Whether you like it or not, U.S. President Donald Trump has been the most important figure in the country’s political scene for nearly a decade. By this point, we’ve had plenty of time to judge the man, and two things about him are now abundantly clear. First, his political appeal was underestimated from the start, and he has become a more effective politician over time. Despite chronic lying, broken pledges, felony convictions, sex offenses, and a demonstrated willingness to trash any norm that might deny him what he wants, he has remade the Republican Party in his image, and he won reelection in 2024 despite his dismal first-term performance. He is now attempting the most radical transformation of American politics in the nation’s history, an authoritarian takeover that is well underway and may succeed.
The second thing we’ve learned about him is that he’s a terrible policymaker, whose combination of ignorance, impulsiveness, and preference for loyalty over competence has repeatedly led him to make foolish decisions. He’s turned out to be much better at concentrating power, enriching himself, and coercing vulnerable targets than at developing and implementing constructive initiatives that would benefit the United States as a whole.
This combination of political adroitness and policymaking ineptitude is an unfolding tragedy, because Trump could have used his charisma and favorable position (GOP control of both houses of Congress and a sympathetic if not supine Supreme Court) to break through the logjams and dysfunction that have made it hard for recent presidents to address the serious problems that the country is facing. Had Trump used this opportunity constructively and in the service of different policies, he might have done much to “make America great again” and perhaps even merit his perennial claim to be one of the country’s greatest presidents.
But to paraphrase the Book of Common Prayer, Trump “[has] left undone those things which [he] ought to have done,; and [he has] done those things which [he] ought not to have done; and there is no health in [him].” And the United States will suffer greatly for these failings.
What do I have in mind?
For starters, Trump could have shrunk the United States’ over-extended military footprint, forced U.S. allies to take on a greater share of their defense efforts, and reined in the Defense Department’s bloated military budget, thereby freeing up the resources needed to address pressing domestic needs and reduce an increasing national debt. Although he has successfully convinced some U.S. allies to do more (aided in no small part by Russia’s actions in Ukraine), the United States’ global military presence hasn’t been reduced, and the defense budget keeps growing. Meanwhile, the budget bill that Congress just passed will add trillions to U.S. debt levels, further enrich the top 1 percent, reduce a wide array of public services, and do little to improve the lives of most Americans. It also contains the seeds of an incipient police state.
What a missed opportunity! If you visit advanced industrial countries—including China—you’ll find gleaming modern airports; safe, efficient, and affordable public transportation; roads that aren’t filled with potholes; superfast intracity trains; and state-of-the-art ports and other vital infrastructure. Many of these countries also have superior health care systems and higher life expectancies. The United States once dazzled the world with the quality of its infrastructure, but it hasn’t kept pace with allies and adversaries. Instead, it has squandered trillions of dollars on foolish foreign wars and protracted interventions. To make matters worse, the country is deeply polarized, and the political system is filled with veto points that make it nearly impossible to initiate and implement the long-term programs we need. Trump could have used the executive authority he keeps invoking (and which the Supreme Court seems determined to grant him) to cut through some of these logjams and do some “nation-building” at home, but instead, he chose to extort universities, defund NPR and PBS, punish transgender athletes, reduce Medicaid, and dismantle anything former Presidents Joe Biden or Barack Obama ever touched.
Instead of gutting federal support for science and attacking higher education (based on the ludicrous claim that college campuses are rife with antisemitism), Trump could have used the power of the federal government to preserve the United States’ dominant position in scientific research. That’s what President Dwight D. Eisenhower did after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and subsequent generations of Americans benefited enormously from the discoveries that federal support helped produce. The United States has also benefited from its ability to attract and retain some of the sharpest minds from around the world; Trump is now reversing that advantage. China already outspends the United States in research and development, its researchers produce more patents and scientific papers, and it has acquired the dominant role in some key future technologies (such as electric vehicles and clean energy). Trump’s response? A policy of unilateral intellectual disarmament.
A powerful president who wanted to use their considerable power for the greater good wouldn’t have turned institutions dedicated to keeping Americans healthy over to charlatans like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and they wouldn’t be reversing the country’s belated and still-inadequate efforts to deal with the climate crisis. If Trump wanted to do something truly great, he’d be building on one of the few successes of his first term—the Warp Speed initiative that helped produce life-saving COVID-19 vaccines in record time—and accelerating the green transition that Biden tried to jump-start. Make no mistake: Climate change is real, and it’s going to get much worse because the laws of atmospheric physics don’t watch Fox News and aren’t swayed by propaganda on social media. Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris Agreement and encourage greater reliance on fossil fuels will make the problem worse, and the country will be poorly prepared for the consequences.
And speaking of American greatness, a wiser Trump would be working to reform and strengthen the United States’ strategic partnerships, instead of treating allies as vassals to be exploited. His capricious and coercive tariff policy—which one European Union official correctly labeled as a “shakedown”—will raise prices for U.S. consumers and reduce economic growth at home and abroad. It will also make it harder for U.S. allies to meet Trump’s demands that they spend more on defense. Picking fights with pro-American countries like Denmark, Canada, South Korea, and Japan has to be one of the dumbest decisions any president has ever made—these countries may grit their teeth and accede to some of what he’s demanding, but they will never look at the United States the same way again and will be far less willing to follow Washington’s lead or make future adjustments that it might want.
If Trump really wanted to show that he was better at foreign policy than his predecessors, he could have used U.S. leverage to end the genocide in Gaza, adopted a realistic approach to a new nuclear deal with Iran, and used a combination of carrots and sticks to push for peace in Ukraine. Instead, he turned the problem over to amateur diplomat Steve Witkoff, and the result has been more carnage in the Middle East, further tarnishing of the United States’ image (if that is even possible at this point), and more Russian advances.
Meanwhile, Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio are gutting the diplomatic corps and surrendering the United States’ once-dominant role in many global institutions. As the New York Times reported last week, Beijing has not been slow to take advantage, building up its presence and cutting deals in a wide variety of international forums. This development might seem arcane, but these institutions are where the rules and technical standards that shape many global interactions get established. Chinese officials are building the expertise and personal connections that will give them greater influence over time, while the United States is increasingly absent. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent couldn’t even be bothered to attend the recent G-20 meeting. Why? Because it was held in South Africa. China already has more diplomats and more overseas missions than the United States does, because its leaders understand the value of diplomacy, the benefits of face-to-face engagement, and the importance of soft power. Trump doesn’t. It will be a rude awakening and shock when U.S. officials and business leaders discover that they must now navigate a world of rules that weren’t “made in America,” and that’s the world that Trump is steering the United States toward.
Finally, Trump could have used his sway over the GOP and its control over all three branches of government to unify the country, instead of dividing it even more. He could have subtly encouraged a retreat from the more extreme forms of “wokeism” (a process was already underway) and emphasized the need for strict meritocracy, instead of purging women and minorities with exemplary records from key government positions and embracing “affirmative action for incompetent white guys.” Exhibit A: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or perhaps Darren Beattie, the conspiracy theorist fired from the first Trump administration for his ties to white supremacists but who was just appointed to head the U.S. Institute of Peace. Trump could have pushed for sensible immigration reform, instead of authorizing legally questionable deportations and making the United States a far less inviting place for talented individuals from overseas.
In short, Trump had a golden opportunity to initiate far-reaching and long-overdue reforms that might have reduced the political divides that are weakening the United States and strengthened its international position. Had he applied his charisma and political skills to a more thoughtful and public-minded set of policies, some of his harshest critics—including yours truly—might have been mollified. He went the other way, however, and shows no signs of stopping despite rapidly falling approval ratings.
I know what you’re thinking: If Trump had done any of these things, he’d have been acting like a moderate Democrat and his MAGA base would have revolted. I don’t think so. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal notwithstanding, Trump’s base seems willing to swallow nearly anything he says, even when it flatly contradicts his past positions. I’m confident he could have convinced his base to embrace the policies sketched above, especially when many of the initiatives would have been to their immediate benefit. Independents and moderates would have been delighted, thereby solidifying the loose coalition that brought him a narrow victory in the 2024 presidential election. The fossil fuel industry would have objected, but the rest of the business community could have been brought along with some regulatory reform and perhaps some modest tax cuts.
But my counterfactual has a fatal flaw: It assumes a different Trump. Instead of a vengeful narcissist convinced of his own genius, focused solely on his own aggrandizement and dismissive of rules and norms, my scenario assumes a president who genuinely wants to preserve democracy, improve the lives of as many Americans as possible, and maintain the United States’ privileged position in world politics. Alas, that’s just not who Trump is, which is why the opportunities he has are being squandered or worse. We could have had nice things, but not with this president. You might think of this as Trump’s own tragedy—given his desire to be hailed as a great president—but the real tragedy belongs to all of us.