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Some have tried to portray Trump’s presidency as a happy, peaceful time. That’s not what the record shows.
Hatred – Trump often had trouble denouncing the KKK and neo-Nazis, famously saying that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He claimed to be referring to activists who were for and against removing a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, but he specifically mentioned marchers the night before the rally. The only people marching in Charlottesville that night were the neo-Nazis shown here, who were chanting anti-semitic slogans. The following year, eleven people were killed in synagogue by a shooter motivated by the same ideology. [More information]
Cruelty – Trump started his first presidential campaign demonizing the population of illegal immigrants, which had actually stayed about the same under Obama. Trying to solve the imaginary crisis he had created, the Trump Administration started separating children from their parents at the border. Image shows some immigrant children held by the United States when this policy was in effect.
Failure – The New England Journal of Medicine declared that with Covid, American leaders “have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.” It pointed out that the federal government under Trump “has undermined” its formidable public health tools and “turned to uninformed ‘opinion leaders’ and charlatans who obscure the truth.” The result: double the death rate of Canada.
Lies – some argued that the many lies of Donald Trump were merely harmless exaggerations, until he lost the 2020 election and incited a riot (shown here) in order to hold on to power. His dishonest attack on American democracy continues to divide the nation. [More information]
Photo credits: Samuel CorumAnadolu Agency via Getty Images, US CPB Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP, Win McNamee/Getty Images via NPR, Washington Post.