Nicole Narea describes it at Vox.com: 

“Victory” cologne and perfume. “Crypto President” watches. Limited-edition “American Eagle” guitars. T-branded golf shoes and “Fight Fight Fight” high-top sneakers. 

These are just a sample of the many products licensed to bear President-elect Donald Trump’s brand, including some that he has promoted on his social media site Truth Social just weeks before his inauguration. If he continues to hawk his merchandise after returning to the White House, that could raise ethical concerns. 

Consumer goods may be the least of Trump’s issues, however. He has a number of business ventures — including his social media platform, a nascent crypto firm, and the Trump Organization’s partnerships in the Middle East — that could present conflicts of interest, make the presidency vulnerable to foreign influence, and violate federal law. . . .

Trump made an ethics pledge for a second term, but it doesn’t make any commitments in terms of how he might resolve his persistent conflicts of interest stemming from his now even more sprawling businesses. This time, there are many more ways that he could use the presidency for his own personal gain — and potentially be vulnerable to the influence of foreign actors. 

“He’s essentially flouting ethics rules and conflicts of interest laws much more blatantly, much more obviously than last time,” Scherb said. “He’s not even trying to hide what he’s doing at all this time.”

Chief among these conflicts of interest is his stake in the publicly traded parent company of Truth Social, the president-elect’s social media platform. Just after he won the election, that stake was worth $3.5 billion. The value of the company’s stock has oscillated in the month since, but Trump’s stake still makes up a large portion of his estimated $6.8 billionnet worth.

Never before has a president had such a significant stake in a publicly traded company, and for good reason: Foreign actors could easily and entirely legally buy up its stock, inflating its value and Trump’s net worth. Not only that, they could also “threaten to just dump all their shares at once, which would crater his net worth,” giving them potentially a “huge amount of leverage over the president,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for CREW.

The Trump Organization has also recently struck a series of deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars to construct luxury hotels and properties in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as established a partnership with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf. That has drawn Trump into an even closer relationship with the Saudis, which dates back to 2017 when he made the country stop number one on his first overseas trip as president.

“That’s an easy way for the Saudis to pump money into the Trump org,” Libowitz said. 

In September, Trump also launched a crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, alongside his sons and his new Middle East envoy, billionaire real estate tycoon Steve Witkoff.

Libowitz raised concerns about a $30 million investment in the company from Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who is currently fighting fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump and his family are expected to net roughly $20 million thanks to that deal, according to the BBC. Notably, Trump has recently nominated crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the SEC.

Scherb said he isn’t expecting robust oversight of these conflicts of interest from the incoming Republican-controlled Congress.

Who Will Be The REAL President Come January - Trump Or Musk?

 The federal government will run out of money on Saturday, and will shut down unless Congress passes a spending bill (unlikely) or a continuing resolution.

Most in Congress don't want this to happen. And a continuing resolution was agreed to by Democrats and most Republicans. It looked like a done deal.

But then Elon Must started tweeting. In over 100 tweets on his site (X), he railed about what a bad deal it was, and threatening Republican House members with being primaried in the next election if they voted for it. He was incessant in his opposition, and suggested the government be shut down until January 20th (when Trump will be sworn into office).

It was a ridiculous position for him to take. While he wouldn't be hurt by a shutdown (because he has nearly $400 billion), millions of ordinary Americans would be. They need the services offered by the government. Musk doesn't care, since he's planning to cut most of those services anyway.

Donald Trump had been quiet about the continuing resolution before Musk began his barrage of tweets. But when he saw the attention Musk was getting over his opposition, he jumped into the game. He posted on his website that no Republican should vote for the measure.

Now Democrats are upset that Republicans have backed out of the agreement they made. They're saying they won't vote for a "plan B' from the Republicans. And since there are several Republicans who would refuse to vote for any continuing resolution, it looks like the chances of a government shutdown are very real. That shutdown would hurt many struggling Americans.

This whole mess brings up another troubling thing. Just who is going to be president after January 20th? I know Trump will be sworn in as the office holder, but who will have the real power. Will it be Trump, or will it be Musk? This incident seems to suggest it may be Musk. It was Trump following Musk's lead on the continuing resolution. Will it be the same way on other important decisions?

WILL TRUMP JUMP EVERY TIME MUSK YELLS FROGGY?

U.S. Public Doesn't Agree With Presidential Immunity

 

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 23rd and 26th of a nationwide sample of 1,590 adults (including 1,412 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.2 points for adults and 3.3 points for registered voters.

A Reminder Of How Bad Trump Was As President

The following is by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich: 

Some people seem to have forgotten how bad a president Trump was, so I made a list of the worst things about the Trump presidency, in no particular order.

1. 1. Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.

2. 2. Murder went way up under Trump. He presided over the largest ever single-year increase in homicides in 2020. A number of factors might have contributed to that, but a big one is …

3. 3. Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he “did nothing” to restrict guns as president in spite of how …

4. 4. Under Trump, America suffered more than 1,700 mass shootings.

5. 5. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Trump delayed $20 billion of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days.

6. 6. According to Trump’s former acting Homeland Security secretary, Trump proposed selling the entire island of Puerto Rico.

7. 7. Trump said there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

8. 8. Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the January 6 Capitol attack.

9. 9. Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. All of the criminally false business filings he was convicted of were committed while he was president.

10. 10. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who he knew would overturn Roe v. Wade. As a result, 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives under an abortion ban.

11. 11. One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault by multiple women.

12. 12. Trump’s White House reportedly interfered in the FBI’s investigation of Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.

13. 13. Trump’s failed pandemic response led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. By the time Trump left office, roughly 3,000 Americans were dying of Covid every day. That’s a 9/11-scale mass casualty event every single day.

14. 14. Trump’s White House discarded the pandemic response playbook that had been assembled by the Obama administration.

15. 15. Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team.

16. 16. Trump repeatedly lied about the danger of Covid, saying it was “no worse” than the flu and that it would go away on its own.

17. 17. Trump promoted fake Covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and even injecting people with disinfectants. 

18. 18. After Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks, poison control centers received a spike in emergency calls.

    19. Trump presided over a net loss of 2.9 million American jobs — the worst recorded jobs numbers of any U.S. president in history.

    20. Trump profited off the presidency, pocketing an estimated $160 million from foreign countries while he was president.

    21. Trump also billed the Secret Service over $1 million for the privilege of staying at his golf clubs and other properties while they protected him. 

    22. Trump caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history when he didn’t get funding for his border wall, which he said Mexico was going to pay for (it never did). 23. Trump also shut the government down two other times.

    23. Trump diverted nearly $14 billion from other federal agencies — including $9.9 billion from the military — to pay for his border wall, which he never finished. 

    24. Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40 percent — more than in any other four-year presidential term — largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

    25. Trump separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, with no plan to ever reunite them — putting babies in cages.

    26. The Muslim Ban. Yes, Trump really did try to ban Muslims from entering the country.

    27. Trump broke the law by trying to withhold nearly $400 million of U.S. aid for Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.

    28.Trump personally attacked and ruined the careers of every American official who stood in the way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.

    29. To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.

    30. For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

    31. Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.

    32. Trump undermined faith in our democracy. Long before Election Day in 2020, Trump started making false claims that the 2020 election would be rigged.

    33. After the election, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department, said it wasn’t. As his handpicked attorney general said: “The claims of fraud were bullsh*t.”

    34. Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.

    35. Trump ordered the Justice Department to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.” Only when all the top officials of the department threatened to resign did he back down. 

    36. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state officials in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results. He was even caught on tape doing it.

    37. When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral certificates for multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among his associates who have been criminally indicted for this.

    38 Trump tried to bully Vice President Mike Pence into obstructing the certification of the election. Pence refused. 

    39. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on January 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.

    40. Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.

    41. Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”

    42. Trump did nothing to stop the January 6 violence, which included threats on the life of Vice President Pence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.

    43. On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.

    44. The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including seven Republican senators.

    45. In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Flynn’s contacts with Russian agents. This was documented in the Mueller report.

    46. When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.

    47. Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.

    48. When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGahn to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.

    49. Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.

    50. Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.

    51. Trump wasn’t charged for criminal obstruction because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.

    52. Trump publicly sided with Putin over the U.S. intelligence community — rejecting well-documented evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help elect him.

    53. Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but his campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes. One of his closest associates was also convicted. His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes. His national security adviser pleaded guilty to crimes. So did his personal lawyer. So did the chief financial officer of his business. As did his campaign foreign policy adviser. And one of his campaign fundraisers. 

    54. They all committed crimes. Then what did Trump do? He pardoned most of them.

    55. Trump said he’d “drain the Washington swamp.” But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history.

    56. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.

    57. Trump then tasked Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.

    58. Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington, D.C.

    59. Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.

    60. Trump hosted a Russian foreign minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.

    61. Trump promised that the average American family would get a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy and big corporations. Average American families did not get a $4,000 raise. America’s billionaires, however, doubled their wealth.

    62. Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.

    63. Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.

    64. Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flaks who made it harder for workers to unionize.

    65. Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to avoid paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.

    66. Trump repeatedly said he might serve more than two terms, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

    67. When he started to realize he would lose, Trump suggested delaying the 2020 election.

    68. Trump called Haiti and African nations “sh*thole” countries.

    69. Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. This was struck down by the courts.

    70. Trump called climate change a “hoax.”

    71. Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.

    72. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.

    73. Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

    74. Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. He’s still saying he’ll repeal the ACA and still has only “concepts of a plan” to replace it.

    75. Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.

    76. By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.

    77. Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents from the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.

    78. Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.

    79. Trump seemed to think he could redirect the path of a hurricane with a Sharpie.

    80. Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest. 

    81. Trump tried to buy Greenland.

    82. Trump canceled a diplomatic trip to Denmark, reportedly because he wrongly thought Denmark was blocking his plan to buy Greenland.

    83. Trump repeatedly denigrated German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seemingly because he resented her for beating him out as Time’s Person of the Year in 2015. He’s that petty.

    84. Trump vetoed a bipartisan congressional resolution to end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

    85. Trump referred to fallen U.S. service members as “losers” and “suckers.” This has been confirmed by multiple sources, including Trump’s former chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly.

    86. According to Kelly, Trump praised Hitler, saying he “did some good things.”

    87. Trump complained that the military wouldn’t place personal loyalty to him over their oath to the Constitution, saying, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”

    88. Trump proposed having the military shoot Black Lives Matters demonstrators.

    89. Trump tried to cut $460 million for unhoused veterans.

    90. Trump has repeatedly turned his ire on Gold Star families. Army widow Myeshia Johnson said Trump reduced her to tears when he dismissed her fallen husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, saying, “He knew what he signed up for.”

    91. Instead of apologizing to Myeshia Johnson, Trump went on to publicly attack her.

    92. In 2020 Trump risked the lives of Gold Star families by visiting them when he reportedly knew he had tested positive for Covid. Trump later tried to blame the families for his infection.

    93. Trump demonized the free press, calling any coverage he didn’t like “fake news” and smearing journalists as “the enemy of the people.”

    94. Trump constantly lied. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

    95. Trump’s administration was in constant chaos. He went through four chiefs of staff, four press secretaries, and seven communications directors in just four years.

    96. He even contested the only election he won, falsely claiming that “millions” had voted illegally in 2016 and that that was the only reason he lost the popular vote.

    97. Trump’s haphazard use of tariffs is estimated to have cost the average family $1,277 extra per year.

    98. He was literally the laughingstock of the world, prompting guffaws from the UN General Assembly and mockery from world leaders.

    99. He banned transgender service members from the military.

    100. He spent $5.4 million of taxpayer money on a dictator-style military parade in D.C.

    101. He attempted to remove protections from nearly 35 million acres of public lands — roughly the size of the entire state of Florida.

The Choice Is Stark For Voters In The 2024 Election

 In most of the presidential elections in this century, voters have faced a choice of policies. 

In Bush - Gore (2000), Bush - Kerry (2004), Obama - McCain (2008), and Obama - Romney (2012), the policies of the candidates were different. But all of the candidates, minus their policies, were fundamentally decent people.

They were people you could have an enjoyable conversation with. They were people you wouldn't mind having a drink or dinner with. They were people you wouldn't mind living next door. You might disagree with them, but they weren't bad people.

That changed in 2016, when Donald Trump became a candidate. I can understand why some people voted for him that year, because a lot of voters really didn't know that much about him.

But after his four years in office, the public came to know who he was, and most didn't like it. He exposed himself as different from past candidates - dishonest, greedy, angry, disrespectful of others, and dangerously narcissistic. And they rejected him in 2020 - choosing instead another fundamentally decent person in Joe Biden.

In 2024, voters are again faced with a stark choice. It's not a choice between fundamentally decent candidates with different policies. It's a choice between good and bad. It's a choice between decency and indecency. It's a choice between hope and fear. It's a choice between someone who thinks about others and someone who thinks only of himself.

Donald Trump has shown us who he is - and he's not a good person. Kamala Harris, whatever you might think of her policies, is a good person.

I hope voters will again reject the bad person. The presidency is too important, to this country and the world, and it requires a good and decent person to serve in the office.

It really is good versus evil. Make the right choice.

The Public Believes The SC Immunity Decision Makes It Likely Future Presidents Will Commit Crimes

 

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 7th and 9th of a nationwide sample of 1,620 adults (including 1,443 registered voters). The margin of error was 3.2 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.

U.S. Presidents (Ranked By Popularity Of Current Public)

 

Court Decision Gives A Trump Presidency Dictatorial Power

The Supreme Court has rendered a very flawed decision on presidential immunity. This nation has always believed that every citizen is subject to the rule of law, and no citizen is above the law - not even the president. That is no longer true.

The Court has ruled that a president has immunity when performing his official duties - even if he breaks the law in performing those duties. And they went further in declaring that any communication the president has with his vice-president or with the Justice Department includes presidential immunity (even if those discussions involve plans to break the law).

This is especially troubling when it comes to communication with the Justice Department.

Donald Trump has repeatedly promised his supporters that if elected for a second term, he would use the Justice Department to exact revenge on his perceived enemies - and there is no reason to believe he wouldn't follow through on that promise.

In his first term, Donald Trump made the mistake of choosing Attorney Generals who had a modicum of belief in the U.S. Constitution. They refused his more nefarious requests.

He won't make that mistake again. You can be sure that any new Trump-appointed Attorney General would be a sycophant - a person who would follow ALL Trump orders (even if they violated the Constitution).

That would let Trump use the Justice Department to punish anyone he didn't like - political opponents, print and broadcast media, individual journalists, or anyone else he didn't like.

Using the law to punish opponents is the most powerful tool of dictators. They use that to increase and sustain their power. Now it is legal for a U.S. president to wield that same kind of power. It's a giant step down the road to an authoritarian presidency.

This makes it even more important to make sure Trump is not elected this November. We must keep him out of the White House - at least until a more reasonable and ethical Supreme Court is a reality, and can overturn this very bad decision.

We've Made Bad Choices For President - But Corrected Them

For those of you fearing the outcome of this presidential election, Robert Reich offers a ray of hope:

I want to try to reassure you about this country. 

I know that you’re worried and upset. You have every reason to be. Donald Trump is a vile human being, and he got away with a tsunami of lies Thursday night. Joe Biden didn’t come across with the vitality he needed to show. 

I have no idea whether Biden will get his mojo back or the Democrats will find someone else to take on Trump. But I have an abiding faith in the common sense and good-heartedness of most Americans. 

Although we’re horribly divided right now, the fact is, again and again, we’ve rejected vicious haters and demagogues — Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, and George Wallace, to name a few. 

We’ve made a few bad mistakes in our choices of president, to be sure, but we’ve corrected them as soon as we could. We elected James Buchanan in 1856, but he was out in four years. We allowed Andrew Johnson to become president following Lincoln’s assassination, but we impeached him. We elected Richard Nixon in 1968 but sent him packing in 1974. We elected Trump in 2016 (although more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton), and we didn’t reelect him in 2020. 

There have been times when I doubted America. I think the worst was 1968, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy, the riots and fires that consumed our cities, the horrific Democratic convention in Chicago along with protests and violent police response, the election of the dreadful Nixon, and the escalating carnage of Vietnam. 

It seemed to me then that we had utterly lost our moral compass and purpose. 

But the Watergate hearings demonstrated to me that we had not lost it. Democrats and Republicans worked together to discover what Nixon had done. I had much the same feeling about the brilliant work done by the House’s special committee to investigate January 6, 2021. 

Washington, D.C., is not the Gomorrah portrayed in the media, and I think it important not to become so consumed with its failings or its Republican crazies that we overlook the many good things happening there, particularly under Biden — the most aggressive use of antitrust and most pro-union labor board I remember, and Biden’s extraordinary legislative accomplishments. 

When I think about what’s good about America, I also think about the jurors and prosecutors and the judge in Trump’s recent trial in Manhattan, who took extraordinary abuse. Their lives and the lives of their families were threatened. But they didn’t flinch. They did their duty. 

I think about our armed services men and women. I think about our firefighters and police officers. I think about our teachers and social workers, and our nurses who acted with such courage and dedication during the pandemic. I think about all the other people who are putting in countless hours in our cities and towns and states to make our lives better. 

And all the people who are working their hearts out right now to make sure Donald Trump stays out of the White House. (I assure you, I’m doing the same, and I hope you are as well.) 

A few nights ago, I had dinner with an old friend whom I haven’t seen in many years. He’s now a United States senator. He works extraordinarily hard. He cares deeply about the country. He shares many of our values. 

He told me that he seriously doubts Americans will elect Donald Trump. 

I agree with him. We are so much better than Trump.