Not even a decade into his political career, Donald Trump continues to defy all prior held assumptions of political reality and blazes ever more grandly deluded paths to greatness. There have been great presidents in the past, and Trump can name a few, if only in order to mention that he was better. But what is it exactly that has made him so special? Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who only reluctantly supported his party’s candidate in 2016, recently referred to himself in an ABC interview as a “never-again-Trumper”, because Trump is “unelectable”. Other once cozy and important allies like Fake News mogul Rupert Murdoch appear to have had enough of Trump as a high-ranking source of Murdoch’s News Corp hydra reportedly stated, “We have been clear with Donald. There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House.”

Perhaps better late than never, establishment Republicans are slowly backing away from Trump like Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes. From bringing up the subject of genital size in one Primary debate, calling for supporters to assault protestors at his rallies, and being shamelessly self-aggrandizing, there have been countless opportunities to abandon Trump’s crazy train going back to before he won his party’s nomination in 2016. Nonetheless, the party of family values rallied around Trump even as he defined deviancy lower than any 80s pop star that once got them so hot and bothered ever could have. The party that once wanted to protect children from vulgarity in media and promote character, stumbled over themselves to defend and celebrate a pop star in his own right whose only aim was personal victory. Abruptly at the end of 2022, however, as the novelty of an entertainer/businessman President wears off and his failures and shenanigans continue, his most outstanding political achievement has come into view – that there is anyone at all left to buy what he is selling.

Before Donald Trump, American Presidents have been revered, reviled, and remembered well after their service. The nature of public service at the highest level ensures that millions of people will come to love or despise the individual in the White House regardless of their performance. The public’s sentiment regarding the chief executive is largely swayed by the media they consume. Nearly unlimited funds are dumped into charismatic talking heads that contort their spines in any direction the wind is currently blowing in order to defend their party’s latest position. Thus, one decade’s focus on trusting the government out of hand for Republicans, as during War on Terror, has about-faced into suspecting a deep state plot behind every action taken by the government. While Democrats have spun their own web of contradictions and hypocrisies during this period, none have been quite as absurd or disruptive to the social order as the Republican abandonment of political norms in exchange for the conspiracy theories that Trump brought mainstream.

While there were many unique aspects to Donald Trump’s run for office in 2016, one of the most noteworthy was his continued call to imprison his opponent. Ideally, candidates for any public office ought to respect their opponents as legitimate and seek to defeat them by offering a more compelling policy alternative to the public that they wish to serve. Trump, himself having no political vision, found the call to “lock-her-up” resonated with crowds and stuck with it. While Hillary managed to run a historic failure of a political campaign, it remains unclear why Trump or his voters thought she should be behind bars. Despite common-sense and basic self-interest, Trump managed to weaponize the long-held antipathies of millions who felt exploited and neglected by out-of-touch politicians and at odds with cultural trends. Clinton only exacerbated these sentiments foolishly by demonizing Trump’s supporters. With the following years only further strengthening the divisions in society, the public is left at perhaps its most cynical point in modern history – where many Americans view members of the opposite political party as an existential threat and are willing to condone violence and the possibility of civil war to address their political differences. Trump, while proclaiming that he alone could fix America’s political problems in 2016, has instead facilitated chaos and disorder previously unimaginable. So what exactly did he accomplish to conjure such a loyal following that would abandon norms, decency, and even the centuries-old bedrock of the American system of government – the peaceful transition of power?

Trump’s political achievements, like many of his personal achievements, rest on the omission of key facts and the artful fabrication of a personal mythology. Despite his party having control of the national government for the first two years of his single term, Trump failed to deliver on his core campaign promises such as building a border wall and repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Though on the campaign trail Tump claimed his deal-making prowess would secure funding of the wall from Mexico, once in office his administration started floating the idea of a tax increase to pay for the wall. Ultimately, Trump’s efforts to get the GOP, the party of small government and spending cuts, to indulge in what would amount to a massive and costly federal government project failed. Similarly, replacing and repealing the ACA, something that Republicans have been campaigning on since its passage in 2010, also failed as the party had not yet agreed on how to improve the healthcare system. Nonetheless, Trump took a premature victory lap with a Rose Garden press conference when an ACA replacement bill narrowly passed the House in 2017. A self-congratulatory Trump proclaimed, “make no mistake – this is a repeal and replace of Obamacare” and noted his apparent political skill remarking, “being a politician for a short period of time…how am I doing, am I doing okay?… I’m president, hey I’m president… can you believe it, right… I thought you needed a little bit more time they always told me”. Like most of Trump’s politics, the premature celebration was built on miscalculation and overconfidence and the bill failed to pass in the senate months later.

So what were Trump’s huge political accomplishments that earned him such a loyal following? In his interview with ABC, Paul Ryan pointed to accomplishments made under Trump, such as cutting taxes and appointing judges across the judiciary, which are tangible accomplishments. That is, a Republican President, governing with a Republican Congress, inked a tax cut and appointed conservative judges. To celebrate Trump for these accomplishments is like handing out a participation trophy just for showing up. Republicans cut taxes and appoint conservative judges. Trump was merely the warm body they used to satisfy that fetish. The tax reforms of 2017, which offered permanent cuts to corporate taxes and temporary cuts for individuals and families, were celebrated by Trump as being the biggest in history – even bigger than Reagan’s – though as with most declarations that come from Trump’s mouth, that wasn’t quite the case. Further, Trump and his Congressional allies seem to have forgotten about the tax increases that inevitably came shortly after Reagan’s cuts. Turns out cutting taxes alone isn’t the magic economic solution, as is often touted on the campaign trail, especially when you want to use the government to do something like create a new branch of the military. Perhaps Donald forgot to say that he would eventually get Mexico to pay for Space Force. Maybe he will incorporate that into his 2024 platform.

When Donald Trump launched his political career, he peddled himself as a genius businessman and as a savior figure for America. It was he alone who could fix the country by draining the swamp and running the government like a business… or something. Trump based his politics on tapping into the average American’s frustration and hoping to come up with some ideas on how to govern later. As a choice fantasy of Republicans, the idea of a genius businessman running the government captured their imagination. However, governments and businesses aren’t exactly the same and this fantasy remains rooted in delusion. Businesses have the end goal of making money. The American government has the end goal of establishing justice – if we are to believe the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. These are quite different goals and it is foolish to think that an individual skilled at the former will necessarily be skilled at the latter. Nonetheless, the idea resonates with people presumably because, if we ran the government like a really good business, it’d make a ton of money and then we’d all have more money – everybody would win – like socialism -but richer. Also, money is somewhat easier to understand and just more fun than justice. What exactly justice is depends on… well, many things. As a philosopher once said, though farts stink both here and throughout the world, standards of justice vary immensely. More importantly, when someone thinks they can sniff out precisely what justice is, they’re doing it wrong – thinking that is. The trouble is that everyone with an internet connection today seems to think they know exactly what is right and wrong and how the country ought to be at present. Further, all too often, the people making the most noise online are simply blaming and condemning others without offering constructive or substantive ideas to solve problems. It seems everyone knows there are cataclysmic problems on the horizon, yet too few are making good faith efforts to abate further societal decay. Instead, we cynically watch with eyes glued to our screens as the country sluggishly drifts into a chaotic new normal.

Donald Trump was supposed to do many great things for America. For his sincerest true-believers, this meant he was working behind the scenes on destroying a global conspiracy perpetrated by rich elites in the entertainment industry that sought to do bad things everywhere, to everyone – for ever. For others, he was supposed to usher in a revolution of sorts and return Gotham to the people, like Bane, but less articulate. Those supporters who were more studied in history and economics – as opposed to comic books and fantasy – expected him to reduce deficits, champion State’s rights, and promote law, order, and good ol’ American pie morality. Though he still has time to experience a religious, moral, or a political epiphany that fundamentally changes his motivation from winning, to governing, it does not look likely. With one of his latest much-hyped announcements resulting in the unveiling of digital trading cards depicting him in a variety of really cool hero costumes and just some weird stuff going on, it’s clear that Trump has nothing to offer but sad comedy. Still, despite being a source of chaos since 2016, undermining traditional conservatism, and lacking any coherent ideology or political program, there are still people willing to literally buy what he sells. Since he entered politics, Trump has committed almost daily what would have been career suicide for any other politician. That he still maintains a loyal following is by far his most impressive political accomplishment. For so many, supporting Trump seemed to be radical and exhilarating. It was a chance to perhaps “save America”, and if not, to at least upset some liberals. Trump undeniably unleashed something from deep within the American psyche which is not going away anytime soon. If what’s left of his supporters truly want to do something radical and patriotic, they could abandon him – and his merchandise – once and for all.