Tale of Two Presidencies
Tomorrow, Donald Trump will once again be president of the United States. He has released a crypto meme coin to grift his base, walked back his campaign promises, and is eager to test the nation’s willingness to defend the Constitution against his attacks.
The period between Trump’s two inaugurations was filled with uncertainty caused by a pandemic, a spike in crime, high inflation, and an insurrectionist coup attempt by a sore loser. While the economy, jobs, inflation, and crime have all returned to normal, the nation's sentiment has yet to fully recover. This disillusionment has allowed rampant misinformation to flourish, clouding the facts about the two administrations, which led to Trump’s election victory.
His second term begins with our country in a similar position as when he started his first: the economy is strong, unemployment is low, crime has decreased significantly, manufacturing jobs have returned to the US, inflation is healthy, jobs are plentiful, and stock markets are high.
The last eight years have shown a stark contrast between how a good leader handles a crisis and how a lousy leader makes it worse.
The Economy
Before the pandemic, Trump began losing manufacturing jobs in 2019, which wasn’t surprising since Trump awarded $425 billion in federal contracts to companies that offshored 200,000 jobs. At this point, 39 million Americans were earning less than $15 an hour.
By the end of Trump’s term, he had:
lost 2.7 million jobs
increased the US Debt by 40%, a significant portion of which came from his tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy
increased the trade deficit by 36%
increased unemployment to 6.4%
increased the number of Americans without health insurance by 3 million
Biden took office while the pandemic was ongoing and shortly before global high inflation struck. While inflation spiked to high levels, as it did for many other countries, America brought inflation down faster and better than our peer nations. This led to America having the best economy in the world and outpacing China’s economy for the first time in almost 50 years.
Overall Biden:
was the first president in history to add jobs every month of his presidency for a total of over 16 million
kept unemployment low throughout his presidency
reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio from the 133% he inherited to 121%
created high GDP growth
ensured real wages are higher today than before the pandemic, with the largest gains made by the lowest earners
reduced the number of Americans earning under $15 an hour to 21 million
made investments in manufacturing that brought it back to our shores, creating over 700,000 jobs
Crime
There have been a lot of lies about crime over the last four years as Republicans have refused to admit how far crime has fallen. But the data paints a clear picture:
Trump:
saw gun deaths (excluding suicides) rise from 15,000 a year to 19,500, and mass shootings increase from 383 per year to 610
had the largest increase in homicides in US history
is a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, fraud, and defamer
had numerous terrorist attacks, riots, and violent protests happen during his term
oversaw the sudden rise in fentanyl trafficking and overdoses
Biden:
increased police funding nationwide
brought violent crime down to a 50-year low
potentially has the largest decrease in homicides in US history
decreased mass shootings by 30% in 2024 alone
made tackling fentanyl trafficking a priority and has overdoses dropping rapidly
Immigration
Immigration has been a significant concern for the American people, but as with crime, there has been a lot of disinformation spread about the issue.
Southern border crossings hit record highs in 2019. They dipped in early 2020 but rose again every month for the final nine months of Trump’s presidency.
Trump only ended up extending existing border walls by 50 miles and used money from the military to pay for it since Mexico did not, despite Trump’s promises. He also enacted harsh sanctions on other countries, such as Venezuela, which drastically increased migrants fleeing those nations and coming to the US.
Crossings continued to rise as Biden took office and eventually reached new record highs. While Biden came into office with an immigration plan, Congress never passed it. Biden went on to take over 100 actions to address the border, including working with Mexico on better enforcement, easing sanctions, and enacting executive orders. Today, southern border crossings are over 33% lower than when Trump left office.
National Security and Foreign Policy
Trump shared classified information with Russians inside the White House. After he was voted out of office, Trump decided to steal national security secrets, lie about them, refuse to give them back and show them to people who weren’t cleared to see them.
Trump:
negotiated with terrorists and gave them everything they wanted, including freeing 5,000 terrorists from prison
threatened to abandon NATO
publicly told Putin to go ahead and attack our allies
wanted to give areas of Ukraine to Russia
cratered US standing on the world stage
was laughed at by world leaders while addressing the U.N. General Assembly
undermined US elections
caused an insurrection
Biden:
restored US's standing on the world stage
has no American forces directly involved in any wars for the first time in decades
assembled an international coalition to address Russian tyranny and Iranian aggression
led NATO to become the strongest it has ever been
worked with Israel to decimate Iran’s proxy terrorist groups
Trump has continued to threaten the world with global tariffs, which would skyrocket inflation. He wants to perform mass deportations, which would destroy our economy, and he seeks to start international conflicts because he desires a legacy of conquering other countries to expand US territory, much like Putin is trying to do with Russia.
A group of presidential historians and experts, including conservatives, ranked all of America’s presidents. Biden ranked 14th overall, while Trump ranked dead last. Comparing the two presidents' records, it isn’t hard to see why.
