"After Trump, who’s next?"
"After Trump, who’s next?"
The November 3, 2020 decision of the electorate of the U.S. to vote Donald J. Trump out of the White House threw into sharp focus the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the presidential and the parliamentary form of government.
America’s Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution that chose the presidential form of government over the parliamentary form of their country’s former colonial master.
I’m voting for Democratic challenger Joe Biden, the majority of America’s voters – Biden received approximately 7 million votes more than Trump – the U.S. electorate removed from office a man widely described as the worst president in that country’s 245-year history. During his four years in office, which officially ended on January 20, 2021, Donald J. Trump behaved as though the U.S. Presidency was an extension of the controversy-ridden Trump Organization and he was still a realtor-cum-reality-TV producer.
Some Trump critics have gone all the way and described the 45th U.S. President as an evil person. For starters, he refused to release his income tax returns, something that none of his predecessors did! The data checkers recorded a total of close to 20,000 lies on misrepresentations done by Mr. Trump during his four years in office. He was a racist and a misogynist. And he never stopped trying to destroy former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) – by virtue of ACA millions of Americans enjoyed health care for the first time – while giving his Wall Street friends a fat corporate income tax cut. And throughout the pandemic, he downplayed the significance and impact of COVID-19.
Donald J. Trump was no less evil in the geopolitical arena. One of his first acts as President was to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accord on global warming. He weakened America’s age-old international alliances, made threats about pulling the U.S. out of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Terminated U.S. partlessly in the Pacific Ocean-spanning TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). On the other hand, he strengthened US relations with the US’ long-time enemies, especially Russia, and the world’s dictators and strongmen. Only with a great deal of reluctance did the White House agree to impose sanctions on his friend President Vladimir Putin in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukranian territory.
Trump’s pre-election talk about election fraud was a clear warning that he intended to not go quietly in the event that he lost the November 2020 election. True enough, he inspired and instigated the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol – the symbol of America’s democracy – by his supporters. There is strong evidence that Mr. Trump refused to call in the troops even when informed by endangered legislators of the horrendous things being done by the mob inside what until then was hallowed ground.
Going back to the presidency-versus-parliament issue, the American people would not have had to put up with four years of Trumpian maladministration if the US had the parliamentary form of government. The American people would not have had to wait until January 20, 2021 to be rid of Donald J. Trump. By a simple no-confidence vote, called at any time during the governing party’s term of office, Prime Minister Trump would have been removed from his position, with an election held shortly thereafter. Under the parliamentary form of government, America’s Trump agony would have been terminated much sooner.
Donald J. Trump’s term of office was only four years. The American people’s agony would have been greater if the US president’s term had been six years. Like a six-year presidency, a four-year presidency can be woefully short if the holder of the office is first-rate and eternally long if the holder is a disaster.
Many citizenries in the world are suffering because of bad presidencies. The American people have acted; they have removed Donald J. Trump. Which rotten president will lose his job next?