The four-year term of current President Trump of the United States will officially end on January 20, 2021, and his attempt to change the election results will also end.
On January 7th local time, Trump tweeted through White House social media director Dan Scavino, “Although I completely disagree with the outcome of the presidential election, there will be an orderly transfer of power on January 20.” As a president who “transfers” from businessmen, what “political legacy” have he left during his presidency?
Trump has made more people “skeptical” government agencies.
According to the Associated Press, Trump’s “most lasting political legacy” for the United States may have used the presidency to change people’s perception of government agencies.
Among Trump’s “targets”, including the FBI investigating “Russia”, the “insufficient” Supreme Court and the “disobedient” Pentagon.
In the 2016 presidential election, Trump was repeatedly accused of colluding with Russia.
In May 2017, the “Russia Link” investigation was officially opened, and Trump subsequently fired the then FBI Director Comey.
According to people familiar with the matter, Comey has asked the Ministry of Justice to allocate more funds for the investigation of “Russia”.
In addition, during his presidency as President of the United States, Trump appointed a total of three Supreme Court justices and 220 federal court judges, which has a “conservatism-leaning” influence on the U.S. judiciary.
In addition to “attacking” government agencies, Trump has repeatedly criticized the existence of “fraud” in the U.S. electoral system and repeatedly sent misleading information that mail-in ballots or will lead to the election results being stolen by Democrats.
Richard Waterman, a historian at the University of Kentucky who focuses on the study of the President of the United States, said, “Usually, defeated presidents are willing to peacefully transfer power because they choose to accept the results of the American people’s vote.
However, in these acts of Trump, we only see attacks on democracy.”
Historians who study the President of the United States agree that Trump has changed the meaning of the “president” position and made more people “skeptical” government agencies.
Republican Party will continue to attract voters with “status politics”
According to the Boston Globe, Trump has a “deep attraction” to white groups because he can understand the “remity and victim complex” of white people, which do not care about Trump’s ambitions or lies.
At the same time, they hope to have such a person who can bring white supremacy to the extreme in the United States. Trump satisfies their “fantasies”.
In August 2020, Wisconsin police fired seven shots in the back of a black man, paralyzing the man, and protests against racial discrimination and violent police enforcement broke out there immediately.
Some far-right groups “take advantage of” to take to the streets, which triggered shooting cases. 17-year-old white teenager Kyle Ritterhouse shot at protesters, killing two people. However, the teenager later became a “popular star” in the far-right media coverage in the United States.
Trump had refused to condemn Ritterhouse’s shooting of two people, saying “I guess he’s in big trouble, if he doesn’t shoot, he might be killed, and Ritterhouse is likely in self-defense.”
Trump’s covert condoning of this pattern of violence by white supremacists and far-right groups “seamlessly linked” to the 2020 presidential election, The Guardian reported.
In the first debate for presidential candidates in September 2020, host Chris Wallace repeatedly asked Trump to condemn white supremacists and far-right groups for violence, but Trump refused to do so and “shirked the host’s problems”.
In 2018, the Pew Research Center published a study on the voting data of the 2016 presidential election.
In which 54% of white voters supported Trump, and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary won 39% of white support.
According to early voting data, Trump still “takes” the white group in the 2020 election, and about 57% of white people voted for Trump, which also stabilized his “basic disk”.
Analysts point out that even if Trump loses the election, the discussion on identity politics will continue to affect the Republican Party for some time to come.
The United States cannot return to the diplomatic landscape before 2016.
For U.S. diplomacy, no word or phrase can simply define the impact of Trump’s presidency.
According to the U.S. Foreign Policy, in the 2016 campaign platform, Trump thought that the rest of the world was “taking advantage of the United States”.
He declared that he would put “America first” first and described himself as a “negotiator”, promising to reach a perfect diplomatic agreement for the United States, ushering A “era of prosperity”.
But looking back on the past four years, Trump’s promise only provides a “enticing vision”.
Under Trump’s leadership, the relationship between the United States and many allies has deteriorated and its influence in the international community has gradually declined.
After Trump was elected president, the relationship between the United States and NATO has become increasingly tense, and he has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from NATO.
In July 2020, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany, of which about 5,600 of them were transferred to other NATO countries such as Italy, Belgium and Poland, which was believed to have given allies a “slap” and sent a signal of division.
In 2020, there was a global outbreak of COVID-19. Against this background, Trump announced his withdrawal from the World Health Organization, which had a negative impact on the global fight against the epidemic.
In addition, Trump also led the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which hindered the global governance of climate change.
Overall, the central feature of Trump’s foreign policy is “systematic discordant” and his attitude is often “confusing” contrary to some foreign policy research institutions within the administration, according to the International Policy Digest.
As the Biden administration officially takes office, the United States may change its foreign policy.
But analysts point out that Trump’s “diplomatic legacy” will prevent the United States from returning to the pre-2016 diplomatic landscape.
American society is seriously torn and still “solved”
On January 6th local time, the U.S. Congress convened a joint meeting of both houses of Representatives to confirm the voting results of the electoral college.
However, a large number of Trump supporters held demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and they also broke into the Capitol.
This chaotic situation eventually killed five people.
On the afternoon of January 13th local time, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the impeachment bill against Trump, making Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.
Diao Daming, a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China and secretary-general of the American Research Center of Renmin University of China, said in an interview with the Beijing News that in the past four years, we can see the internal and foreign difficulties of the United States.
This Capitol riot is actually the result of systemic problems. It is only the responsibility of American society. A “epitome”.
Diao Daming said that at present, there is a serious tear between American political parties. In U.S. history, the Capitol riots have been a “page of shame”, but 45% of Republican voters still think that the riot is “reasonable”, which makes it difficult to bridge the differences between the two parties.
At the same time, in the context of economic globalization, the economic interests and social well-being of the under-educated white population continue to be undermined. However, in the past four years, this situation has not eased.
Diao Daming believes that racism is still a problem that cannot be ignored.
The decline in the number of white people and the change of traditional status have led to anxiety among some people who support white supremacy, and white politics have gradually intensified.
Judging from the participants in the riot, most of them are white Americans, including not only some people who question the outcome of the presidential election and want Trump’s re-election, but also some white supremacists and far-right groups, who have developed anti-government ideas, which eventually led to a chaotic scene in the Capitol.
In summary, both politically, economicly and socially, the Capitol riots are the result of a pluralistic dilemma, and some of the measures taken by Trump in the past four years are also concentrated in contradictions inside and outside the United States.
At present, the situation in the United States is getting worse and still “unsolved”.
