Will history eventually look back more kindly on the Trump presidency?

Future historians of the United States may one day chronicle the current period as before and after Donald Trump. For some, Trump will be an aberration – a disruptor who broke into the slow, but sure, decline of a great power, but was unable to reverse the tide.

For others, he may be closer to a “great corrector”, who tried to bring an atypical 70 years of foreign engagement to an end and pick up where US policy had left off before the Second World War.

For now, though, and perhaps for decades to come, that big debate will not happen. Because, for the foreseeable future, the dividing line will not be his presidency as such, but 6 January 2021. His presidency will be seen exclusively through that – distorting – lens. 

His infamy has been sealed as a traitor who “incited” the violation of US democracy’s inner sanctum and then becoming the only US president to be impeached twice. Just to hammer the point home, a trial by Senate is likely to follow, even though Trump will by then be out of office.

The message is clear. Just as a favourite US bumper sticker says: “Don’t mess with Texas”, you don’t mess with the institutions of US power. And if you do – and you lose – there is no mercy. History, as always, is written by the victors and, to its outcasts, the United States is an unforgiving place. The land of opportunity, so called, may allow everyone a new beginning, but there are exceptions – and they are likely to include even this master of reinvention.

The Capitol invasion has changed the future of the Trump clan probably beyond their darkest imaginings. For Trump himself, being banned from social media, including his favourite Twitter, is the least of it – for all the profound questions that ban might raise about free speech, electoral mandates and the power of new media magnates.

Any tranquil retirement on his golfing estates must now be in doubt. He and his family are already reportedly being shunned by many in their social circle. Any thoughts of a return to politics, even running again for president, are gone. It is doubtful whether he would now be able to found his own media operation, even if he wanted to. The gravy train that is the lecture circuit for past presidents will not be at his disposal.  

There can be no certainty even that he will remain solvent. To the tax questions that arose during his presidency – and will surely be pursued all the more – are  added the desertion of banks and commercial contractors, concerned about reputational damage by association. Those staff too loyal or unenterprising to flee the sinking Trump ship in time now fear they will be unemployable. As I say, the United States can be an unforgiving place.

This is “not who we are” insisted many Americans, contemplating the mayhem at the Capitol on Twelfth Night. Those implicated in any way were at once branded “un-American” – one of the greatest crimes in the US canon, and most heinous of all for a president. Donald Trump is now bracketed with that miscreant, Richard Nixon, who – unlike Trump – salvaged a little dignity by accepting his fate.

It is not only Trump’s future that has been blighted by the events at the Capitol, however, but his past as president. It is now taken as read that he “incited” a mob, fomented an “insurrection”, conducted, as some say, a “self-coup”. I have scoured Trump’s utterances and can find no evidence for any of this. It is now the accepted narrative and unlikely to be questioned until or unless some revisionist historian comes along.

No matter that Trump won more than 70 million votes last November – the second highest total in US history; no matter that nearly half of all Americans who voted, chose to vote for him. His presidency will forever be seen in the flashing lights of the violated Capitol and his refusal to accept defeat. There is only one version of the Trump presidency now.  

Many of those, in politics, in the media, who were once on his side for whatever reason, now insist they were never under any illusions; they knew his flaws – which may or may not be true. What is true, however, is that had the events of that day not happened, and had the accusations of incitement not taken hold, Trump and his presidency might now be seen in another light. His political obituaries as he bowed out, however ungraciously, would be reading differently.

Yes, even from this perspective, the balance overall would probably be negative – in part because Trump’s many enemies in politics and the media would see to that, but also because of the evidence that emerged of a chaotic White House operation, the frequent policy U-turns, the inadequate handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lack of dignity and respect Trump showed at times towards the presidential office.

These are largely apolitical observations. There are respects, however, in which Trump’s presidency is not the complete failure it is often presented as. His election, as an outsider to the Washington establishment, allowed a large number of Americans in less affluent and cosmopolitan parts of the country to feel that their voice was being heard.

Trump addressed the trade imbalance, low wages and job losses that had resulted from the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) by renegotiating the terms. He might not have built his “wall” all along the Mexican border, but he did take measures to curb immigration – some of which passed muster at the Supreme Court.

He made three appointments to that court, which have changed its balance – but not, so far, its independence. His appointees have been seen as competent and not in hock to this maverick president. His use of social media, primarily Twitter, might have been unconventional, but it was highly effective and set a trend. There are few national leaders now who do not try to get their message out, one way or another, on social media. Nor, as appears from the memoir of his one-time national security adviser, John Bolton,  were his tweets quite as out of control as they appeared. Many had the once-over from the White House staff.

Abroad, Trump represented what many Americans (not only Trump supporters) would see as their national interest in demanding that the European members of Nato pay more; in showing that the US has other, and perhaps more urgent, interests than the defence of Europe; in trying to enforce international trade rules on China, and in risking a first meeting with the leader of North Korea which has helped to defuse some of the tensions in that region.

As is also clear from Bolton’s memoir, Trump also made heroic efforts to honour his election pledge to keep Americans out of foreign wars, despite continual pressure from the military top brass and intelligence interests to keep US forces in Afghanistan and the Middle East. That there was no rapprochement with Russia is to my mind a failure – but it is a failure that was not Trump’s but of a stubborn political establishment stuck in the mindset of the Cold War.

In many ways, it could be that history – if it ever gets past the last month of his presidency – looks more kindly on Trump than his chroniclers today. In the way he harnessed modern means to communicate his message; in his priorities abroad, even though he was often thwarted by traditionalists in Washington, in the way he heeded the concerns of so-called “flyover” America, Trump could be seen as a president who defended the national interest, as perceived by the non-elite, and anticipated global changes to come.

It is true that Washington makes life hard for outsiders, and Trump – as a businessman and showman turned politician – was as much of an outsider and rule-breaker as anyone who has made it to the White House. But Trump, unlike Nixon, never craved acceptance. He revelled in his outsider status as part of his political appeal.

It could be that, in time, Donald Trump will follow Nixon to a degree of rehabilitation, coming to be seen not just as a disgraced American, but as something of a tragic figure, whose presidency was effectively obliterated by one big mistake. As such, “Donald Trump – the presidency” could eventually follow “Nixon in China” into the international opera repertory.

Any reassessment, however, will not come soon. Trump’s immediate legacy, rightly or wrongly, will be as the president who mobilised a mob in a deluded attempt to stay in power. And the date to remember will not be that of his surprise election – 8 November 2016 – but 6 January 2021, the day the US Capitol was overrun.