Here we are, eight months from the casting of ballots in the 2024 presidential election and eight interminable years since Donald Trump appeared on the American political scene. The first primary contests are underway this week but are essentially pointless since the nominees for both the Republican and Democratic parties are already preordained. 

This makes for an unusual situation in which voters will choose between two presidential candidates who have already held the nation’s highest office and have demonstrated their competence for the job or the lack thereof. 

Coincidentally, the annual ranking of every American president by historians has already been announced in which the top three are Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and George Washington. Near the top, Joe Biden appears in 14th place, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. Not bad for a candidate his critics scorn for his age but whose record in office as a senator, veep and president is admirable. 

By contrast, Donald Trump came in dead last in 45th place as the worst and most polarizing president in history. His nearest bottom dwellers in the rankings are the bad company of the flawed presidents James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding. 

Trump, however, easily outdoes them. He presided over a foreign policy that emboldened our enemies and alienated our allies. He was twice impeached and attempted an insurrection to steal back the election he lost in 2020.

Trump is uniquely unqualified for the presidency by his dishonesty, vulgarity, and criminality. He is a crime boss who is under indictment in multiple jurisdictions, faces gigantic fines, and possible incarceration, has been convicted of sexual assault and found guilty of paying hush money to a porn star. 

In a sane world such a flawed and shameless character would be unable to win a single vote, but Trump has pandered to fringe groups that appear to admire his blatant corruption, his contempt for democracy, and his desire to turn America into an autocracy. Among his acolytes appear to be racists, religious extremists, jingoists, militias, and those who, like Trump, are boiling over with grievances.

For such people, Trump’s promise to weaponize the department of justice to prosecute his foes and get even with anyone he identifies as an enemy is welcome. So is his violent rhetoric. extreme policy proposals, and embrace of authoritarian leaders that he wants to emulate like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un. 

If elected Trump would pose a threat to NATO, and would be likely try to enact draconian anti-immigrant laws. His speeches are filled with apocalyptic warnings against today’s America which he describes as a dystopian hell where  “kids aren’t able to play in the park without being beat up, molested, or shot.” 

He bemoans rampant crime though he himself is under indictment for a long list of crimes. Of course he denies any guilt and claims the prosecutions are a plot to get him by the radical left, communists, and fascists. He also promises to ignore global warming and make it worse by drilling to produce more oil and gas, to put an end to electric cars, to eliminate all vaccine mandates, and also frequently echoes the arguments of white supremacists. 

This is the same sort of appeal to the disgruntled masses practiced by all demagogues. It is not a surprise that Trump was known to keep a copy of Adolph Hitler’s manifesto, Mein 

Kampf, on his bedside table. We have often seen the same sort of rabble rousing before in this country from such characters as Huey Long and Joe McCarthy. 

Indeed, as long ago as the Federalist Papers, in whose 85 essays Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison made the case for the adoption of the Constitution, the founding fathers repeatedly warned against the danger of anti-democratic personality cults, populist lies, and ceaseless attacks by critics that could undermine the creation of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Their warnings were heeded then. We shall see if they are again when votes are cast for president this November.