Lessons of the Trump Presidency

Character and Leadership

Abstract

The 2020 presidential election has been a special event in the United States for several reasons. First of all, it has been made special by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and its grave consequences with regard to human and material losses which struck US population severely. Intensified social and political division also made the 2020 election somewhat different from previous ones with the inherent danger of the use of violence. Trends leading to the present
situation have started earlier, even before the Obama presidency. During the two terms of the Obama presidency the dominance of the Democratic Party ended, and the Republican Party obtained the majority in both Houses of Congress. This change in the legislative branch of government could be taken as the voters’ signal to achieve substantial changes. In 2016 with the election of Donald Trump these changes took place. This paper attempts to highlight the debates about the fitness of Donald Trump for the office of the president. It draws from opinions expressed by former employees of the administration, who left their position voluntarily or were removed by the president. It quotes the opinion of some of the traditional conservative republican election experts, who criticized president Trumps’ policies and character. The Mueller report as one of the most important documents on the evaluation of Donald Trump presidency, has been a fundamental source of this paper. This report has summarized in two volumes on more than four hundred pages the conclusions regarding the Russian interference in the 2016 election. In conclusion the paper quotes parts of the analysis about the fitness of Donald Trump for the office of the presidency prepared by the American Psychiatric Society.