Grading Trump on My Terms

This is failing us.

Now that I’ve graded Trump’s first year of term #2 on his terms, I would like to grade him on my terms limiting myself to just my Big Six.

As a reminder, The Big Six refers to what are in my view the low-hanging fruit of public policy. Specifically they are (in alphabetical order):

• Drug Freedom

• Education

• Housing Development

• Immigration

• Taxation

• War

The “low-hanging fruit” concept here is that each of these have the potential for very large social gains with very straightforward policy choices. They obviously are NOT easy from a political perspective, but they could be easier with better, more honest debate.

[NB: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are close but not yet on the list because in my estimation the distance between better, honest debate and the ability to build consensus around reform is still too vast. These three certainly are big problems where the gains from reform are great simply by virtue of avoiding the coming disaster. Yet the combination of vested interests preventing reform even given good debate and emotional support despite mathematical and economic reality means we aren’t there yet. If I were to grade Trump on these, the short answers would be: terrible, more bad than good, more good than bad.]

Back to the list, so how is the show so far? The overall evaluation is “Not great, Bob!”

The expanded analysis below grades Trump on the net change on an absolute basis answering the dual questions: Has he made it better or worse, a lot or a little? I considered doing this both relatively (against the baseline similar to baseball’s WAR) as well as absolutely (against the ideal). I choose to abandon that approach as it was confusing and too argumentative in trying to decide what the generic alternative president might have done as well as putting a precise value on progress/regression.

Drug Freedom

Expectations here were not high. Entering his term this wasn’t an issue that has been salient. And sadly the public and hence both political parties are generally on the wrong side here. Prohibition fails in theory and practice, but it thrives in fantasy within the minds of well-meaning but misguided people.

In spite of this headwind, Trump does score one good grade here in the narrow case of relisting marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. As Jacob Sullum at Reason points out this has real as well as symbolic benefits.

But then we have drug-fear demagoguery which has served as justification for bad policies in the categories of immigration and war below. The magic of “Fentanyl is bad; this is an invasion!” is all too effective for him to not use it.

The only thing that was within the Overton Window was marijuana rescheduling. Albeit a small yet important change, I think another president would have done the same while not doing the other bad things Trump did do.

On drug freedom Trump = a little worse.

Education

This is an area where a president has less policy ability than the others. It is much more a bully pulpit opportunity to encourage improvement by championing good policy.

Here he talks a good game . . . sometimes . . . like when he claims to end the Department of Education. But talk is cheap. Not only did the effort here make transparent the lack of true intention, the latest development is that the proposed spending bill funds the DoE at the same level as the Biden Administration and has language that prevents future defunding. So much for that ostensible goal.

Still other times he asserts powers the federal government doesn’t and shouldn’t have. These include attempts to set a national policy that while having many potential positives also contains nationalism masquerading as patriotism.

When it comes to funding higher education, I don’t find many positives. Student loans are still a mess. Research funding was slashed for political rather than economic reasons. Funding in general didn’t stop being politically determined—he just substituted his equivalent of DEI for the original one.

His administration is nominally more supportive of school choice, but there isn’t a lot of substance here. A key opportunity Trump ignores is delegitimizing and dethroning the powerful teacher’s unions who work effectively and consistently against good schooling.

Rather than make progress, Trump has tarnished the issue, which strengthens the status quo.

On education Trump = a little worse.

Housing Development

As with education, the federal role here is subservient to the local one (state and municipal). Instead of championing Build, Baby Build, he went the route of demagoguery yet again.

He found common ground with his base in blaming immigrants. He chose to slay the progressive’s boogieman, institutional investors. And despite talking a good game occasionally, he cannot be counted on to be anti-zoning.

Populism = NIMBYism. Trump knows this instinctively and follows that guide.

I see no progress from him on this issue. Therefore, he is strengthening the opposition by yielding the issue.

On housing development Trump = a little worse.

Immigration

I say a lot on this issue; so I don’t feel compelled to detail it here. Suffice it to say we have transferred chaos at the border to chaos within American cities.

The weight of it is mass disappearing of people peacefully existing in this the “land of the free”. But these many tragedies are just lost in the sea of statistics. Terribly rising above it, though, is the multiple murders of U.S. citizens by government actors who are then defended if not lionized by the highest in authority.

About the only positive thing I can come up with is how much Trump has poisoned the anti-immigration stance. Of course in light of the horrific developments here, this is weak tea.

On immigration Trump = a lot worse.

Taxation

Finally we come to an issue where Trump scores well, right? Not so fast, my friends. Tariffs are taxes on American consumers and exporters. Trump’s emphasis here has worked to offset if not dwarf other taxation progress.

Not only that, but his populist policies are undermining the core of the good tax policy that characterized his first administration. Despite progress on business expensing and making permanent good features of his 2017 tax reform, he is choosing to make his hallmark policies bad tax cuts like those for Social Security income, tips, and overtime.

On taxation Trump = neutral.

War

It is beyond ironic that the man who so desperately seeks the Noble Peace Prize and who genuinely opposes war has done so little to truly achieve those ends.

The unofficial renaming to the Department of War is a microcosm of the ambivalence. In another world that would be an act to show the government’s true position—calling it out and challenging it for a change. Instead they were just leaning into the concept that it isn’t bad when our side does it all the while and yet again blatantly doing the bad part out loud.

It is hard to reconcile him as the peace president when he “launched nearly as many airstrikes in five months as former President Joe Biden did in his entire term”. That is from Matthew Petti summarizing 5 wars Trump started or expanded in year one of term two.

We must add to the list of realized war the antagonistic talk of making war on our allies. It doesn’t matter if his rhetoric about Europe/Denmark/Greenland and Canada and Panama, et al. is just bloviation . . . probably. We should never be in a position to have to rationalize this behavior by a U.S. President dismissing it as something we shouldn’t take too seriously. Here as in so many areas Trump squanders equity and gives up the high ground.

One thing keeping this score from being “a lot worse” is how bad U.S. policy has been in the recent decades. Smallish invasions along with a bombing here and there have been standard American policy. Extrajudicial killings on the high seas and threatening allies are just his bellicosity du jour.

On war Trump = a little worse.

Overall

I guess averaging these out makes Trump = a little worse on The Big Six. However, I don’t think averaging is appropriate here. If five times out of six I slightly disappoint you and one time out of those six I inflict tremendous pain, I think the bad massively outweighs the others. In fact had he been a lot better on the others but still was doing what he is doing in immigration with its knock-on effects against free speech, gun rights, and human dignity, I think I would still rate him as Trump = a lot worse. I don’t much care if the trains run on time.

PS: “It’s just been one year!” his supporters may contend objecting to my negative review this early into the term. It indeed has just been one year. That fact leads me more to fear than to hope.