A hero! Best president ever! Trump 2020
2
Based on the headline alone? My ex-wife who was scheming, manipulative, self-centered, and concerned only with her professional advancement.
19
Did we really need yet another Trump apologist? Normalizing a fool, or finding selected flaws in real presidents to collect all of them into a singular clown does not make him normal, nor clever, nor cute.
114
The article asked "Whom does President Trump remind you of?" The answer: He looks like Barney Rubble but behaves like Fred Flintstone.
34
Trump's hateful, fact-free and stupid tweets are in no way similar to FDR's fireside chats. He has no interest in "reform and refreshment of the Atlantic alliance." Yes, Trump is a "racist, proto-fascist, and aspiring dictator," but please remember, that we have always had partisanship. Trump's "affinity for Andrew Jackson" is not something that he came up with on his own, because Trump has almost zero knowledge of history. He received coaching from Bannon on this. Bannon loves Andrew Jackson for his racism and ethnic cleansing.
Trump has demonstrated that he is fully ready to destroy our democracy to satisfy his own ambition. And this author of this piece asserts without evidence or reasoning, that Trump is not "a threat to democracy or the constitutional order." This is the big lie, repeated here for our dubious benefit. This is the most disgraceful op-ed I have read in the NYT in quite some time.
105
"there have been bad presidents before, so nothing really new with Trump" is fine as long as you ignore the progress of time and the evolution of cultural norms and values. at best he is a throwback and at worse he is a dangerous, racist, sexist buffoon who needs to go away.
45
One would like to believe a certain level of social progress has been made over the last fifty to one hundred years. After all, lynching, while not yet illegal at the Federal level, is definitely frowned upon in most states. And yet Mr. Terzian insists on using (occasionally ancient) historical comparisons to validate Mr. Trump's presidency. By that token he can justify Mr. Trump's racism by saying it's not as bad as Thomas Jefferson's. He can justify caging children at the border by saying that's not as bad as Sand Creek. He can justify the unmitigated grift in this administration by saying it's not as bad as Warren Harding's Teapot Dome scandal. Go back far enough and you can even say that Mr. Trump isn't as bad an emperor (in his own mind) as Caligula was. Ultimately, this column is an exercise in damning with faint praise. Shouldn't we really expect more from the people elected to office in the 21st century? Mr. Terzian says no.
41
President Trump reminds me of a nasty childhood bully. Though he was a year older and a bit larger I finally had enough and sent him home bloody and crying.
32
Who does he remind me of? You want a list? My worst nightmare, a villain in a Batman movie, Frankenstein's monster, the creepy guy stalking me in school, every horrible man I ever heard of, but certainly no other President.....
44
Huey Long: populist, instinctive, megalomaniac, arrogant, dishonest, nicknamer, and all... but not Nearly as intelligent.
14
Trump is Putin’s puppet. No other President has been that puppet of a foreign advisory.
49
Fluff pieces, boy, does certainly feels awfully fluffy.
Donald Trump is monstrously corrupt and insists on continuing to be so more every day and as more and more concrete evidence of his corruption is exposed. I do not believe we've a president yet, flawed though all humans are, who matches his level of dishonesty, corruption and self interested thievery. He's common, not that smart just bombastic and combative, and corrupt to the core. he's trashed our international allies and alliances. He plays footsie with the worst dictators and despots of the world. This hasn't been done before to this level. I can't imagine why the NYTimes published this piece. It neither helps nor hurts the cause. It's merely such a colossal waste of ten minutes.
37
If he seems familiar to Mr. Terzian, and not outrageously flagrant, then Mr. Terzian has a very dim view of human behavior and I feel very sorry for him.
23
Terzian writes for the Washington Examiner?
Enough said.
37
Nonsense. The writer is trying to excuse and normalize this utterly grotesque presidency. And totally ignores evidence of white supremacy. Americans want, need, and deserve better.
42
"Deftly capture?" You've got to be kidding. The man has no more sense of metaphor than a horsefly.
30
This attempt to normalize Trump is disgusting.
47
I'm disappointed. I was sure it was Chuckles the Clown.
20
Uriah Heep
16
No one benefits from such a loose analysis like this (especially not the NYT readership). While I'm sure it may help the author sleep better at night, he does a massive disservice to his country-people by marginalizing the outlandish, foolish, puerile, juvenile, and outright shameful behavior demonstrated by none other than our sitting president. Teddy Roosevelt? FDR? Jefferson? You cannot be serious. Whoops, I realize now I ventured into the "opinion" section...
28
Underneath this bonanza of comparing Trump to other presidents is the feeling you have to love the lout. He’s so over the top in a Barnum and Bailey kind of country that he’s one of us and vice versa. I don’t buy it. It makes no difference who else he’s like. Trump is a uniquely disgusting human being.
36
On occasion, columns in the Times inspire one to read a book written by the writer. Not this one.
31
Donald Trump reminds me of a cross between Josef Stalin (if Stalin had taken a few too many blows to the head) and P.T. Barnum.
And they named their unholy offspring "Nero."
(Apologies to the actual Nero, who by all accounts was a man of artistic temperament.)
12
Ugh. A thinly disguised love letter.
21
What is the point of your article? Are you saying it's all okay, "this too will pass"?
16
The media plays a role in normalizing Trump. He insists that America accept his alternate reality, and too many play along.
Trump spits out “Pocahontas” and his audience cheers. What a burn! But does Elizabeth Warren now have license to refer to Trump as “Cadet Bonespurs” for the next several months? Not that she would. But it would be going much too far and the beltway press would never stop denouncing her. Funny how Trump always gets to be a spoiled child, and the Dems have to pray for the little twit.
25
This may be the most ridiculous opinion piece I've ever read. I wouldn't know where to begin. But that must make me presidential since I have that in common with the current president.
22
Making fun of disabled people . Says all about him.
27
The Times's introduction, "Mr. Terzian is the author of 'Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century,'" is like introducing George W. Bush as "An artist from Texas" if he wrote an article about the middle east. Not untrue, but more than little misleading by omission.
If the Times is going to give background on the author, they should mention that he's a journalist for the Washington Examiner who's main job is right-wing punditry. It's relevant to readers whether someone is giving an impartial historical analysis or cherry-picking.
39
Phil, you mistake Trump's "masterful" use of Twitter as just harmless joking instead of proof of the cruel, cowardly bully that he is.
469
Teflon Don. Remember him?
3
Are you selling Donald Trump? I'm afraid my soul isn't for sale.
20
I see why the Republicans love him. He is a malleable tool for their purpose. The vapid fool easily manipulated.
12
Just look at that wonderful photo and forget all the long political comparisons. It is absolutely the portrait of a two year old having a temper tantrum for not getting his way all the time and believing he is the center of the universe - only his toys are nuclear bombs, military machine guns, cages to torture people and families as if they are plastic dolls, games to destroy the earth... and his big baby shoes kick and stomp out democracy. He's a very sick spoiled brat who wants to be top dictator when he grows up - except he is incapable of growing up.
21
Whom does he remind me of?
The first name that came to mind was Mussolini. (That grin, that strut.)
The second was Joe McCarthy. (That barking drone.)
And the third would be Vidkun Quisling, who was also desperate for attention, prominence, and glory.
23
This is the perfect article to end today's hearings in the Judiciary Committee. We learned today as we do every time we have to listen to Republicans that language no longer means anything. What can it mean when they call others' behavior "disgraceful" or "dishonest"? What can it mean when Matt Gaetz reprimands his colleagues for Congress's 9% approval rating before blaming the Democrats for "doing nothing"? How many times do we have to hear that an impeachment is overturning the will of the American people when 11 million more of us voted against rather than for Trump? This article, like any language that attempts to normalize and defend this vile, disgusting, empty excuse for a human being has no place in the paper of record. Shame on you, NYTimes.
25
While I admire this author's meandering "stream of barely consciousness" approach to what passes for journalism these days, Trump reminds me of the ignorant blowhards who elected him. May they enjoy all of the pain and suffering that he is inflicting upon them, be it through trade wars, poisoning their air and water or failing to provide jobs and health care for those who desperately need both...
10
What a broad generalization.
Technically, with this argument, anyone who is a person is familiar.
It makes a statement about nothing.
How about a piece about his commonalities with Hitler, Putin, etc.?
16
If Trump were living in the colonies in the 1700’s, he would have been a loyalist who bowed to King George.
If Trump were president in the 1860’s, he would have supported slavery and written it permanently into the Constitution.
If Trump were president in the 1940’s, he would have been in love with Hitler, Mao, and Mussolini.
If Trump were president in the 1980’s, he would have said, “Mr. Gorbachev, build that wall even higher!”
Trump is not at all the human being that we need to guide us through our current existential crisis, where we need to thread the needle between becoming sustainable and functioning well economically.
If we had met a President Trump before, we might very well not be a USA today.
23
Trump reminds me of toddlers pulling a tantrum in a grocery story, no adults. And to author who thinks Trump’s name calling hits the mark - Lying Hillary and Stormy Horseface Daniels - he like Trump never got out of adolescence.
17
Great article.
Now wait for the TDS obsessed folks to scream bloody murder because an article was published that did not agree with their hatred.
1
There is actually no other president so vile as trump.
And I suggest you not laugh. But find a more effective media or approach in attacking the beast. He is, or I should write, his thoughts and sputum are a curse. His continued presence is a cancer, that left unexcised, will destroy anything good that is left in the USA
10
I have no idea what the purpose of this column was.
We all know that Trump will go in history as the worst president to date.
Completely incompetent.
Over 13,000 lies to date and counting.
22
Separating children from their parents and locking them in cages, ripping off students with a fake university, multiple bankruptcies and cheating and lying as a matter of course reminds me of no one I have ever known except malignant narcissists and sociopaths I read about in the news. Mr. Terzian, your logic is a perverse stretch, and it is dangerous.
19
The perfect apologist’s editorial, as the country and many of its norms slides further and further away from democracy with the rapid consolidation of power. Leave it to the NYT to further gaslight us by minimizing the horrifying impact 45 and his ruthless minions is having on virtually everyone except those that look and sound a whole lot like the writer here. White and male. Making America great, right?
5
The author may be amused by Trump's mental illness, but many are horrified that this psychopath is in charge.
17
Excuse me, Mr. Terizan, but the president is a criminal, who is trying to turn America into a dictatorship in order to avoid arrest when he leaves office. If he ever does. If you must compare him to anyone, it should be Richard Nixon. However, there is no president in American history as psychopathic as Trump. Nor as ignorant. Many psychiatrists believe he has Alzheimer's on top of everything else, and so I would agree that there are some similarities between Trump and Reagan, though the similarities end there. I'm quite shocked that the Times published this intellectually dishonest piece. Trump will be tweeting about the comparison to George Washington, if he hasn't already. (I don't bother checking anymore.)
18
My spoiled 12 year old male child of a cousin who thinks he knows everything, knows nothing, wants to lead but doesn't care at all about his subordinates, feels entitled to adoration without any reason for it and has the compassion of his fellow man of a rock. Also a serial and congenital liar.
11
From his narcissism to his embarrasingly melodramatic poses to his "eloquence" to his temperament to his instincts to bully Trump is The American Il Duce.
The only appropriate response to the question posed is Benito Mussolini. Other suggestions are weak stretches and all miss the critical elements of just who this person is.
10
He reminds me not of a President but a dictator with all his bombast and self-centeredness. Mussolini comes to mind. I totally disagree with the proposition that he is not a threat to constitutional order. Wake up America!
12
Mr. Terzian: Now that you’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel and thrown a few moldy crumbs of... what, approval? comprehension? amusement? toward the Oval Office, let’s get back to reality. Trump is a disaster and the country, in fact the entire pkanet, will be much safer without him.
10
Take the horrible traits of all of our presidents and put them in one man, and there you would have Trump.
9
Trump reminds me of every creepy old smarmy man who would hit on me when I was young.
9
Terzian appears to be a graduate of the Barr School Of Spin. Trying to normalize the multiple malignancies of trump through tortured historical analogies is unedifying and reflects poorly on the author.
10
Oh yeah. I'll take some glass in this sandwich too.
4
I will tell you who he reminds me of. Chauncey Gardner. The fictional president who learned everything he knows from TV.
You can't make this stuff up. Life imitating art.
233
Hm. Good question. Whom does Trump remind me of? FDR? No. George Washington? Definitely not!! Eisenhower? That’s not it. Reagan? Maybe a little closer. I know! Trump is an amalgam of the tin man (no heart), the Cowardly Lion (no courage), and the scarecrow (no brain).
14
Trump needs to be impeached and put in jail. Then they can decide about removing him from office.
6
President Trump is our Henry VIII. Vainglorious, spoiled rich, impetuous, self-centered, destructive, with easy willingness to discard (or decapitate) wives.
10
A nickname that may capture something essential about Donald Trump might perhaps be Liar Donald.
4
Terzian should have quit when he was doing impressions of Nixon
3
Trump also shares a lot in common with Joseph Stalin. Does that mean past presidents share traits with Stalin?
5
So, everything is OK by Mr. Terzian's assessment. I'll just stick my head in the sand too.
6
Presumably the author would be just as cheery were his hypothetical daughter to marry a fellow who combined all the faults that could be found singly in a hundred other suitors.
4
The town drunk, who also happens to be the kid of the richest guy.
3
Much like Monthy Pythons black knight, Terzian claims President Trumps unlawful actions are merely a nuisance, "tis but a scratch" says Terzian as the President and his Republican enablers slice off the limbs of our democratic institutions.
9
DJT’s time compares not only to LBJ’s chaos and rapid turn international disillusionment with America, but with whichever other presidents hid cover-ups over bald spots. Maybe LBJ didn’t think he had as much to hide and let it his baldness shine for better and worse.
Trump Presidency
-- Stolen Valor?
1
This reads like an apology for Trump's determined focus on making the presidency a tool for his own personal advancement but with a bland historical context to smooth the serrated edges. Cherry-picking one vile trait from one WH occupant and another from a different era and comparing them with the current occupant misses the point entirely in my opinion. Trump is everything that the founders warned about when they wrote the charter. This country, its people, its institutions and its standing in the world mean absolutely nothing to the Putin acolyte who is currently calling the shots for the USA. There is no evidence to date that anything that might be described as being in the advancement of the greater good is even a consideration for POTUS Horribilis as he forces his virulent will on both the country that allowed him to rise to the top and comrades-in-arms who once - and likely no longer - looked to our model as a democratic ideal. Sometimes refined analysis isn't in order. What we are witnessing now is not bumbling ineptitude, juvenile vanity or regrettable partisan politics. This is a Fourth Reich wannabe and anyone who isn't paying attention now better learn how to goose step in a hurry if he gets another four years to finish the job of finishing off democracy.
8
Why read Trump's tweets at all?
I have not read a single tweet.
I stopped reading this essay after the second paragraph.
Not my usual style.
1
Has any other president in U.S. history enjoyed doing something cruel every single day?
12
The only question that comes to mind is 'Have you no shame sir?'. That's who Trump reminds me of.
7
But which American president sold us out to the Russians?
7
He remind me of a short Italian from 100 years ago who also strutted around his podium, snarled, and threw his head back as he basked in the cheers of his rapturous supporters.
I don't recall any US president who boasted of his sexual conquests, had love affairs with foreign dictators, asked foreign countries to help him, or spent so much effort tearing down important institutions.
Anyway, familiarity breeds contempt.
9
A President who is no “threat to democracy or the constitutional order” would not press other countries to “investigate” his political opponents.
A President who is no “threat to democracy or the constitutional order” would not take thousands of children from their parents at the border without just cause and due process.
A President who is no “threat to democracy or the constitutional order” would not encourage others to break the law by attacking journalists, defying subpoenas, and committing murder while members of the armed forces.
A President who is no “threat to democracy or the constitutional order” would not be holding endless Hitleresque rallies, cabinet meetings consisting of groveling flattery, and foreign policy that better serves foreign authoritarian leaders than his own country.
Whatever your esteemed credentials, if you can’t see the truly terrifying writing on the wall, Mr Philip Terzian, one must question your claim to be a journalist.
8
You missed a couple of our past’s greatest hits that Trump resembles:
His locking up of asylum seekers in cages on the border brings to mind FDR’s Japanese internment camps. What’s not normal about that?
Oh, and his racist comments bring back Wilson’s rhetoric at a time when KKK members marched in the streets of Washington.
Boy, he is just like all the others. Actually, as a guy from Queens, he reminds me more of the fictional Archie Bunker. Think I’m straying too far from presidential subjects? I’ll just throw in the fact that there were Archie Bunker for president bumper stickers in the early 70’s. Wasn’t that a hoot?
Hey, this is kind of fun! He has an even better grasp of how to corrupt those around him than did Richard Nixon, isn’t that great!?
6
Once he mimicked and taunted that disabled journalist, and millions of Americans obviously saw nothing wrong with that, we entered new territory! He is unique in the history of the Presidency! He has disgraced the office! He reminds me only of Donald Trump!!!
433
Forget former Presidents look to Don Rickles, PT Barnum, fictional Elmer Gantry without the finesse or charm,
L Ron Hubbard successful cult leader, Mephistopheles he lures others to sell their souls. He desires the same power and enrichment from office as Putin.
6
Slobodan Milosevic. "you shall not be beaten again."
2
He reminds of 60 million Americans.
3
And pancreatic cancer is "just a little indigestion."
7
Yes Trump is much like Jackson, the last president to nearly destroy our democracy. Jackson ignored the Supreme Court when it told him that the Trail of Tears was unconstitutional, which threw the court into a crisis of legitimacy. Jackson was also unabashedly racist and also tried to destroy the central bank due to his utter ignorance of economics. The fact that you compare them says all that needs to be said. Our worst two presidents, and Trump has also managed to use the office of the presidency to currently enrich himself and his family. The mixture of bigotry, corruption, and ignorance is unprecedented in American history. Nice try at excusing him, but what you're doing when you support and excuse a fascist would-be dictator is horrifying.
11
Body language is so Benito Mussolini. Not an original observation. Many online images of striking similarity.
6
With this piece you've contributed to the normalizing of this monster by making him seem like just a colorful, unorthodox character sharing the same eccentric traits as many other past presidents. I guess that's the "inside dopester" aloofness of the sophisticated journalist at work that sets you above the fray. But in this case you are trivializing the disaster that this creature is visiting upon our teetering republic. This is no time to play the smug, chortling analyst. How indulgently equanimical will you be when this beast gets reelected?
9
It takes little talent to come up with childish and often cruel nicknames. And Terzian wants to give Trump credit for this? How absurd.
Here, it's easy:
Ivanka Ivanovitch
Kool Aid Kushner
Brown Nose Barr
Stepford Stephanie
Mad Boy Miller
Turtle Neck McConnell
Loudmouth Lindsey
It takes only a minute. Are these landing? How are Trump's better? Adam 'pencil neck' Schiff? Seriously? This is ingenious?
No. It is juvenile and unseemly and not remotely clever. I am appalled that someone would try to spin it differently.
16
Sorry. Nice try Mr. I-want-to-write-an-Op-Ed. Trump is like no other President, is a complete charlatan, and is a threat to our democracy. End of story.
8
Calling Trump uncouth is like calling the devil impolite.
8
Mr. Terzian's platitudes could equally apply to Jerry Springer, another son of Boob-Tube, as to Trump. The Roosevelts, et al were hardly such bottom feeders.
5
Nicolae Ceaușescu. A thuggish, wily, idiotic, and dictatorial figure who drove the nation into bankruptcy through dimwitted financial exploits. Paranoid and a long winded bully aggrandizing himself without regard for his people. There, Trump-like. Resigning might be a very good idea should anyone remind Trump of Ceausescu's end.
7
So roll the bad characteristics of a number presidents from the last couple of centuries into one, and here is your precedent for Trump...Come on!
3
Lordy, you note his similarities to George Washington? Are you searching for a retweet?
3
Who does Trump remind me of? Clearly it's Archie Bunker.
2
I am so tired of Trump, he needs to go.
5
this time, i will be voting for Bloomberg. would NEVER vote for trump!...
3
Perhaps Mr. Terzian thinks the number and tone of the responses means that his column was successful. Any attention --even negative-- is better than no attention.
That leads me to conclude that Mr. Terzian reminds me of ... Donald Trump.
TBF, I can't really see Donaldd Trump writinng multiple paragraphs.
But, more important, Mr. Terzian is not President, and therefore, he is free to write whatever drivel he wishes. And I guess the NY Times, in their effort to appar ever-balanced (but her emails), will publish drivel. Trump's limitations are much more consequential for us. And Terzian's article seems to have failed to reassure (and ever more so, failed to persuade) readers.
3
This is the most absurd hypothesis ever presented in this paper. At least those conservatives who have stayed true Republicans (if not true conservatives) I can understand their point and reject it. This is a liar and a cheat. He has no understanding nor love of our constitution nor traditions. Even confederates have traditions. He only cares about himself and money first. His image second. His family third. His monied friends that can also help him make more money the House of Saud, turkey, Russia, maybe China for Ivanka’s patents. Speaking of ivanka’s Chinese patents, given while trump has had state dinner for their President...and Jared’s and Juniors deals in the area. ...why is trump so worried about hunter? trump should Have his own house in order first. I don’t support Hunter Biden but also don’t support the dozens of more flagrant violations of Junior, Jared And Ivanka
6
Wishful thinking, at best.
Sorry, but no dice. Especially the comparison to FDR. It could be that he is like Andrew Johnson in his disregard for the Congress. Like Andrew Johnson his policies could really hurt the USA in the long run. Johnson and his disastrous policies to rehabilitate the Southern traitors and subjugate the black man perhaps find their equal in the damage to the US in Trump's attempt to break up our international alliances nurtured over the past 75 years. No president has ever so openly sided with our enemies and followed their bidding as he has done with Putin and Putin's aim to break up the western alliance. This latter fact makes him unique alone in the annals of the Presidency.
5
63 million Americans voted for this man. Don't think they are not going to check that box again. Democracy is slipping away, and many Americans are just fine with that. He is a symptom of our diseased country.
5
Trump reminds me of two persons, one historical and one from a musical: Mussolini, because of radical hairstyle, vanity, and incompetence; and the Music Man, for enchantment of unsophisticated folk towards corrupt ends.
4
Trump reminds me of two Italian politicians: Berlusconi and Mussolini.
Trump has the corrupt and clownish features of the former and the bombast and contempt for law of the latter.
3
One way that Don the Con is different than the others mentioned is that he is mentally ill. The others weren't.
4
Question posed in the article: "Whom Does President Trump Remind You Of?"
A petulant child.
5
Trump apologists are ever maddening. Don't even think of comparing him to either Roosevelt or even to the largely disgraced Andrew Jackson. Even you, opportunist hack that you are, had to select faults from numerous presidents to create the shameful amalgamation that desecrates the office now. When we're a Russian style illiberal democracy, will you approve or even remember the part you played in it?
5
Remind me again, Mr Terzian: Which American president ever took the word of an adversary over the word of the American intelligence community?
7
Here - let me fix your article for you:
Trump projects all his shortcomings and failures onto his opponents, that is what is unique about this so-called president which is unlike any other in modern times. When he calls someone something, you can guarantee he is guilty of that name or pejorative.
That's better now. Your political leaning/bias is clear in your excuses for this huge anomaly in public service.
5
This is what the idolatrous, white nationalist, America-first personality cult looks like from the inside. All of the negatives have been excised.
No kids in cages. No blatant racism and sexism. No 12,000 lies. No accusations of sexual assault. No campaign finance law felonies. No obstruction of justice. No illegal and unconstitutional acts. No impeachable wrongdoing.
Speaking of which, the Trump impeachment counts remind me very much of the Nixon and Clinton impeachments for which Congress brought some of the very same impeachment counts.
2
I agree that there is a similarity between trump and andrew "trail of tears" jackson.
3
How is it that the worst person in the country ended up as the president?
4
"Whom Does President Trump Remind You Of?"
Morton Downey Jr.
1
You would not let Donald Trump drive the school bus of your children or pilot the plane you are going to fly in. To have an incompetent man at the helm may be amusing but it is also dangerous.
4
Over 60 million American Voters....with the help of Russian interference and Wiki Leaks put all of us under the leadership of the Worst President in American History. A President with no successful policies to date and a Chaotic Dysfunctional Administration with an over 80% turnover rate. What a mess. Our Democracy has been tested...and were it not for Russia,Wiki Leaks, the Alternative Facts spread by Fox and the GOP...Trump would have been Impeached long ago. Vote Blue and Save our Democracy from this Alternative Fact Presidency !!
6
One further thought: Ultimately, Trump will have destroyed—and this is healthy—the mystique and idolatry of the American Presidency which has assumed unhealthy dimensions. I think we have heard enough for this century of the platitudes of “the most powerful man in the world” and “the Commander-in-Chief” as if this applied to the American nation as if it were some form of fascist polity and not rather to the military. The democratization of the “imperial Presidency”is desirable. High time.
1
There is one important difference between Trump and the other presidents. Many of us believe that Trump's ascendancy likely represents the end of the American experiment.
383
Sadly, I must agree. « Tet » ‘68
32
Was any previous president a rapist? This president very likely is. Did any previous president cheer war crimes and pardon the perpetrators in the teeth of opposition from the military? This president did. Did any previous president ignore natural disasters in places that didn't vote for him? This president has. Did any previous president deliberately rip refugee children away from their parents to discourage others from fleeing to these shores? This president is doing that as we speak. Did any previous president publicly invite a foreign country to commit crimes on his behalf? This one did. Did any previous president get impeached? Three have, and this one will follow. But that's about all the legitimate precedent we have.
6
Trump is the culmination of an America where affirmative action for rich white people knows no bounds.
A special needs boy who was put in an expensive "military" school to corral his misbehavior, he was admitted to Wharton because he was rich and white (affirmative action). Trump has lawyers circling Wharton all day every day insuring then never release is D grades in all classes. And, those were granted, not earned.
This special process for special boys like Trump and "W", neither of whom ever really learned to read well (or perhaps at all in Trump's case), is clearly leading to repetitive examples of low performers in the Oval Office with bad judgement.
If IVY would just accept competitively instead of 50% of its incoming class being special needs white people from rich families, a lot of the Trump's of the world would suddenly find themselves at New York Community College.
How many Presidents have we had from New York Community College, and, also, Trump, for example, would probably have flunked out.
So, how many Presidents have we elected who have flunked out of New York Community College?
None.
Exactly. The real problem is IVY League affirmative action for special needs white folks with money.
6
I was expecting backlash when I read this essay.
You, dear Times readers, did not disappoint.
2
So, we should all feel better now, right?
3
He thinks he's Abraham Lincoln but he acts more like George III.
5
Trump has always struck me as not really understanding that his job has real, serious work; I’ve always kinda imagined him as like Governor Lepetomane, played by Mel Brooks in “Blazing Saddles”. “Work, work, work”, while he’s obliviously destroying things, towns and having affairs right and left, all while his sneering Assistant/architect is actually Stephen Miller, sadly not Harvey Korman. But the same weasel, just less comedic. And he’s like “next?!” And careens off to the next scene in his life. He is total chaos. It’s frightening now and not funny.
2
This is the silliest supposedly historical Op-Ed I’ve read in 50 years of reading the Times. Mr. Terzian lacks precisely that which is of value in such “commentary”: judgement. For anyone with a thorough grounding in American history his comparisons are forced—and faulty. He represents Trump as somehow “unexceptional “ in his exceptionality when he is anything but. Trump is characteristic of a strain of Americana, but one the appearance of which has been limited to the margins inhabited by hucksters, or the circus. P. T. Barnum comes to mind. We have not yet seen this in so high a political office in this country. Comparing him to the Roosevelts is superficial and wrong, if not outrageous and deeply offensive. And in their way, these comparisons are indicative of nothing more than shallow intellectual discernment. How could the Times put this in print? It lacks genuine intelligence. Trump represents the underbelly of America. He has neither accomplishment, nor intelligence, nor knowledge, nor refinement, nor morality to distinguish him. His crowning virtue is outrageousness. Regrettably, the corruption of the media, and the “cultivation” of a swath of uneducated, bigoted, exploited citizens—in name only—has produced in him the nadir of American political life. Let’s hope we recover soon.
6
President Trump reminds me of a demagogue: Joseph McCarthy, Father Charles E. Coughlin, Rabbi Meir Kahane,
Elmer Gantry, the character played by Andy Griffith in "A Voice in the Crowd, but no other American president. After all!
6
The author of this opinion piece doesn't appreciate who he is attempting to describe. Donald Trump suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. This is a dangerous condition for the "leader" of the free world to have.
5
As much as I agree with the comments that criticize this piece for attempting to "normalize" Trump and minimize his threat to the nation and the world, I have to admit that the headline led me to think of a very clear comparison to Trump's stream-of-unconsciousness paranoid abusive style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUZ0Nv7UH4
At the end of the novel and the movie, lawyer Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer in this clip) makes a speech sympathetic to Captain Queeg, pointing out his service before his last disastrous command. Clearly Trump, a spoiled kid and con artist from day one, deserves no such sympathy.
Trump's "personal attorney" also has an exemplar in popular culture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLBQxk72NY&t=3s
1
Do not try to normalize Trump! The man is hateful and childish. He is not "normal" in any way.
6
The normalization continues and widens to include all or nearly all Americans, including those that dislike Trump. Trump lies so much that he is no longer even called on it by his lazy enemies. His racism, misogyny, and corruption from top to bottom in every facet of every essence of his existence is no longer an issue. Pelosi , shumer, and nearly all Democrats still pretend like hes a normal president, living as they all do in a profound denial of reality. Not one Democrat in 3 years has shown the courage to simply call Trump what he is, whereas Republicans now revere him as one of our greatest leaders ever in complete cult like obedience. The mad genius has made cultists of his followers and flaming cowards out of his enemies.
1
You can't 'normalize' someone like trump, which seems to be the point of this article.
As well as the damage he is causing in America, he is a significant threat to world order stability and peace.
Trump is a deluded and extreme megalomaniac being manipulated by some of the most evil and corrupt forces on the planet.
I'm baffled as to why Mr Terzian's column tries to paint him as just an eccentric businessman who embodies many of the worst characteristics of past presidents. No need to worry? You've got to be joking.
For all of the convenient comparisons drawn, there was no attempt to find a past president's actions that mirrored trump's embracing of enemy states like Russia, because there has been none.
This column is an attempt to downplay the danger posed by trump and to glibly pass off his myriad failings as being typical of past Presidents.
I can only conclude that Mr Terzian is actively trying to boost trump with this shallow and shoddy article. I'll be less than inclined to read one of his columns in the future.
4
I cannot believe anyone would compare Trump to anyone; let alone F.D.R.! You can talk all you want about clever manipulation of public opinion; but there the comparison stops COLD. Serial Liar and Moral Failure vs. the man who led America out of the Great Depression and victory in W.W.2 . Yeah; give your head a shake and see if there is anything rattling around up there. Unlike the clown the world endures today; Franklin Roosevelt did something Trump can only dream of doing. He ACTUALLY DID make America great again. Something Agent Orange is totally incapable of.
3
Oh thank goodness. So he's really just a wonderful guy who hates women, science, people of color, etc.
4
Apart from being a compulsive liar, misogynist, racist, denies the existence of climate change despite ample evidence to the contrary, has abandoned most agreements the US has had with the world outside, betrays his oath of office in seeking the help of a foreign power in the '20 election, in the process of increasing the deficit to the trillions which our children will have to repay, does his utmost to destroy NATO and the EU who together are our staunchest allies, a loyal supporter of our enemy Vladimir Putin, is a national security risk , has populated his administration with crooks many of whom are doing or will do time, his foreign policy is a joke; Apart from that, yes, he is a real charmer.
4
Did any of the others lie as much as Trump?
3
Wow, this article is as absurd as the delusional oratory coming out of the House Republicans. When I saw the title the first thought to come to my head was "Mussolini" -- the strutting tyrant who would be comical if his rule had not led to millions of deaths. However, as the fate of this nation and planet are now in grave peril, the stakes are far higher. To try to normalize the insanity of this man by comparing him blandly to various quirks of Washington, the Roosevelt's and other Presidents is pure sophistry.
4
It must be nice for Terzian, a white male of a certain class, to be able to experience this presidency with such distance and nonchalance. Like someone watching a slow-moving train wreck from atop a hill, comfortably and far removed from the wreckage. Although, an empathetic person couldn't watch a train wreck without a sense of horror and dread. Just as he couldn't find humor in the cruel tweets of a man responsible for separating children from their parents and locking them up in cages.
3
I'm guessing that Terzian is one of those Republicans that think Trump is a better president than Lincoln.
2
Someone certainly drank the FOX news Kool-ade. Duped is the only word I can use as I read this article. Trump has made America a laughingstock. Even “Rocketman” thinks our president is a joke. Trump tweets inanities. He destroys the environment. He has zero diplomatic skills except for yammering about making “deals”. He doesn’t understand how normal people behave. He has no redeeming qualities suitable for the highest office in the land. He is capable of destroying this country if we let him.
3
He reminds my 82 yo actor friend (highly observant) of Mussolini, in his gestures and ways of speaking.
I was horrified and embarrassed for Italians for the sheer tackiness of Berlusconi, until we got our own even worse version of Berlusconi... even Berlusconi's terrible fake tan & ridiculous hair & plastic surgery were outdone by the orange make-up & sprayed up furball do & pale eye rings by Trump... To me, Trump is a Berlusconi-wannabe.
4
It is really unfortunate that space was given for a retweet of Trump's vicious, misogynistic characterisations of his political enemies. The Times should know better.
Real people are being targeted here. As for the attempt at humour with the dictator-lite narrative, tell that to the parents of the kids in cages. Or to the people being targeted by Russian intelligence, i.e. the American electorate.
4
Ha Ha, Nothing to worry about . Trump is a funny guy, who has some great ideas. Nothing wrong with his birtherism, calling judge Curiel a Mexican, not worthy of ruling on the Trump "University" case. Calling on a foreign government to intervene in the 2020 election.
Nothing wrong with taking children from their parents and putting them in cages.
All in good fun.
3
The same-old false equivalence game by the author to try and normalize the behaviour of the incompetent charlatan currently occupying the Whire House beside presidents that actually achieved something.
4
Well he's in good company then isn't he?
How many presidents bragged of sexually assaulting women and were accused by more than a dozen women of exactly that? Or complimented a man whose website called the murder of 24 school children “a hoax” and said their grieving parents were “actors”.
Rape and sociopathy are not just another day at the office Mr Terzian.
4
Daffy Duck?
Apologies to all ducks...and Daffy's also.
2
I'll tell you how Trump is familiar to most of us. It's because we all know people pretty much like Trump, a boorish, blustering bully filled with hot air and in love with his own voice.
Like a family member, or the crazy uncle in Buffalo, or the office drunk at the Christmas party. To me, he's the guy at the end of the bar -- the regular -- who nurses a beer for 2-3 hours while pontificating about politics, sports, movies, women, Communists, immigrants . . . you name it. They guy with the uneducated opinion about everything. The guy who, at the end of the day, is excruciatingly boring.
What's so bad about Trump is that he is such a run-of-the-mill lout who somehow managed to land in the White House. There is nothing special or unique about him. We all know bums.
2
This piece must be a joke, I hope?
Reads like a Freshman History 101 panicked essay picking up bad behavior out of historical context.
Be an adult, and admit this guy is a huge problem to democracy in the USA.
3
Mr Terzian, your description of DT has all the characteristics of a dictator not of democratically elected leader of the free world.
What you describe sounds familiar, Mussolini, Somoza, Pinochet, etc., but it is clearly not funny considering the consequences of his actions.
2
Who does he remind me of?
Two people come to mind...
The TV character from the 70's, Archie Bunker who I never found to be funny.
or... some random guy... spouting half-baked conservative and/or conspiratorial ideas... that I have been stuck sitting next to in an airport bar.
269
Very well written. I would only add that the irony of Trump's presidency is that it exposed the ugly underbelly of the Intel, the justice and FBI, the media, and government institutions. This with his economic magic will cement him as a great president, even though highly flawed in character. For those of us that see our own flaws we see him as us.
71
@Kevin, Frankly, it just seems ill advised to want a president even remotely as flawed as I and this one's flaws are truly ones for the history books. What ever amusement one gets out of his behavior, and no matter that some of of his behavior was seen in other presidents, the collective effect of his personality problems, his lack of knowledge, and his adoration of Russia and Putin puts him in a different class entirely .
895
@Kevin
Watch the magician make your money disappear.
By the way, by 'one of us' do not include anyone who does not identify as a degenerate oaf.
622
If you see yourself as like him, then I feel sorry for all who know you. Trust me, you aren't coming off well. Do some reflecting and look within.
653
So, if you add up all the bad qualities of all of those other former presidents, you get something resembling a pale version of Donald Trump. Ok, got it.
38
What a myopic point of view this is. What of his daily lies and conspiracy theory declarations? What of his loyalty to only himself and not the Constitution?
28
I beat you to the punch by two days:
Camilo Marquez
December 4 at 5:11 PM
I have discovered Trump's political roots in Jacksonian democracy revealed on page 108 of Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz' An Indigenous Peopl'e History of the United States.
"Land-poor white rural people saw Jackson as the man who would save them by ridding it of Indians, thereby setting the pattern of the dance between poor and rich US Americans ever since under the guise of equality of opportunity... Jackson was reelected in 1832, although landless settlers had acquired very little land, and what little they seized was soon lost to speculators, transformed into ever larger plantations worked by slave labor."
13
Haha, Trump reminds me of an orc. You know those creatures that Tolkien wrote about in "The Lord of the Rings." Orcs are solely bred to destroy, nothing more. And, they cannot handle it when they are overpowered, or somebody is better.
When he was elected I wrote to my friends that: "Oops, they found another ring around Mordor, while Sauron is gone the orcs are coming back to defend the Dark Lord in the hopes he comes back."
Besides the periods of the American Revolution and the Civil War this country has not been so devastated by one guy, or a group of guys, who really and fundamentally don't care for people. The only comparison is Andrew Johnson, and yes, he was impeached and kicked out of office.
14
I laugh in disbelief at—not with—Trump's soliloquy on bathroom fixtures. The rest of it turns my stomach and bruises my soul. Children torn from their parents and placed in cages, for just one thing.
18
I have a hard time reading an article that tries to normalize an dare to equate Trump with FDR and Eisenhower.
41
Trump is "uncouth?"
That would be a monumental improvement
22
Yeah, one rammed through legislation to help citizens, the other rams through legislation to help himself and the rich...Totally alike
21
Sigh...he is a “clear & present danger”. Add the fact that he is devoid of morality,decency, civility. It corrodes democracy each & every day. Our country deserves better.Period.
21
Trump channels the beliefs and values of the working class. I grew up with them, I know and hate them. Wake up, good upper middle class liberals and stop worrying about 'blaming the victim'. These are the people who deserve to be blamed.
5
My father. Unfortunately.
5
Mr. Terzian, my question to you is: what other President have invited foreign powers to interfere in our elections? This is no joking matter!
25
I for one am not buying into your apology for Trump's behavior. A conservative commentator from the Washington Examiner making a case to tolerate Trump.
It's a specious argument you make sir.
23
I can only assume that the conceit for this piece was inspired by the audacity of the challenge; well done on that part: the lightest of touches is required to make a sow's ear seem like a silk purse.
10
I can play your parlor game disguised as intellectual history. There is only one man Trump reminds me of and he was not or is not a former president, current politician, or even an American. He is the most dangerous man in the world and he is a lot smarter and much richer than Trump who he controls as his puppeteer. This man is now winning the cold war Republicans always feared and if Trump wins again there is some chance he will gain major and firm control of our government. His name is Vladimir Putin
23
Sorry, this maladroit attempt to white-wash Trump's Twitter Presidency doesn't work! The only personage he reminds me of is Berlusconi, only Trump holds greater power. Truly dangerous!
16
Whom does President Trump remind me of? Maybe Berlusconi.
3
Informative narrative. All Terzian manages to do is remind us that Trump is an ignorant, foul mouthed shill for himself and others to enrich themselves at the public trough. Trump's dangerous because of his larceny and lies.
11
Probably the first to have a fake charity and fake university. Maybe not the first to pay off a porn star.
The lying, racism , bullying of private citizens on said twitter feed and sexual assault accusations....
10
you seem to have left out that trump is a lair, a cheat, and immoral.
11
He sounds like the Rodney Dangerfield of Politics
1
Actually he reminds me of Archie Bunker.
6
Wholesale Gaslighting published as a opinion piece.
17
The misreading of a president
4
Sorry, but NO president has ever been one tenth as unethical, ignorant, dishonest, lazy and incompetent, or as delusional and divorced from reality.
18
Chauncy Gardner.....Both learned everything they know from TV. Only Mr. Gardner was more less ambitious and had no agenda. Oh yeah, and he was made up... Who says you can't make this stuff up?!
5
Trump reminds me of US President James K. Polk who regularly battled the US Congress and view Mexicans as inferior
1
Headline: The New York Times Discovers the Truth.
Well done.
1
Oh please. What a lame attempt to justify and normalize Trump’s aberrant, racist, unconstitutional and toddler-like behavior. And what an insult to each and every one of our former presidents.
16
He's a President who has bragged about sexually assaulting woman, walked into the contestant dressing room unannounced at the Miss Universe Contest, publically criticized the facial appearance of a female Republican candidate for President of the United States, said John McCain and our POW'S are not heroes - notwithstanding his own draft dodging during the Vietnam War - called White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis "very fine people"..... the list goes on and on. So humorously tell me again, who in our presidential history he's supposed to remind me of?
16
Sorry, but my mama always told me “despicable is as despicable does...” “Identify” with this demagogue all you want, but don’t try to normalize his ignorant, anti democratic, misogynistic behavior.
17
Good lord there are so many apple and orange comparisons in this piece you could make a fruit salad.
19
If you squint real hard, a pineapple looks like a Swiss watch.
20
Laugh rather than wince, eh? You left out a few comparative markers. No POTUS has been this ignorant, especially of history. This man is a diagnosable narcissist, a rude, loud, unhinged joke to the free world.
12
So he's taken the worst of every past president. Is that the point of this article?
18
Boris Johnson
2
Most Americans have never had a real con run on them by pro's. My Dad was a genuine first class con man. He made millions and spent his life ducking subpoena servers. When I close my eyes and listen to Trump I hear my Dad. They lie because they're working the con, but, even when there's no con in play they still lie.....almost like, just how far can I take this? All his worker bees had monikers, but, the marks were all anointed with cruel nicknames to reflect nothing in particular, save contempt. There was never compassion or charity or even pity.....only self interest prevailed.
When I hear the Donald, I hear my Dad and I'm not at all surprised he was elected. Most con's victims never know or admit they were conned. I have a somewhat different view of the entire farce. It's a movie I first saw 50 years ago. His presidency follows the con's definition of a goldmine. A hole in the ground with a liar on top.
23
Wow. Just wow. Others have already said it, but this author is doing a REALLY terrible job of trying to normalize Trump's amoral, immoral, and traitorous behaviors. He is also doing some heavy whitewashing to boot. Let's be clear. No president in our history has been as big a danger to our democracy as Trump. This is not normal no matter how many right-wing partisans attempt to sell it as "just another corrupt politician" in order to cover for Trump's many crimes. Trumpism is American Fascism and it is high time for people to begin calling it out. If people remain silent we will become an authoritarian state under Trump's watch.
28
The article is written from a parochial American point of view. If you are not an American and consider the world at large, Trump will remind you of nobody so much as Mao Zedong and his populist Cultural Revolution - a widespread campaign against the 'elites' (meaning anybody who knew anything about anything) that plunged China into chaos.
20
No, no, no. This is called gaslighting. Trump is not normal. To cherry pick defects of former Presidents to try to normalize this train wreck is really sad. What's clear is that those who support him have had to gaslight themselves. John McCain maintained reason in his contempt, as have the Bush clan and Mitt Romney. The rest of the "Grand Old Party" has flushed it's collective dignity down the toilet for this pretender.
24
Good grief. Comparing Trump's traits to those of George Washington? I realize the author was only comparing foreign policies, but please don't put the two names together. Yuck.
14
“We might wish, at times, that Mr. Trump were a little less juvenile...”
My nomination for understatement of the century.
21
Ever see his reality show? Housewives and county singers and other abc listers would bow to him . MR. TRUMP.... and then off they would go to do a product commercial on some very c list item ranging from white bread to toothpaste...
A. Mazing
Right?
1
Yeah, it's an exact match: Trump won the biggest war ever and dug America out of the biggest Great Depression ever, and FDR was impeached and detested throughout the world.
Twins, really.
16
Trump is a liar and thoroughly corrupt. He’s dangerous. I don’t read his tweets, or repeat his demeaning nicknames. I’m glad the author is amused. Most of us are not.
17
Huey Long because "the Kingfish" routinely flouted the rule of law, and once stated he was the constitution.
9
“I have Article 2, where I have the right to whatever I want as president.”
– Donald J. Trump, July 23, 2019
This is precisely what the founders feared in a rogue president, and it is precisely why they provided Congress with the power of impeachment.
22
Trump reminds me of a spoiled rich kid, so spoiled that he can't imagine that anyone else is as important as him, nor worth helping. Yet, despite his enormous ego, Trump is terribly insecure. This is probably because his father bailed him out of all of his problems. Trump was never a really bright guy—at least according to his professors at Penn—but now—after reading his recent tweets about water and the disgrace of nine-month pregnancies— it seems as though he's suffering from some sort of dementia.
13
"Thanks" for trying to normalize Trump, especially his misogyny and zenophobia. Just what we needed at a time like this.
9
Actually he's starting to remind me of Alec Baldwin.
2
Trump reminds me of King Louie from the Jungle Book and of every banana-republic dictator that ever thumped his chest. He also reminds me that I am so grateful to have moved abroad 30 years ago.
4
Trump will be regarded as the worst president in our country’s history. Certainly the whiniest.
Enabled by the most spineless, craven Republican sycophants in our country’s history.
Supported by the most gullible voting block in our country’s history.
15
"Stately predecessor"?? This phrase gives the whole game away.
"Uncouth he may be"
He may be? He may be?!!!
Wha?
40
Trump's trade policies are a rehash of Herbert Hoover's.
6
There is only one perfect match: Eric Cartman.
29
BUT...Trump lies incessantly
Does that matter?!
23
Much like Monthy Python's black knight, Terzian claims President Trumps unlawful actions are merely a nuisance, "tis but a scratch" says Terzain
20
Sounds to me like every tin pot dictator in history.
37
In the words of Jeff Glodblum’s character in The Big Chill, “Everyone enjoys a big fat juicy rationalisation.” This opinion piece was about the juiciest I’ve read in the NYT in a long time.
36
Trump is a pro wrestler
Period
19
But...but...but...he's incompetent and in way over his head...we haven't seen "nuttin' yet", trouble is nigh.
24
Did you mention lying?
26
Benjamin Disraeli
2
What is laughable are all the futile efforts to “normalize” Trump. He will never be normal, or just like someone else we know. We can only hope that others do not become like him.
37
No where do I see you mention that every word out of his mouth...or tweets, is a lie, even when he has no reason to lie.
Nor do you bring up his penchant for nepotism, never passing up an opportunity to make a buck off of his position, operate in total secrecy...no log, phone records, witnesses to his meetings with foreign powers (be they friend or foe).
We have had bad presidents, quirky presidents, unqualified presidents...but do not insult the title of the Presidency by claiming he is comparable to those who came before.. He embodies the worst traits of each of them in one glorious bundle..
49
The author has this wrong. This president stands out both for the severity of his flaws and for the number of them. These comparisons with the past are ill-suited.
29
Most presidents had a few eccentricities.Mr. Trump has them all.
17
Too clever by half. I am entirely unconvinced by even the smallest bit if this article.
37
Obscure. Reading Trump in a way to elevate his stature like a president thinking about doing something for his country. Trump is probably very flattered and may tweet about you.
14
None of your presidential examples were traitors. Trump is unique in that respect.
34
Wow. So this is what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night? Donald Trump seeks a nation at war with itself and he fans the flames of internal dissent at every opportunity. It is enlightening to know that his supporters justify the cracking of our nation by suggesting we have seen this before.
34
Take off those rosy lenses, man, snap out of it! We’re trying (so hard) to move forward, not backward.
16
On a surface level, Trump is an Archie Bunker with money.
I'll leave him to the psychoanalysts for deeper understanding and comparisons.
Regardless, Trump is as dangerous as a child playing with matches.
23
Ridiculous article -- you have to turn yourself into a moral pretzel to see Trump as simply another president with some unattractive idiosyncrasies.
It's beyond generous even to say he embodies virtually all the undesirable traits of every president cited with none of their virtues. In fact, he is sui generis with new depravities revealed every day. This article is just a further degradation of American principles, standards, and discourse.
38
Mr. Terzian, you can try to normalize him, laugh at him or with him, and even say he is no different that any other but you are wrong. No other President has brought disgrace and disregard to the office of the president like trump. No other has fed the flames of discord and divisiveness like he has. He has made the world a more horrible and sad place. He loves criminals, and dictators and seemingly strong men because he is a coward and so weak himself. He knows he is a failure and lies constantly to hide the fact. You can shrug it off but what trump represents in another devaluation in the currency of human response!
29
I’ve been around for almost 8 decades and no president has presented as poorly, as offensively,as Donald Trump.
As the late legendary author, Philip Roth, put it, Trump is ‘Humanly impoverished. Ignorant of government, history, philosophy, science, art and destitute of all decency’.
43
Trump is also a carbon based organism just like many of our finest presidents. See? If you search hard enough you can find all kinds of similarities.
31
So when Trump is properly understood, he's part of a great American tradition? Interesting that this writer doesn't mention the Russia thing.
14
Like Dr. Frankenstein, Mr. Terzian tries to reconstruct Donald Trump out of pieces taken from previous presidents. But at the end of the day, he’s still a monster.
22
Which of the past presidents worked vigorously every day to sew division among the American public?
11
So what’s the point? He has all the worst characteristics of prior presidents all rolled into one very bad president? Making him worst ever? Think we all new that.
15
How many presidents have acted like they were modeling themselves after dictators? How many presidents have dissed the allies we have had for generations? How many presidents played footsie with white nationalists? How many presidents have practically solicited bribes by owning a hotel blocks from the white house? How many presidents have an attorney general who disregards the inspector general? None. Ever. The only way we will be able to look at Trump and see him no different than his predecessors is if someday we get a president who is WORSE.
18
It's sad to read that a distinguished historian and award-winning writer would take such a cavalier attitude toward the fascist tendencies of Trump and, more importantly, his Republican enablers.
Contrary to what Terzian suggests, Trump is not like any other of our past presidents.
No president before Trump has ever managed to create two alternate realities in America. One curated by his Twitter account and Fox News, the other dismissed as "fake news."
No president before Trump has ever managed to make the American public lose trust in our national elections. It is undisputed that he accepted help from the Russians in the 2016 elections, and it is undisputed that he asked the Ukrainians for help with the 2020 election. And, worse yet, he has indicated that he may not concede if he should lose the 2020 election.
No president before Trump has ever managed to scare his own - entire! - party into submission to the point of slavish obedience, even at the risk of creating a constitutional crisis.
Mr. Terzian, you seem to take for granted that you can publish pieces like this without repercussion. That works only because we live in a free, democratic society. If Trump and his Republican water carriers had their way, intellectuals like yourself would be the first to be silenced. But maybe, you already know this and your Trump-is-no-worse-than-any-other-president piece is insurance for the worst-case scenario.
20
The Trump tweets will be remembered as “mastery of new technology?!?” I do believe someone has confused familiarity with mastery.
9
What a great piece of satire. Hard to believe so many readers took the article seriously.
4
...” Mr Trump is not a President like no other, nor a threat to democracy. . . “. Does Trump’s soliciting aid from KGB strongman Vladimir Putin in the last election, his obsequious behavior towards Putin at Helsinki, his crude efforts at bribery using taxpayer’s money, holding up Congress-approved aid to Ukraine to force them to dig up dirt on his political opponent, thereby interfering in the coming election - do these actions not seem a threat to democracy? Are U.S. citizens, the voters, to decide elections here, or is Russia now in charge? Where have you been, Mr. Terzian?
15
Not a very insightful article. We've had crude Presidents (Andrew Jackson, LBJ), we've had playboy Presidents who extended payoffs and made strong efforts to keep the girls quiet (Clinton, JFK), we've had extremely dumb Presidents (Reagan), treacherous Presidents (Nixon) and reckless Presidents (Bush Jr.). Trump has these traits, and such traits are not the reasons why he represents a unique danger to America.
What makes Trump a threat like no other Chief Executive has ever posed? His tireless portrayal of an overarching fabric of lies that amounts to a complete worldview, a false worldview that his followers have swallowed whole, and work with Trump, just as tirelessly, to proffer this fabric of falsehoods onto the world at large.
To protect himself, Nixon lied early and often. Clinton's famous finger-shaking falsehood, "I did not have sex with that woman," remains a watershed moment that changed the world for the worst.
But only Trump and the army of devotees have created an airtight alternate reality that is impenetrable by facts. Trump has not merely lied. He's created a mini-nation of disciples that will Believe Unto Death whatever Der Fuhrer says. No amount of adverse information or adverse reality can deter this core of devotees, a core that numbers into the tens of millions, and no force of logic or reason will prevent them from acting out their fantasies against anyone whom Trump directs them to oppose.
22
Which President lied as much as DT has? Comparing him to FDR is reprehensible.
11
I can accept the comparison to Andrew Jackson--one of the worst American Presidents who was guilty of both genocide and destroying our monetary system (leading to the Panic of 1837 in Van Buren's first year of office).
From the mid-20th Century, I see Trump as the inheritor of other political traditions: Huey Long's Louisiana fascism, Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats, and Joe McCarthy's media techniques & paranoia.
20
Yes, so you need to combine the worst characteristics of more than 10 former presidents to begin to approach the dysfunctional human that is Donald Trump. Sorry, but your rationalization is not normalizing him for me.
18
So, what you’re saying is that it’s okay to be cruel, narcissistic, misogynistic, racist and corrupt, and we should just ignore the authoritarianism because, well, FDR? So many pretzels these days, twisting themselves into Escher-like infinity loops to find ways to make Trump look good.
15
The right has lost its grip, now a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.
15
This piece should have mentioned LBJ as a comparison. Thin skinned & bumptious? How about Lil Beagle's ears. Crass? Remember the appendectomy scar. Also remember the greed for power and money and the abusive relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. He, too, could read and intimidate Congress, but I believe, beyond himself, at least his allegiance was to his country, not to a foreign dictator.
7
Suffice to say that if it feels important to write a 1200 word demonstration of why someone or something should be considered normal, there's a good chance that it's not normal.
17
Actually, Trump brings to mind a wealthy Archie Bunker...
5
One of these men locked up tens of thousands of Japanese Americans without cause; tried to pack the Supreme Court with extra judges in order to pass favored legislation; violated the established norm of not running for a 3rd term; and refused to support (Republican) proposals to make lynching a federal crime. And I'm not talking about DJT.
Trump is not a politician by any stretch of the imagination. Politicians manage somehow to govern, Trump just struts.
7
The writer takes the WORST traits of great presidents and argues that because Mr Trump embodies ALL of these WORST traits he should be acceptable as a president? What a weird argument.
16
Did any of the past presidents mentioned by Mr. Terzian favor Russian (or Soviet) perspectives and propaganda over US intelligence-generated information?
13
Even if you are right, Mr. Terzian, why does this man, alone among all the presidents in my living memory, repulse me so?
7
So Trump is nothing but a quaint curiosity? Please.
6
The thing about Trump is he marches down the street obviously like an Emperor without clothes to most discerning adults, but despite this, his acolytes see him dressed like a Russian general during a Victory Day parade in a uniform festooned with medals.
9
Yes. And, like many other presidents, Trump has a liver, two eyes, and one nose.
11
If Chris Christie and Napoleon had a baby it would be Trump. Remember: Chris Christie enabled all of this by screaming and yelling at teachers. And the civilized world had to dispose of Napoleon, twice, as he was deemed THE major threat to world peace.
6
Oh come on! These are flattering comparisons. To me, he's like a male Sarah Palin. The similarities are striking once you think of it. Specifically, he reminds me of what Sarah Palin might have been like in middle school maybe.
6
Make way for Trump on Mt Rushmore. He is truly one of the great presidents.
My first reaction was: Is this piece a joke? It brings up Trump's behaviors one after another, then drops in the name of a good-or-great president with similar behaviors (FDR, TR, Jackson, Truman; Reagan being an exception to "good-to-great" in my opinion). Then I scrolled down to see the author's affiliation -- he writes for the Washington Examiner, a conservative tabloid. With this information, the thought process behind this article came together for me.
This piece is basically an initial attempt at re-molding the legacy of Trump's presidency to have it mentioned in the same breadth of FDR and TR. The republicans have pulled this sort of thing off before through the deification of Reagan who in his time was a mediocre, scandal-ridden president heading a corrupt administration. Although less successful, they have done the same for GHW Bush's presidency with nary of mention of Atwater or the Barr-motivated pardons of the Iran-Contra conspirators. Even Hoover and Coolidge (and their disastrous Treasury Secretary Mellon) have had their reputations partially rehabilitated.
Contrast this with the democrats. They should be talking up Obama non-stop! Clinton was a perfectly good president for his time even though his neo-liberal approach has gone out of fashion. They need to talk up Johnson's domestic achievements. They should talk nonstop of FDR and his innumerable achievements! But crickets are all you hear from democrats about their past presidents.
6
No mention in this article about Climate Change, the biggest issue of our times. Incredible. But the economy is booming so to heck with the future of life on earth. Though there is no comparison, I cannot imagine FDR or TR as a climate denier.
10
Putting Trump and the Roosevelts or Truman in the same sentence is a sacrilege.
11
Sorry I don't think this is a joke anymore. The kind of rancid politics I used to asociate with my corrupt home county of Nassau Couny, NY, now seem like national standards. And even worse. Hearing him at rallies - I don't watch TV and was oblivious - truly scares me. Appallingly though he strikes me as very American. Not the adult in the room. Bad news. And no he's no FDR. Lol
9
I disagree. Trump is a threat to democracy and the constitutional order. He has violated his oath of office. Most presidents do not violate their oath of office. He lies nearly every time he tweets or speaks. Presidents lie sometimes but not 99% of the time. He has alienated our allies. (Or perhaps we have alienated them by electing such a man as president.)
Trump out-Nixons Nixon in engaging in criminal conduct. Unlike
Clinton, who lied about having sex with Lewinsky, which was something that was entirely understandable and not worth the impeachment proceedings, Trump has used the power of his office to withhold already set aside funds for a country we were assisting. Trump fired an FBI director to try to stop an investigation. Trump's cabinet is composed of completely incompetent people who are some of the most self serving individuals I've ever read about.
No, Trump is unique. He's unique in the worst way possible. If any president deserves impeachment it's him. So too does the entire GOP, his cabinet, Pence, etc. They do not merit the privilege of serving any country.
12/9/2019 10:36pm first submit
20
Trump's devaluation of Mexican's and Mexican immigrants resulted in the death of 22 innocent human beings and the wounding of 24 others in my home town of El Paso. He also caused the death of other victims of hate over the last 3 years of his presidency. Trump has attacked every institution of government we have. He is a clear and present danger to many Americans.
13
Difficult to regard Trump in the company of quirky past presidents. I can't recall any who called undocumented immigrants drug dealers and rapists, or who caged children at the southern border or who pardoned a vicious war criminal who reportedly knifed a sedated teenage ISIS fighter to death in Iraq, and then posed for a photograph holding the hair of the corpse. Trump is not an amusing eccentric; he's a maniac and no nothing who needs to be removed from office.
10
Characterizing Trump as "uncouth" glosses over his corrupt, dishonest behavior, and his bad faith. It glosses over his lying. It glosses over his support of Russia and Putin at the expense of America. It glosses over his being "president" only of his base, and his hatred of the rest of us.
He is WAY WORSE than "uncouth".
15
This article focuses on the petty character weaknesses of presidents -- and not their total lack of honesty or the threat their tyrannical impulses posed to the country.
8
People should read the Tao te Ching. It came from ages of wisdom. Trump violates every characteristic of a leader.
4
I don’t know.
Trump reminds me of a person who became president after a lifetime of never previously holding any public office, then unleashing the American economy by merely reducing the number of burdensome regulations, getting the government out of the way, coming down heavy on China and their cheating ways, etc.
Under Trump, we have the best economy ever. The lowest minority American unemployment rate ever. The best Stock Market ever.
This is why the Dems and their media sycophants want him impeached.
1
And...so what, Mr. Terzian. Trump continues to be a pox on Democracy. THAT is unprecedented, unlike any other President in history.
6
Trump, however, embodies ALL the reprehensible traits and actions of presidents past.
5
Yikes- now we are not only going to normalize and sanitize this brute - now we are going to canonize him as well.
Trump is the embodiment of the professional wrestling promoter who keeps throwing folding chairs into the ring - to equate him with any reasonably sane person is insane (and irresponsible).
Hopefully, this nightmare shall end.....
10
Major difference between Trump and Roosevelt: his policies are racist, cruel and designed to make the poorest among us suffer as much as possible.
6
I kept waiting for the punch line. When I got to the end, I realized it was the author himself. His splintering of Trump into a kaleidoscope of different annoying but harmless behaviors is disingenuous, at best. The integrated Donald Trump is an IED laid at the foundation of our form of government. It is plain to see by anyone who has even a passing familiarity with American history that Trump is unique, and a clear and present danger to the republic.
8
"...nor a threat to democracy or the constitutional order."
Are you serious? 1500 character limit is not enough to list how he threatens democracy and the constitutional order. But no need to list them as it is obvious as daylight to the readers of this paper.
5
He is right and deep down we all know it no matter how much it clashes with our own narratives.
The President isn’t so bad and his treatment by this paper, it’s many once unimpeachable journalists and about 45% of the USA has been grossly unfair and bad for the both the USA and the West more generally.
News should drop opinion or balance it fairly.
By these standards, anyone could fit into the American Civic Tradition, even Benito Mussolini or the ancient Roman emperor Nero: All you'd need to do is ignore their base amoral nature and thir craving for power over any other principles that make leaders worthy of their position.
Most of us aren't wishing for perfection, just minimal competency.
Since you asked, I will tell you who he reminds me of: Biff Tannen, the bully and antagonist in the Back to the Future movie franchise. And nope, it's not funny.
4
What other president has lied or shaded the truth over twelve thousand times publicly? His desire to be in the spotlight, and to use any attack (true or false) to attract attention to himself seems unique to me.
Also, I can't think of any other president who has so supported one of our country's primary nemeses (Russia/Putin) - far above his support for his own support agencies (Military, intelligence, Justice, State). Is there one?
5
How dare you try to normalize Mr. Trump's presidency?
No other American president believed that he was above the law.
6
Interesting, lighthearted entertainment. Maybe this will help sell the author’s book.
1
So Trump is an amalgam of all the worst traits of his predecessors. God save America.
6
...Whom?
Nothing in this piece excuses Trump's actions.
He's fundamentally crooked and he's not normal.
Also, whataboutism is not equal to historical perspective
4
The difference between the other names of Presidents is: Donald Trump is giving us away to the Russians Erdogan and the Saudi's
And truly disrupting the election process.
BenedictArnold is a better comparison.
5
Apparently Trump is not the only one to reach out to foreign world leaders for help with his re-election campaign. According to George F. Kennan’s Memoirs, rumor had it that FDR reached out to Joe Stalin to use his influence with the American Communist Party to prevent it from supporting him, least this support prove embarrassing. A move Ambassador Keenan was violently opposed to as he believed domestic politics was our own business, not that of other governments.
Mr. Terzian's superficial historical tour ignores the elephant in the room. We have never before had a POTUS who clearly and continuously works to implement the policies and desires of one of the major current opponents of the United States, i.e. Russia's Putin.
7
I’m 63 and the only people Trump resembles in my past are children. I have faint memories of immature children making fun of others as Trump gleefully does. Otherwise, this writer couldn’t be farther off the mark.
4
So important that liberals read OP-Eds like this that challenge their reality bubble. If only Fox news consumers would read liberal OpEds in the NY Times (one can but dream). Obviously Trump is trashing norms and conducting himself like a robber baron, all things that ARE threats to the norms and values of leading the Republic - and his racism dog whistles as inexcuseable as they are are also sadly in keeping with historical American tradition and values. But where liberals go off the rails is that they fail to acknowledge that he is not patently evil nor actively trying to bring down the Republic. He is an outsider challenging the status quo, mostly in bad ways, but also in some ways that many Americans feel are necessary to shift and change the establishment which has stopped being responsive and relateable to the needs of citizens (as Hillary Clinton's campaign clearly demonstrated).
1
"We might wish, at times, that Mr. Trump were a little less juvenile, or insensitive, or hypersensitive;"
You think? The man is very thin -skinned and has all the markings of a spoiled, uncensored and, now severely frightened juvenile.
Nope, I come up with nothing regarding past commander and chiefs. Jackson doesn't hold a candle stick to this guy.
Bottom line; djt is an adult. His brain, well not so much. Here lies the root of the 'clear and present danger' we are living.
2
What make me worry about myself
(and possibly others), is that I read all of this article, looking for a punchline that never came.
5
None of them however was a servant to a hostile foreign government.
4
This article completely misses his in your face corruption and complete disregard for decency. Those are unprecedented.
The other thing that is unprecedented is his childish tantrums. We will soon have a whole new genre called Tantrumpism!!
Others may have the same (un)qualities in part but not to this extent. This president embodies one of our fundamental flaws - our desire that to accuse someone of egregious wrongdoing the accuser must be purer than pure.
2
Mr. Terizon skipped the comparison of Trump being a tool of Putin to other Presidents that were tools of foreign leaders.
No, I can't think of any other former Presidents that were tools of a foreign leader either.
5
I mean this in all sincerity: is this article a joke? His tweets aren't funny. Not. Even. A. Little. Bit. Honestly, the only who think this are as cruel as he is.
3
Philip Terzian is a graduate from the Murdoch news conglomerate and his true colors are those of a power-mongering elitist who pretends to be a free thinker. Unconscious bias isn't bias, I suppose, it's delusional postering. Either way, this touting of Trump as a forthright refreshing American leader, in the tradition of less despised predecessors, is sophistical at best.
Maybe there is profit in his publication of these views honoring a man who dishonors everyone but the few who agree to toady and promote self-interest as righteousness, but Terzian is not much of a thinker at all apparently.
5
Well, since you asked, I will say he reminds me of Napolieon in George Orwell's Animal Farm, though not as smart. Villian Biff from "Back to the Future" also comes to mind.
Those of us who criticize this president aren't hoping for perfection: we want someone with minimal competence, not someone who lacks any sense of morality or shame in their character.
Is this too much to ask for, Mr. Terzian?
3
There is no one person who embodies all of the bad things about America the way Trump does. There are ignorant people, narcissistic, misogynistic ones ones. There are liars, self aggrandizing, morality-free, hypocritical, corrupt, racist ones. Tacky ones, crass ones, shameless, tasteless ones. Illiterate ones.
But all in a single person? It's like a character someone would write for Lisa Hanawalt's Tuca and Bertie, except there is no subtlety to Mr. Trump, no cleverness. Even Berlusconi knew he was a joke, winking and nodding.
While all these pejoratives sound like a screed, there are specific and multiple examples of each of the above characteristics reported in the pages of this paper daily, weekly, monthly. And, on Twitter, moment by moment.
The only backstop to his incompetence is that some regulatory agencies are independent, rather than executive in nature...that is they're not subject to executive order. But the environment, food supply, agriculture, FEMA, clean water, national security, military? The person with ultimate control is as his chief of Staff John Kelly said, "Off the rails".
1
Congratulations. Donald Trump has successfully gaslighted you to the point you've lost your senses.
You completely ignored the towering corruption that surrounds Donald Trump and the breathtaking daily mendacity. No other president comes close.
Trump is in a league of his own.
7
Normalizing willful destruction of civic order is not helping.
3
So Trump resembles a human being (albeit a defective one)? and that's a revelation?so we are safely within a continuum of historic norms?.. I don' t think so. wait one more year (an election one at that) before proclaiming him rather less a monster than he has proven to be so far. presumably it wasn't your kids in those cages last summer, eh?
13
We've had several horrible presidents, but I don't know of any who were said to be mentally ill. & that is what makes him dangerously unpredictable internationally.
15
It is admirable that the Times tries to cover a wide scope of opinion in the news of the day, and the people who make it. But in this instance, describing Donald Trump's behavior as quaint or entertaining is quite a stretch. There is little humor in what this man is doing. He presents a threat to many people in this nation and elsewhere, some of his plans border on the sadistic, and turn years of progress in human rights, a safety net, and even relations with other countries upside down, to our detriment. As a leader, he displays the most contemptuous, immoral and unethical behavior, worse than any of his predecessors. There is little here to laugh about.
17
Mr. Terzian, I sigh that you are reduced to this. To comparing Trump to FDR in style - and style alone - because in substance, there is no comparing them. In fact, there's no modern comparison of Trump to anyone.
His inexperience, incompetence, and indifference to anything but cheering crowds and cash have led him to outdo Teddy Roosevelt in impulsiveness, exceed the second-term Reagan in inattentiveness, and surpass Nixon in connivance at criminal abuse of power.
Oh right, you didn't compare him to Nixon. I did. And so will we all.
13
Trump is the combination of two characters.
(1) Art Metrano, the comedian with intentional phony magic tricks.
and
(2) Jonathan Goldsmith, Dos Equis beer’s Most Interesting Man Alive.
Both are just as artificial as he is, but we don’t need an entertainer as our president.
The difference is that he really believes he is that magical and talented, just like he believes he is smarter than his generals, he has a big brain, and graduated at the top of all his classes. He’s a victim of a life of self promotion and self deception.
His sycophants will ride his coattails as long as possible and his psycho fans will wake up from their dream when it’s too late.
10
He reminds us of FDR not at all. Trump has an instinct for cruelty and for the ugly side of human nature, he appeals to anger and hatred as the chief motivating human instincts; his disinterest in knowledge and learning, his ignorance, and yes his racism, that's what we will most remember.
8
Who does Trump remind me of? Charmless Triumph the Insult Dog with even less charm, less rationality and zero humor.
6
Although Trump's actions do indeed pose a grave threat to both democracy and civil society itself, the author is partially correct. Trump's behavior is not unprecedented in history. But it's not American history. Mussolini, after all, was Italian.
11
It’s telling that one has to skip and jump through the centuries and collect character traits from half a dozen presidents to make one Trump.
And yet, the article dances around the one big elephant in the room. No, not the current president. I’m talking about the obvious answer to the question of who or what he reminds us of: America itself.
Most of the ways one would describe Trump seem to reflect how one might describe the country itself. Overweight, overly sure of itself, quick to use coarse language, prone to make big claims and bold statements, secretly racist despite public claims to the contrary, opposed to treating women with true equality, opportunistic, easily angered, focused on the acquisition of wealth, low regard for the rest of the world, simple-minded, threatened by intelligence, self-centered, convenience-focused.
America elected the spitting image of itself.
15
Wow! This article is a study in the "Divide and Conquer" tactics of lawyers.
The purported bank robber went into the bank. That is obvious from the video camera footage. We have to ask ourselves if other people also go into banks? I'm sure that everyone in the jury have gone into banks. I suggest that they have gone into banks many times in their lives. I have gone into banks regularly in my adult life. There were people in the bank at the time that my client walked into the bank. Now we have to ask ourselves, is walking into a bank a crime? No? Of course it's not!
Carrying a gun is legal in the state where my client lives and does his banking. There are many people walking around with firearms as they enjoy their "Open Carry" - 2nd amendment rights. Should we arrest citizens for exercising their rights? Of course not.
They say that my client demanded money. In my world, we call that a "Withdrawal". I'm sure that everyone in the courtroom walked into a bank and asked for money at one time or another. Is that a crime? Of course not!
The ski mask? It was cold outside. Is it a crime to dress appropriately?
How on earth is it now possible to arrest, charge, and attempt to convict my client of doing what everyone in this courtroom does on a regular basis?
In this way he is just like every one of you. Are you to also convict yourselves? I think not.
9
Smarter people did not think Reagan was an amiable dunce. They thought he was a front man for the Republicans' donors' long-term plan to end what democracy we have in order to enrich themselves beyond the billions* they already had. He was also a liar and law-breaker who cared little for Congress.
* In today's equivalent.
5
Mr. Terzian's description of Donald Trump is akin to a mother's excuses for a child that is a horror and mean-spirited brat that everyone tolerates and tries to avoid . Nothing light hearted about this man and the comparisons to other Presidents . His descriptions of capturing the "essentials " of people he considers enemies is not amusing at all and it goes beyond being uncouth and more into cruelty aimed to hurt; he's more like Chucky " the infernal doll . Come on Mr. Terzian , we can be better than that and America deserves Mrs. Trump's " Be Best " image that she chose as her pet project ; too bad it has had no effect .
4
Reminds me of Villians in Bollywood movies ! Every Bollywood movie has a harsh, perverse, lecherous, sadistic villain who constantly lies, cheats and tries to turn the world upside down....and he wins to the very end ...until a hero comes along singing and dancing and saves the day.....!!
5
And...Mr. Terzian forgot to mention...Mr. Trump is a habitual, outrageous and unrepentant liar. Many would add, based on their personal and business dealings with Mr. Trump, that he is notoriously dishonest as well. It’s no excuse, however, to suggest that these and other failings are acceptable because some past presidents may have occasionally been scoundrels. For the present, Mr. Trump easily takes the cake as scoundrels in the White House go.
6
Citing some idiotic behaviors of past presidents Is not an excuse for Trumps present day actions. We should not be lulled into a mindset that Trumps behavior is normal. That is more dangerous than Trump himself. The president is a narcissist in the true sense of the word and cares for no one (including his supporters) but himself. Mr. Terzian you are just wasting our time.
6
My mom always said that my uncle Melvin—who is a bit of a sociopath in my opinion— has all of the family’s bad propensities and none of their good ones. I guess that makes him kin but that’s not much comfort to his drowned hamsters.
8
I find it totally repugnant that the illegitimate "president" Trump should be compared with any other legitimate president, Democrat or Republican.
In particular I find it odious to compare him to FDR, my pick for America's greatest president and arguably America's most popular president (he was, after all elected 4 times).
FDR focused on helping the working class. Trump CLAIMS to be helping the working class, be he's only helping himself and fellow billionaires.
FDR has left a huge, positive legacy for generations of Americans. I'd have to imagine life for US seniors had FDR not created Social Security. FDR was a giant!
Trump is a very small man... he clearly lacks the quality of normal human empathy and even seems to delight attacking people, especially women: Megyn Kelly, Rosie O'Donnell, Lisa Page, Marie Yovanovitch, Stormy Daniels, etc. He encourages violence at his rallies, blocks desperate asylum seekers, cages children, oversees crimes against humanity at the border and he plans to cut millions, including children, off of SNAP.
Trump is not only the worst president in US history, he's a much worse president than anybody could possibly have imagined. Trump is a clear and present danger to free elections, the rule of law, democracy and national security.
He reminds me of nobody. No US president, and nobody any good.
10
He reminds me of Biff from Back to the Future, especially the older one in the alternative 1985 world. Then again, I'm pretty sure Biff was based on DJT in the 1980s. Scary!
The comparison of Trump to other presidents ignores his unique aversion to truth, his singular incompetence at governing, his supreme indifference to everything but his own needs and his volatility bordering on mental illness. In these respects, he is unique, not in line with historical examples.
5
This piece is way too generous, working harder even than Disney to place Trump in the Hall of Presidents.
He doesn't remind me of TR, or FDR, or Reagan, or any chief executive: he reminds me of my dad, screaming at the cable news that plays all day on his TV, breaking into a vein-popping sweat about how there oughta be a law, and they should put all the crooks in jail.
Sound familiar?
5
He reminds me of a spoiled brat whose parents simply had enough and shipped him off to boarding school or military school to get him out of their hair - which they did. I've never seen a better example of a grown up baby in my life. The worst part of this tragic set of circumstances is that he is who he was before the fateful escalator entrance into the 2016 campaign. An electoral plurality were cynical enough to vote for this brat. There is not better rationale, even more so than W over Gore, that the electoral college needs to ceremoniously with much pomp and pageantry be eviscerated from the Constitution. When that democracy saving action happens it will be exceedingly harder for cynicism to elect, as president, someone who has no business in the White House Gift Shop, much less the Oval Office.
6
@Kevin - people who love Trump always say that he is the greatest because he is creating jobs, and the stock market is at all time high. It is. It has been going in that trajectory since 2009 right after the market crash caused by Bush, who throughout his two terms - gave away land, money and lowered taxes to sustain growth - only to have a crash that compared only to one 80 years before. Trump is giving away money, land, favors and lowered taxes like no one else. Sure everyone is going to love him - why would you not like someone who gives you money. Only - not really. Trump is a horrible person to be around!!!!! I would not want to have dinner with him ( a friend of mine was one of his architects). And when the bubble crashes (what he is doing is unsustainable - just like Bush - unless he starts a war (Iran???)) and your stocks loose 70% of its value in 1 month then the 40% of Trumpers won't love him so much anymore. I personally thought he was a horrible developer... but his building as horrible as they were - had gorgeous river views. Many people bought them.
3
Please. Trump is at best a profoundly narcissistic buffoon who’s incapable of even minimal engagement with the job he was elected to perform. At worst he is a treasonous criminal who does Putin’s bidding for a financial payoff we can only guess at.
Since his party refuses to admit the obvious, Trump will survive impeachment. The nation’s only hope is that the press informs the conscience of the American electorate who will decide his fate next November. I for one am terrified of his re-election.
7
Apoplectic is literally the best adjective for what I feel today after a mere passing and perfunctory observance of the example-cultivated emulated rude, inane and childish behavior of Trump's non-compunctive defenders in the Longworth House today.
"Bad faith" is putting it mildly.
It's stultifyingly overwhelming and trying to relate to the convoluted logic informing this theater of postured bloviation makes my eyeballs twirl and my head spin. These men (and a few women) are embracing a total lack of dignity, and it's as difficult to watch as hyena disemboweling an infant.
1
Is this author equating the humor of Roosevelt’s quote about welcoming the hatred of the rich with Trump’s daily diatribes against virtually everyone. Let’s get some perspective on the cruelty of Trump compared to his predecessors. I don’t believe Roosevelt ever made fun of disabled reporters.
6
He often reminds me of a Jane Austen character, Sir Walter Elliot who was cruelly clueless, and destructive in a most airy manner. Pax, jb
1
It's all being done on credit. The bill will come due all too soon.
7
trump would be better suited to be the class president of a middle school (sorry, kids)...where rumors and gossip rule the day, promises of extra long recesses are made and forgotten, and where real grownups are in charge.
3
“Like Calvin Coolidge, he believes that “the business of America is business,” in the sense that a healthy market economy is the guarantor of inclusive prosperity.”
So we’re now calling populism part of a “healthy market economy”?
3
To mention FDR in the same breath as Donald Trump is unforgivable.
Trump has no business being president and the country has no business putting a man in the White House who came in second place.
6
Oh yes, then - let’s give Trump a participation trophy. Or an Oscar; I am unsure whether the author has set a new low bar or a new high bar for the office. I also submit that the author cannot distinguish between funny and ridiculous. Trump is sui generis. I hope.
5
"the public prefers its politicians to resemble either clergymen or undertakers." ....that's what Terzian thinks people object to in Trump? That he's not always acting like a clergyman or an undertaker? That doesn't even begin to make sense.
Why can't the President just give some appearance of trying to act with dignity and respect for others?
I mean, it IS the President of the United States, it seems like we could set the bar a little higher than Terzian thinks it should be set.
3
So what. Where are you going with this? That he shares some characteristics with other presidents - OK. But the combination of faults in him and the way he so proudly exhibits them make him uniquely horrific, IMHO.
3
He sure doesn’t remind me of anyone I respect. Not humble, not kind, not generous, not caring, not well spoken, or well read. Not Christlike.
Definitely not a genius, stable or otherwise.
3
The comparisons here are strained offer no particular insight. Guess what Mr. Terzian, we know what politicians are like, but some of them are actually leaders who care about the aspirations of all Americans to try and make this democracy thing work.
This is a puff piece and leads me to think it would be best to avoid Terzian's book.
3
What, exactly, does this historical navel-gazing have to do with the price of tea in Ukraine? So, earlier Presidents displayed some "familiar" narcissistic tendencies. And? That makes Trump not dangerous? Let me point out that Trump obviously also shares a lot of familiar traits of some of history's most dangerous and reviled dictators.
4
It is tempting for those of us who have been disgusted by recent events to look at the US' chequered past and conclude it was ever thus.Indeed there is something very contemptible about the US and its insistence eon its mission and exceptionalism.But this article is clearly an attempt to 'normalise' Trump a liar, cheat and quite possibly traitor. Partisanship and tax breaks really distorts things does it not?
4
45 reminds me of Cartman in ' South Park; ' every day he comes up with variations of, "I do what i want! I do what i want! "
2
Off subject, but I think he tries to look like Owen Wilson with some of his facial expressions. I'm sure Wilson would cringe at the thought, but it's what I think.
Mr. Terizian cherry picks individual flaws or traits in past Presidents. The big difference is that Trump embodies not any one but ALL of them. Can Mr. Terizan pick one President in the past who was arrogant and egotistical and corrupt and ill-informed and inexperienced and.... You get my drift. We don't need perfect, we just need at least decent.
4
This is a sad piece in that it reflects how inured we have become to this thing's behaviour.
I pity us all.
3
Thanks. I'll go with Nero.
3
I thought the article was going to be about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who most closely resembles President Trump. the good news is that the country tired of him after 3 years and we can only hope the same is true for Trump.
4
Another quote from Walter Block's book "Defending The Undefendable" a fly in Donald Trump's White House may overhear is - A prostitute may be defined as one who engages in the voluntary trade of sexual services for a fee. The essential part of the definition, however, is “voluntary trade.” A magazine cover by Norman Rockwell some time ago illustrated the essence of prostitution, if not the specifics. It portrayed a milkman and a pieman standing near their trucks, each busily eating a pie and drinking milk. Both obviously pleased with their “voluntary trade.” Those lacking sufficient imagination will see no connection between the prostitute entertaining her customer and the aforementioned milk and pie episode. But in both cases, two people have come together on a voluntary basis, in an attempt to mutually gain satisfaction. In neither case is force or fraud applied. Of course, the customer of the prostitute may later decide that the services he received were not worth the money he paid. The prostitute may feel that the money she was paid did not fully compensate her for the services she provided. Similar dissatisfactions could also occur in the milk-pie trade. The milk could have been sour or the pie underbaked.
This is a faux-amiable, fireside-cozy, blatantly wheedling attempt to place Donald Trump on a continuum of political "eccentricities" shared by previous presidents.
No dice, Mr. Terzian. Donald Trump's behavior and words place him squarely in his own, special category: Unfit, incompetent, unprepared, unworthy, immoral, ugly, corrosive, transgressive, nasty, racist, sexist, self-serving, greedy, abusive, corrupting and corrupted. The only thing Donald Trump shares with our previous presidents (some of whom were certainly no great shakes) is that he puts his pants on one leg at a time. And I'm not so certain even of that last attribute.
4
The author left out the criminality. Big mistake.
9
Dante had a special place in hell for people who sowed discord. It's a little above treachery to kin and country, but not much. Every time I hear this argument, that Trump is not all that bad, that he presides over all this economic growth, that he is funny, etc., all I can think about is that he went around saying Obama isn't a real American (read: Birther). He stirs up the worst tendencies in us and is a classic demagogue. He is not "not so very bad."
8
Trump reminds me of Vladimir Putin.
Like peas in a pod.
4
Henry VIII
2
Who ever Terzian is, he speaks the truth. Well done, Mr. Terzian.
(Please try to post this inside of 24 hours.)
8 30 pm Mon est.
1
While I appreciate the effort to put Donald Trump into historical context, I think you’ve done a disservice in this piece overall. You seem to want to paint Trump’s behaviors like they’re harmless eccentricities, not too far out of line with Presidents past.
I’ll be the first to admit that Trump’s bombastic ways make me see red. But it’s more than that. When anger subsides, when the dust settles, Donald Trump has engaged in dangerous, corrupt conduct that has put the nation’s best interests in peril.
I won’t recite his many transgressions, but the bottom line is this: America deserves better. We deserve a leader that puts their country and its people first, not their business interests. The president serves the people, not the other way around.
3016
@L osservatore Sorry, but the answer to hundreds of millions of prayers, both nationally and internationally would be to see the end of this presidency. I don't know what set of facts you refer to when you say that Obama's presidency was a complete disaster. Look closely at what the current administration has done to dismantle environmental and safety standards. Check the facts on income inequality, weakening of a healthcare plan that helped millions, and his capricious foreign policy. Then recalibrate your standard for a complete disaster. This is not to ignore what looms large over everything, i.e. the climate crisis which this administration denies.
189
@Scott Daniel I agree that this assessment of Trump in terms of his predecessors is way too generous. There has never been an American President remotely like him, although he has since before he was elected reminded me almost on a daily basis of Benito Mussolini. If you get bored sometime compare photographs of the two; I actually think he models himself as Il Duce Incarnate.
88
@Scott Daniel
Even though I agree with your points about the current president, I have to wonder why it is that people always proclaim that "Americans deserve better." Why?
We,collectively, are apathetic;just look at voter turnout in any given election. We,as a society, don't really support one another; just look at tipping habits, or the general disdain for labor unions. We, as a rule,only really care about things when they affect "me" and not "us."
There are many more Trumps in America than there are MLKs,or RFKs.
37
Mr. Terzian seems to find some pleasure in finding a parallel in past Presidents to the current President's behavior. But the notion that he has a "gift" for verbal cruelty, that he has a history of divorce and of allegations of sexual misconduct, that he can vary between moods at a moment's notice, or that he is impulsive like TR who enjoyed "picking fights with adversaries great and small" - all that is not a sign of "roots in the American civic tradition."
Mr. Terzian almost wants us to celebrate Trump's personality wherever it parallels the worst in our executives history. And the notion that Reagan being pigeonholed as an "amiable dunce" somehow compares favorably to Trump being categorized as a racist and an aspiring dictator is simply a grimace masquerading as a smile.
Mr. Trump's tweets and political successes are not the result of thoughtful attitudes and actions. They are a chance to lash out against those who oppose him, and where that may take us should keep all of us. at the very least, from being entertained.
2035
@MJEm
I suspect that most of the people who admire trump really would not want to be near or with him for very long. His "charm" wears thin very fast. And, in the end, he turns on everybody.
149
@MJEm
Agree, you make many good points, the greatest is that this president is not normal.
37
@MJEm
"a grimace masquerading as a smile."
...brilliant! That captures the mood of many of us today.
43
Yes, Mr. Trump reminds me of a president, every day, and he also communicated directly with its audience for many, many hours: Hugo Chavez. Just as histrionic, just as populist and just as unapologetic. The difference is that Chavez's Venezuela was for the people -Maduro changed everything and Chavez's policies did not work because he just listened to himself-. Trump is in for himself. He appointed judges because is a win for him, passed tax legislation because it helped him and his ratings, but there is no real purpose behind his tweets as FDR public service in the radio. Normalizing Trump is creating white noise and a slippery slope for democracy, the only worked that, although imperfect, have worked in this hemisphere. Do not be blind to his incorrectness and narcissistic impulses.
1387
@DAT
Reminder: The Trumpublican tax law contains special treats for real-estate developers.
22
@DAT
Chavez’s Venezuela was Orwell’s Animal Farm in the flesh: “All Venezuelans are equal, but some Venezuelans are more equal than others.”
5
An interesting attempt to rationalize Trump as eccentric and not that much different than some of his predecessors. Two differences are not acknowledged here. First, Trump has MORE of these oddities in his behavior than any others who were in the White House before him. Second, the cumulative effect of all of these tendencies is much more harmful, if not outright dangerous, to the country. He really is a threat to our democracy.
Clearly the Senate will not find him guilty. So it is up to the Dems to nominate someone who can defeat him next November.
7
Trying to normalize Trump does the former presidents and the presidency an extreme disservice. I do not know about Jackson, but the elephant in the room (besides the GOP) is that past presidents had the good of the country and the world as the driver of their actions and words, Trump, self centered interests only. Even Trump's doing the bidding of Putin is based on his own, selfish self interests.
There is no comparison between Trump and past presidents and there is no comparison between Trump and other Republicans that are like Jeb Bush or even Marco Rubio.
I am not a fan of either, but both have far more of an honest core, a driving force that wants to do what is right for the country even if I find it the wrong way.
Trump is beyond redemption. He lives in a world of one and that one is Trump and Trump only.
My guess is that he would toss Ivanka or Don Jr. under the bus if he felt it would benefit him.
The man is without a moral base and that is the stark difference between him and past presidents.
10
It is an understatement to say that this commentary is disingenuous. Finding similarities and quasi- similarities between Trump and past presidents is hardly challenging and proves nothing. In the words of Ted Cruz, Trump is a world-class narcissist,pathological liar and totally amoral. No other president has been this character-flawed, this petty or vindictive,this totally without ideals principles,experience, judgement, and self-control. Perhaps only Andrew Jackson was as much an authoritarian populist and demagogue. Unlike Trump he did have the redeeming quality of actually caring about the little guy. What if there were a previous president as big a threat to democracy and the rule of law as Trump. Does that mean we are just hysterically overreacting? I hardly think so.
11
Mr. Terzian’s piece is blatantly ahistorical. I take particular issue with a superficial comparison between FDR’s fireside chats and Trump’s tweets. The first fireside chat took place 8 days after FDR’s inauguration and was explicitly intended to calm a nation panicked by a banking crisis which saw people losing their money deposited in failing banks. He explained to the American public what was happening and what he (his administration) was going to do to immediately alleviate the crisis. The effectiveness of his presentation resulted in people redepositing their money in banks and stemming the cascading failures of banks. Trump’s tweets serve only one purpose - to inflame the passions of both his opponents and his supporters. They are the reflexes of a schoolyard bully, not a statesman.
16
Philip:
The problem with your opinion piece is that you are painting Trump in a normal light. While there are always parallels to be drawn between any two human beings Trump is a seriously mentally ill person that suffers from any number of conditions that compromise his ability to be a commander in chief.
This has been witnessed up close by every person who has either worked for him or with him. The deafening silence on the part of all those who intimately understand Trump's deficits will echo through history forever.
9
Yes, you can only laugh when you read the tweets by Mr. Trump. The problem is that you cannot distinguish these from what a comedian like Stephen Colbert or SNL would write to be funny. The big question is are we laughing with or at Mr. Trump. In the rest of the world and for the first time in the UN unfortunately people are laughing at Mr. Trump. Although I find Mr. Trump disgusting I have given up and laugh with him now.
1
Really he reminds me most of an unpleasant (and I think unhappy) kid I knew in grade school. I hope he turned out better than trump. But among presidents, I think Lyndon Johnson bears the most outward resemblance. He, too, was rough, crude, ill-mannered, abusive of women, seeking desperately power and money and recognition and more than little mentally unstable -- but he was on the right side of history, and knew how to get things done, neither of which is illustrative of Trump.
3
This is just offensive.
We're not playing a game here folks. I'm tired of hearing this talking point about Trump's unique style. The problem is that THERE IS NO SUBSTANCE behind the style. The style IS the substance. He doesn't read, he's ill informed, he's a bully, he has no regard for the truth, he is a cheater, he is amoral, he lacks empathy, he has a stunted emotional maturity.
To compare Trump to either Roosevelt, or for that matter to any of our Presidents whose entire careers were not rife with tax evasion, non-disclosure agreements and endless self-promotion and exaggeration - is an insult. He was a petty,publicity loving, conspiracy mongering self promoter before he was elected, and he has continued in that tradition.
The only thing as bad or even worse than the man himself is the legion of enablers willing to participate in the gas-lighting.
22
In real life, we judge people on our first meeting in the first minute. To get the whole story, you have to hang around. But first impressions, while not everything, tell a lot.
Trump is a big stout blondish guy. That suggests that he is not a fine detail guy and may well be the kind to resort to bluster. The hair tells you he most likely isn't ethnic, and may well be a WASP. As soon as he talks, you know he's a New Yorker. Some might even be able to place him from Queens. He doesn't sound blue blood. He sounds more street. So he' s not likely high-minded or scholarly. He's probably the brass tacks sort. He dresses well, but not fashionably, so he's got money but no style. The whole picture says self-made man, either for real or in his mind. He exudes confidence, but something about him suggests that his opinion of himself is a lot higher than my opinion of him will be.
We do this every day. And we're more right than wrong. Follow your instincts. Trump can be pegged pretty quick. This FDR thing -- I don't see it.
3
Trump is more than a threat to democracy, he is a threat to the existence of the United States. He has Ignored provocations and threats by our enemies while attacking our allies. Trump’s affinity for Putin and other dictators has turned the Republican Party into a mouthpiece for the Kremlin’s manufactured conspiracies. He has abandoned Ukraine, the Kurds and the Europeans demanding money if they want us as an ally. Trump has ignored Kim’s provocative missle tests. The US has led allies, our first line of offense, to feel they are on their own when they will have to face aggression which means we are on our own as well. Trump isn’t simply a bad or extreme version of other presidents, his incompetence is dismantling world order.
8
He's a high school sophomore who never grew up. Nervy, daring and reckless, his favorite game is, "Let's you and him fight!" I recognized this in him, so I didn't vote for him the first time, and absolutely won't the next time, and I'm a life-long republican. I met & attended school with others like him, but they grew up to became constructive contributors to our nation, society and their families. He's a disgrace.
7
I can't decide if Mr Terzian's essay is intended to be normalizing or comedic or nihilistic. We can get used to bombast, but why should we ever accept the environmental destruction, the human rights violations, the smashing of public morals, the willful unethical conduct, the complete incompetence of appointees, the unstrained cruelty to anyone who doesn't fawn on himself, and the wholescale chaos that follows in his train?
9
No. This sort of preemptive revisionism will not stand. No president in US history has exhibited the sort of total disregard that Trump shows for truth, coherence and consistency. The man is a menace, and he needs to go. He is most definitely _not familiar_ to me. He seems barely recognizable, really.
8
This apologia sadly and significantly understates the deeply corrosive effect Trump has had on our country. Contrary to the author’s argument, Trump is absolutely sui generis and therefore not comparable with any historic figure. His meanness, coarseness, bigotry, xenophobia, intellectual laziness, dishonesty and sheer incompetence are simply without precedent among any of our presidents, and it is simply mystifying that so many demean themselves by defending him or minimizing the damage he is doing.
11
When Republicans sniffed at FDR, it was about his policies, not his personal behavior. Mr. Terzian seems to think Donald Trump is great entertainment and worth a daily laugh. But what's funny about a serial liar? Subverting public elections? Insulting hard-working public servants? Running up a deficit that enriches the already wealthy and cutting benefits to the poor? Starting a trade war? Trump is coarse, ignorant, and a threat to the rule of law. I do not find his behavior entertaining. Only someone who is very silly would.
7
What former president ever denied a subpoena issued by a duly authorized committee of Congress? Mr. Trump is an outlier--a real outlier--in this way: he has refused to comply with Congressional subpoenas for documents and witnesses. Beyond that, if Mr. Trump's conduct vis-a-vis Ukraine isn't impeachable, what in god's name is? If the answer is that it is not, Mr. Trump, and other unscrupulous presidents, will have an invitation for lawlessness, and repeats of Ukraine are likely.
4
The problem with Democrats is that they have turned their backs on football. Trump is a star defensive lineman. He is big and strong and he’s pretty much immobile. Democrats fumbled the ball to him and he’s got it and he’s trying to get to the end zone. He slowly lumbers long with tacklers holding him in their grasp unable to bring him down. We need everyone we can get to mass tackle him before he gets far. The only way to bring him down is to pile on. I suppose impeachment is worth a try. But if I were the coach, I’d tell all the Presidential candidates to stop ignoring him and attack him from all sides. Why would we wait to go at Trump until there’s only one candidate left? You see it on the field repeatedly. Gang up on the oversized guy with the ball. Over and over this is what happens in football. Unfortunately Democrats aren’t watching.
So the answer to the question is that Trump is a star defensive lineman who has gotten the ball. Democrats need to read the playbook.
2
Mr. Terzian's attempt to rationalize and compare Mr. Trump's cruel tweets, nonsensical comments and pathological lying to the behavior of past presidents made me angry. Trump is the worst president in the history of the United States and he doesn't deserve to be compared in a good way to any of our past presidents.
6
Mr Terzian makes poor and superficial comparisons of other Presidents to Trump. Better comparisons would be James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, inept Presidents who led the country into decades of division and disaster.
But it may prove helpful to have a Trump come along to remind us of the potential for corruption, criminality and abuse in our political system, with so much power and money concentrated in DC.
And it tells us much about ourselves, frogs in the pot that climate change is heating up. Will we jump out or be boiled in our own obstinate ignorance?
4
I guess the author tries to reassure us that Trump’s behavior and traits are not uncommon and can be found in many other presidents before him. What doesn’t comfort me is he needs at least a dozen other president to sum up all the traits to be found in the one we have today. He couldn’t in fact present a better case to prove that Trump is raven mad.
4
It's refreshing to read an alternative point of view, even such a fatuous one. Trump is to be judged not by the style of his utterances by the substance of his actions, which are erratic and predominantly destructive. A wise disruptor does not pull the old house down until he has built a new one.
1
Most French people I encounter are horrified by Trump and cannot understand why he got elected.
His visits to Europe left the impression he was a foolish egotistical buffoon.
European heads of state were caught by a hot microphone deriding Trump openly, including his supposed friend Boris Johnson.
If Trump is elected again he will escalate the dismantling of the federal bureaucracy and cut funding to any state that doesn’t support him.
The vitriolic disagreement between Trumps followers and everyone else is likely to spill over into all other areas of American life. Emotion can’t always be compartmentalized.
5
Interesting piece. I feel like it was supposed to lull me into thinking Trump isn't so bad. Instead it made me realize he is the worst qualities of so many different Presidents neatly packaged into one amoral, want to be authoritarian package.
3
No matter how familiar Trump may be, this lighthearted take on his presidency is appalling. Unlike most (perhaps all) of the previous presidents, Trump breaks laws on a daily basis, trounces the Constitution with vigor, and has taken the side of America's enemies.
Banality is also familiar--so familiar as to be boring. Evil is like that.
3
Philip Terzian shaves many slivers of wood off all four corners of Donald Trump’s very rough square peg in order to hammer it into the round hole of presidential acceptability.
The writer does a disservice to the reader and to history by exaggerating the quirks of a few past American presidents and then suggesting that Trump should be admired because he, a single president, possesses each of those faults in even greater abundance than his predecessors.
Mr. Terzian, who confuses Donald Trump’s glibness with wit, makes certain to point out to the reader that Trump tops all prior presidents by being totally inexperienced in government, politics and international relations.
We are supposed to feel lucky that, instead of a wise communicator, our president is a clown with a nasty streak.
The scary thing is that Trump’s most avid supporters completely share Mr. Terzian’s enthusiasm.
4
The continued improvement in our economic situation does not seem to depend much upon whoever is president. It's been an upsurge since 2009 or so. Moreover, the trade wars are increasing costs for Americans who cannot afford much in that respect. And health care and costs, which often exceed small gains in reduction of taxation, remain an unsolved problem. So any support of Mr. Trump based on jobs, employment, and the like has little merit.
What does count for me is the picture a president presents to the world of what we in the USA are. We should be setting an example, as we have done in the past despite many missteps. This president depicts the very worst in us: greed, spite, vindictiveness, insensitivity, coarseness, and a strong tendency towards authoritarian behavior. Far from anything the Founding Fathers had in mind.
What also counts for me is the destruction of ties with our allies, the cozying-up to authoritarians such as Putin, Kim Jong Un and the masters of Saudi Arabia, the intentional neglect of climate problems, and an in general disastrous foreign policy.
All this makes imperative in my opinion that this incompetent president be removed from office or denied a second term.
1
Trump has made himself an illegitimate president by consistently displaying contempt for the Constitution, the laws, the separation of powers, and the independence of the courts. History will most remember him for his compulsive dishonesty, his thin skin, incompetence, his hatefulness and his utter indifference to the many victims of his ill-informed and erratic decision making. He considers himself above the law and not accountable to the American people. Few if any other presidents have disgraced themselves and the country so profoundly. As Trump works to deconstruct the government, each citizen must choose either to be a patriot or to support Trump. There is no way a person can do both. as Trumpism is incompatible with any reasonable definition of democracy. There should be no kings in America.
2
"While unique in his way, Mr. Trump is not a president like no other, nor a threat to democracy or the constitutional order."
He certainly is a threat to our democracy and the constitutional order. You can't compare him to any other president. We never had a president before who almost everything he says is a lie and easily proven that it is a lie.
2
interesting, but the bottom line is that he is awful for the democracy. the rest is talk; reality is he reflects the worst of what we are.
2
Great article--it gaslights and normalizes in one fell swoop. When a future president engages the help of foreign nations to fix our elections, he will need only to point to the lovably irascible Trump to justify it. Good job, Mr. Terzian.
2
On the contrary. There has never been a liar, narcissist, cheat and mean spirited Commander in Chief. Hopefully, there will never be one again. There is absolutely no way you can cover this up with half accolades and whipped cream. This man is an incredible danger to us and we must not forget it. His tweets are not cute, entertaining or interesting, but rather, hurtful, mean. devoid of emotion and intended to hit back at his perceived enemies.
3
Trump has the worst traits of those past presidents, magnified, and if he has any of their positive attributes, they have been diminished in him.
2
We have never had a president who ran, never expecting to win, to establish a new way for him to make more money by starting something like Trump Television.
We have never had a president who will be exposed as a money laundering criminal when he finally loses his court cases and his financial documents are exposed.
Every president has his (can’t say her) flaws, but to compare Trump to other presidents is ludicrous.
I don’t understand why the Republicans are so afraid of acknowledging who he is (Trump University, Trump Foundation, grab em by the ahem) especially the younger ones. The truth about Trump will eventually come out and they will be forever tarnished by their behavior today. They worry about his venomous wrath and a primary challenge but their long term reputation is tied to what they do right now and they are blowing it bigly.
SAD
4
Philip Terzian creates false equivalency at so many levels. Neither FDR nor any other equivalents were even close to the lying and corruption of DJT.
I agree completely with the earlier sentiments of Scott Daniel.
1
Hard to argue with the general thesis. Trouble is, he is an Abomination in a far more dangerous age than those other Presidents, who didn't have a nuclear trigger at their disposal, except Truman, and his was pretty small. He is worse than the other Presidents you mention, with the possible exception of Jackson, and Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, whom you omitted.
He is therefore more dangerous, and more disgusting to many of us. But he has done a service: revealed to millions of us how many other millions, remain bigoted, self-pitying, ignorant, utterly resistant to change, perhaps especially if democratic, but destined to be demographic.
He managed to turn me from a patriot for our ideals into someone who has a great deal of disrespect for many people oinour nation, of whom I am prototypical--an old, white, Southern descended male. We had our moment. It was long, ugly, brutal, bloody, and yes, sometimes noble. But it wasn't destined to last. History tells us that. Would that we could handle the transition from power with grace and dignity. Apparently we cannot. No matter. Eventually, it will happen.
Old as I am, I feel oddly like Sydney Carton. I look to go to a "far, far better place." Not yet. Not soon. We have a grandchild we must equip for the dystopian country he will inherit as best we can.
2
Trump’s tweets reminiscent of FDR’s fireside chats? Really? That’s like saying that the Sack of Rome is reminiscent of the Renaissance.
3
Wow, glad you can enjoy this experience. Some of us aren't privileged enough to find it funny, or we simply don't see the humor or irony in a situation degrading our political institutions, rolling back environmental regulations, and emboldening racism, xenophobia and misogyny. What fun, indeed.
2
Trump reminds me of one person, my husband ex. She has narcissistic personality disorder, if not the malignant triad (trifecta?).
Knowing her is knowing him. Which is why I have compassion for the kids; all of them. They were raised in a disordered, alternate reality.
As Americans, we should be afraid. Seriously afraid. And, yet, the GOP has turned its collective head away. They see no evil, hear no evil, and will speak no evil against Trump.
Do they still think they can control him? Fools.
1
No matter how you distort Trump’s performance he is nothing like FDR
who saw our country through the Depression and World War Two. Nor
is he like Truman who as an Army
Captain fought in the trenches of
WWI and who as President guided
America through the end of WWII
and the harrowing early post war years.
Trump generates anger and disgust
because he is misanthropic. In particular
he is a racist and a practiced misogynist.
So, no he doesn’t remind me of any
American President. Mob boss, more
like.
1
I think many of us would have a "gift" for being an insulting cosseted publicity seeking dweeb or a physically cowardly bully if we threw our decent upbringings to the wind, disregarded the feelings of our neighbors, and set our minds down to it. I don't, however, think many of us would be able to keep a straight face comparing Trump to the courageous Teddy Roosevelt because they're both...impulsive. What a weird and sadistic revelry this essay is.
2
Utter and total nonsense. No other president has used anything near the level of personal vindictiveness in their communications against both public figures and private citizens like Donald Trump has. The comparison with FDR is laughable. I can name at least 20 private citizens that Trump has attacked and demeaned like a schoolyard bully as president in 3 years and I would bet the author couldnt name moremore than a few people attacked in the same manor by FDR in his 13 years as President.The apologists for this president are a frightening lot indeed.
1
This is red meat for the Washington Examiner readership, but let’s not compare Trump’s tweets to FDR’s fireside chats or otherwise try to normalize the lunacy and lawlessness of the current president by putting it into “historical context.” History will not be kind to Trump.
2
Trump represents the worst example of America’s degraded humanity and the devolution of the decency that we once could be proud of.
How ironic that Americans would elect the worst instead of the best and then be so proud of themselves.
2
This column is a good example of what could be called "big picturism."
If one pulls back far enough, things settle into a pretty gentle curve of bad, not so bad, and good enough.
But the question is not "is this familiar?" but rather "Is this where we want to be going?"
We could do a "big picture" of leaders and governments and politics so that Cesar Borgia seems equitable and gentle-spirited.
But that kind of move begs to be asked a simple question.
Why are you trying to get me so drawn out to such a big picture?
Is it to inform me, or to water down with the absolute solution known as distance, my outrage?
My bad faith meter went off on this column. I am not sure the point of this column is to inform me, but to dilute my valid objections to outrageous behavior.
I see through you, sir. And these little trips down memory lane do not necessarily alter judgments we may make here and now.
Those who are constantly invoking history are sometimes individuals who desire simply that we be doomed to continue to repeat it.
Who does Trump remind me of? Take your pick of any in the long list of dictators/authoritarian rulers through history. He cares not for the rule of law, the constitution, democracy, our allies, and certainly not the U.S. The only thing Trump cares about is Trump. How can you not see that?
If our democracy is able to survive his presidency, he will go down as the absolute worst president we have ever had and it won't even be a close contest.
1
Philip, your convenient disregard for Trump's unconstitutional transgressions renders your article a fluff piece to bolster Trump in the eyes of the world.
Let's get to the nitty gritty, Philip:
For three years, Trump has exerted a continuous exercise in putting himself and his economic and personal interests above those of the American public.
Why no word on Trump’s pressure on Ukraine into digging up dirt on Biden while withholding Congressionally-appropriated money to help Ukraine fight off Russia?
Why no word on Trump’s directive that the entire executive branch refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas?
Why no word on Trump’s statement that the entire executive department of our government not participate in his impeachment process?
Why no word on Trump’s attempt to have Ukraine help his reelection campaign, and have Russia help him win in 2016?
Why no word on Trump’s obstruction of justice to conceal his campaign’s role in taking advantage of Russian help in getting him elected?
Until you and other Trump supporters deal with the brass tacks of Trump's unconstitutional behavior, your opinions about the normalcy and business as usual approaches of Trump's behaviors deserve limited consideration by serious folks concerned about the fate of our nation in the hands of Trump.
6
Hard as the author tries, it's impossible to normalize the trump by comparing him to previous American presidents - even the worst ones. He will standout in history like those notorious and depraved world leaders of the recent past. Did any of the previous 44 presidents try to sabotage the Constitution as trump has? At least one other of the same party did steal a presidential election, but trump's going for a twofer in 2020.
"His instincts in domestic and foreign affairs are identifiably conservative" which is why the world laughs at him. Nothing defines today's conservatism more than inept incompetence, cruelty and lying as promulgated by the trump.
Trump's business skills are limited to cons, outright theft, bullying, threats and lawsuits - NOT deals. I can't understand why Democrats do not counter the silly Republican economic narrative with "imagine how much better our economy would be without the drag of the trump-uncertainty-syndrome - an economy that can be undone by a single malicious tweet."
Indeed, trump's incompetence (his bankruptcies) has yet to bankrupt our nation - though he's working hard to blow up the debt while doing nothing to improve the booming economy Obama left him - trump has only managed to slow it down with tariffs, "I hereby order" edicts to business, choosing winners and losers in strictly partisan ways, and worse.
His tweets reveal the pathetic intellect he has. Wharton should be ashamed and humiliated to have graduated such an ignoramus.
2
He’s incompetent (seen pictures of his impenetrable wall being scaled or sawn though, and boy, I’m sure resting easy now that he solved North Korea). He’s a liar, and a bully. He is someone I wouldn’t let babysit my daughter, and he’s a bad example of decency for her as well.
He’s willing to sell our nation, and our environment, to the highest bidder (including foreign nations), for his own gain.
He has no compassion for humanity, willing to expel them for their skin color, or cage them in deplorable conditions apart from their mothers as the seek asylum at our borders. And he might think himself worthy of a Nobel prize, all the less.
He has no decorum, and is laughed at and ridiculed by other nations, bring down the USA’s repudiation for good with him.
Answer, he reminds me of no other president I’ve lived under in my 60 years, and no person I’d ever want to know personally.
I’m not sure what motivated the thesis behind this article, but I’m not fooled. Even if true, why justify him with examples of the past, does citing two (or more) wrongs from the past somehow make him somehow right? If we are to give into this sort of rationalization, we will find ourselves eroding the standards to which future presidents should rise.
2
"He has roots in the American civic tradition"
Are you serious with this? What 'civics', exactly, is Mr Trump demonstrating when he uses the offices of government for personal gain and wanton institutional destruction? None of your 'similar' executives ever exhibited such narcissistic nihilism while on office.
4
An ‘argumentum ad novitatem’ is an obviously logical fallacy, as is it’s reciprocal. Just because it’s never happened doesn’t make it good, and just because it’s happened before doesn’t make it benign.
It’s also an attempt to undermine the whole by focusing on elements in isolation. Bleach is a cleansing agent. Ammonia too. But an aggressive cocktail of the two can kill you.
3
No, I'm sorry but you are just plain wrong.
The difference between Trump and other Presidents is not simply a matter of degree. The difference is that Trump is a deeply flawed, if not mentally ill man.
Unlike other presidents he has no policies except his own aggrandizement. Unlike other Presidents there does not seem to be any limits to his hubris. Like no other president before him, Trump has the ability to destroy not only America, but the rest of the world as well.
3
Well, Mr. Terzian, you’ve certainly convinced me that Trump is a rn-of-the-mill president with run-of-the-mill pecadillos. Has he violated the Constitution? What’s the big deal, others have done it before. Is he corrupt? No big deal, we’ve had others who were corrupt. Does he threaten the rule of law? Aw what the heck, he’s just one of the boys. Is he threatening Amerrica? No more than other presidents.
Except that he aligns himself with the same self-serving ideology of Russia’s oligarchs and mouths their nihilistic justifications. Oh, and so is his party, which appears bent on destroying or compromising U.S. sovereignty and independence. And, pax to the libertarians who support him, genuine liberty which requires law to exist in non-anarchic form.
2
Pres. Donald Trump was not vetted became president, Look back history 2016 elections . Pres. Donald Trump did receive help from Russians extent of it we will never know Americans but only Trump and Putin knows what actually happened on November 8,2016.
Not FDR his fires side chats was to soothe a nation after the worst financial crisis American people ever seen black friday October 1929. And a nation going to war. Pres. Donald Trump is the opposite he's a divider and instigator on sometimes unbelievable with his every day tweet causing discord against Americans.
Pres. Donald Trump will claim in 2020 of the great things he's done to the nation. The boom in the market a economy but things he will not tell you the average a middle class has not got a pay raise the last 30 years it takes to family members not one to support their families. And the tariffs against the world like China and Europe and other countries that Pres. Donald Trump wrap . The doomsday scenario it's possible after he leaves office or impeach. Will be devastating for America not like 2008 or 1929.
You cannot compare FDR Roosevelt to Pres. Donald Trump is a rude awakening. As you seen it in the impeachment hearings GOP Republicans setting up firewalls against the Democrats. But if you remember Martin Luther King the truth will come out.
2
Oh come on! He wears a tie and other presidents wore ties but none of the predecessors you mention in the piece behaved as insanely, made as many obviously untrue statements, so obscenely offended our allies and defended our enemies and expressed such disdain for the law. I get it. You want to try to normalize him. But he's not normal in any way. Roosevelt confounded plutocrats because he pushed policies that hurt jeopardized their power and bottom line.s People hate Trump because he behaves like a madman and has since long before he ran for office.
2
Let’s not stop at comparing Trump with other presidents. Let us also compare him with other businessmen.
He is a serial fraud, failing to keep his obligations and cheating those who did business with him.
He is a serial bankrupt, who can not get a loan from a real bank for any endeavor.
He is a spectacular failure, having tanked almost every single business he has started.
He is a cheat; on his wages, his employment practices, his financial dealings, and his taxes.
2
This sentence: "... that Mr. Trump is a dramatically unconventional commander in chief." seeks to underestimate the problem. I doubt Terzian will be so glib when hurricanes multiply in their present magnitude and wipe away entire populations. Perhaps if it were Terzian's kids who were locked in cages the light hearted tenor of this article would be different. And I guess if I looked hard enough, I could find some excellent qualities in Genghis Khan, but I believe Trump's category includes stage 4 cancer, a category that needs to be removed from power as soon as possible.
There is nothing lighthearted about Trump or the religious fanatics who keep him in office. He was a mistake who fooled millions, all of whom will regret their decision when their lives become endangered.
2
In this detailed portrait of Trump there is a stubborn blindness to defects both of his character and of his mind: the now more than 13,000 falsehoods or misleading claims, and the depth of his ignorance about history, geography, science...well, just about everything. The is no precedent among U.S. presidents for either of these astonishing flaws.
2
I resent anything that tries to make Trump out to be somehow normal, as being worthy of comparison with any other president. No: Trump is, in every way, a monstrous deviation: a profoundly ignorant, narcissistic bully, who has the vocabulary of a five-year old, who can barely utter a coherent thought, and who, to the extent that he understands American democracy at all, has only contempt for it.
All the comparisons you write are only words on a page, and do not do justice to the reality. He IS a threat to our democracy. In fact, he is the greatest threat to our country since the Civil War. We barely survived the Civil War; in the end, the nation was stronger. If we survive Trump, though, we will be forever weakened. For the world now knows that we are a country capable of electing a corrupt, malignant, profoundly stupid dictator.
2
This is a great piece. It is the prototype that can mislead readers on method and content. Foolish it normalizes this POTUS on low, but not the lowest, of personality and character. Yes, the author could not sensitize any positive trait; Trump does not have any. Republicans must be proud of their leader.
2
An astonishing and direct attempt at normalizing the Trumpian monstrosity. FDR didn’t use fireside chats to directly assault regular American citizens or debase entire cultures, countries, or ethnic groups within our own country. Neither did he, in a far more racist and even homogeneous era, play on people’s racist fears, even in his declaration of war against the Japanese. That’s not to excuse the blatantly racist propaganda that followed during the war.
Trump isn’t somewhat ire verarm or unusual. He violates norms and laws daily with his words and actions. To make fun of it is the art of satire and black humor. To find it funny is perverse.
1
A good way of looking at this article is that Trump had some of the traits of great Presidents, but twisted, and none of the great attributes of these men.
The President he was the most similar to was Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like our president a racist with just about no redeeming qualities.
1
Judging a President by past mores and laws are examples of confirmation bias. Women couldn't vote, Afro-Americans lynched on a daily basis, immigration laws were xenophobic, and medicine was not lifesaving.
Mr. Terzian is advocating returning to such societal failures. Trump calls climate change a hoax, immigrants seeking asylum criminals, exploiting the planet's resources a manifest destiny, and calling the people's watch dogs traitors or fakers. This is not behavior that protects this Republic. It is clear he seeks its destruction with blatant abandon.
Most Americans want government well managed, not one that acts like it doesn't exist. When a President strives to make each resident's lot worse except for a tiny fraction, it is time to remove him from office. It is not Trump's name calling or lying, although odious and non presidential, but the abundance of examples where he has violated his Constitutional Oath as delineated in the Preamble.
I understand his followers believe government has caused their woes and in a sense they are right. However oppressive government is a cause for reform, not throwing out the baby with the dishwater. A government that believes in bootstrap existence is a myth and dangerous. No one succeeds without another's skill, knowledge, or empathy. Mr. Trump embodies this ugly falsehood and should be impeached.
1
So Trump has the flaws and inadequacies of several past Presidents? We are in trouble.
1
I am well aware that my parallel would leave more than one American reader scratching his or her head, but viewed it from Italy, probably someone that seized the world stage in his own right and most similarly showed an exaggerated eagerness for limelight, is Silvio Berlusconi. Similitudes abound, with the difference Trump does not own TV channels, nor newspapers, but both come from a highly corrupt environment which is real estate company business, a sector in which grafting is pervasive and both tycoons make no bones about boasting being connected with that seedy world in order to gain absolute power: Both have a penchant for neo-fascism; both use self-tanning products and hide their incipient baldness. Berlusconi while in power, would change the Italian judicial system in order to avoid being sent to jail (which eventually happened but because of his mafiosi friends he got away with murder). Both self-important, full of themselves, swollen-headed, pompous, overweening, supercilious, misogynistic and arrogant magnates live in a separate world thinking they are above the law, and their only credo is "money talks." Berlusconi - luckily - ended up his regime pathetically; we are equally waiting for Trump's tenure crashing down.
1
@Kevin It is my hypothesis that you and other Trump supporters are suffering from a form of Stockholm syndrome. You are currently held captive by the deception and corruption of an amoral mob boss.
In the past, your values may have aligned with our country's highest ideals, but it is now clear that your loyalty is to Trump and to short term monetary gains. While you seem pleased with seeing yourself in him, I want a leader that, while flawed, is at least decent, honorable, and much better than I am. I hope, when you are no longer captive, you will aspire higher.
1
Humorous, at most. The references between Franklin Roosevelt and Trump, only set the stage for more tearing down, not building up, and turning a deaf ear to reality for anti-reality politics. It's the policies, and corruption stupid. Let us sort this out in 2020, after the impeachment.
1
I think the difference is social media. We've never had a president who can insult individual citizens all across the country in such an intimate manner. He shows absolutely no restraint in doing so because he can shoot someone on 5th Ave and not lose a single fanatic.
1
Donald Trump is truly presidential. He embodies the worst features of all our presidents and the best qualities of none.
1
Whom does Trump remind me of?
Living in the UK, I would have to say there is an uncanny resemblance, definitely more than just body type and hairdo, between Trump and Boris Johnson.
Johnson can also be bumptious, racist, "clever" with namecalling and put-downs, lazy, callous and self-centered. Among other things.
It seems wherever we are, we are often stuck with these people.
it is striking how few, if any, positive qualities he manifests - and it is beyond sad that he is never be compared favorably to presidents who demonstrated dignity, intellect, integrity, loyalty, inspired thought, or even those who spoke with coherent English sentences. He's just the worst we've ever had. Period.
1
to compare Trump’s vile, unlettered tweets with FDR’s fireside chats (erudite, thoughtful and kind) is the most absurd thing i’ve ever read. So is comparing him to Reagan or George W. or Theodore Roosevelt or any of the other examples, flawed as they may have been.
Nixon is a better comparison that the author mysteriously leaves out- i wonder why- because he resigned before being thrown out of office? it’s true that Nixon was a lot more clever than Trump. Tricky Dick as they used to call him.
Andrew Jackson is an apt comparison- probably the worst president, by a mile, in the history of the United States - it was also the 1830s - to say that makes Trump’s behavior in 2019 ok is simply laughable.
1
I would like to comment on the comments I’ve read.
Many commentators have their knickers in a knot claiming the author is minimizing Trump’s great failings and crimes. I do not entirely disagree with these views, but taken as a whole they are overreacting.
Trump, if you strip away the narcissistic bombast, is just another Republican president. He’s just unvarnished about it.
By any measure, GW Bush was a far worse president. I shouldn’t have to explain why, but consider: at this point in the Bush presidency, he had ignored warnings about 9/11, letting the towers fall, started two failed wars, one of which was a war crime and the other an epic quagmire, blown the balanced budget and was a few years away from tanking the global economy.
I think what incenses the commentators is that Trump lays bare the sham that your presidents are noble in some way, and that the author of the article explains why and how.
Sorry, FDR led us through a Great Depression and
a massive World War. He was neither mean-spirited nor
a hourly liar. He was a great leader. Trump is the opposite.
1
Donald Trump is far worse than anything any of us would ever have imagined. Everybody has some bad traits, but we all try to be honest and get along as best we can. With Trump, not so. While he hasn’t killed scores of Americans, yet, he’s still bad.
1
Trump is in a classless place all by himself. He is the most self-absorbed, vindictive, mean-spirited person I have ever seen. How he has the support of millions and the steadfast protection from his party is nothing short of astonishing.
1
So with Trump we get the worst aspects of a whole bunch of past Presidents rolled into one? How comforting.
1
He reminds me of George W Bush but openly racist.
1
Finally a NYT article that gets it
Archie Bunker.
1
Trump is America's very own Caligula.
2
Because of the effectiveness of Twitter at circulating unvetted notions, whether they're spin, lies, exaggerations, and heaven forbid, even the truth, Trump's behavior, his spinning, lying, exaggerating, and yes, even his attempts at telling the truth, has gotten 'normalized', essentially hoodwinking a solid 40-plus percent of the electorate, what we've come to know as 'Trump's base'.
And it's not going away.
And because the Republican Congress is well aware their members can never get re-elected without the support of this 40-plus percent, what one sees is what one gets, Trump's 'base' running roughshod over the Republican Congress, and it's the heart and soul of what Trump will continue to mine during the runup to the 2020 election.
And that support from the entire Republican Congress is all thanks to Paul Ryan, what he did 1n 2010 to help the Tea Party win 67 of the over 80 House seats available in that year's election, and what was so mightily effective at ridding the Republican House of 99.9% of their Moderates, those who could, and occasionally would, work with those 'across the aisle', as per the lone John McCain.
Trump's behavior got 'normalized' like most anything can. Seen an ad coaxing one to sue for a any one thing amongst a burgeoning myriad of incidents-'slip or fall'-give me a call, or the penultimate-looking out your car window while driving in traffic and seeing someone openly, fearlessly texting on line?
Pretty amazing.
5
He reminds me of Lonesome Roads, the Andy Griffith character in "Face in the Crowd". And, like Lonesome, he will have his fall from grace.
5
Wouldn't that be nice? But as Oscar Wilde noted, "The good end happily. And the bad, unhappily. That is why we call it fiction." And tragically, this little pastiche we're living in is reality. We have no guarantees.
5
Donkeys have a lot in common with thoroughbred racehorses, but that doesn’t mean they’ll do well in the Kentucky Derby.
Mr. Terzian’s comparison reveals more about him than it throws light on Trump. The phrase vast moral desert comes to mind.
16
To make Trump’s behavior seem less objectionable, Mr Terzian had to compare the presidents behavior to a total of 7 (by my quick count) “less the perfect” presidents.
To my way of thinking, when one president’s behavior is a mashup of all the bothersome, unorthodox and unseemly traits of 7 presidents COMBINED, we have hit the trifecta of one really bad President.
22
same number as the deadly sins...
Andrew Jackson doesn't rank up there with Abraham Lincoln or FDR, but he was a President who believed in the Union just as much. His feud and differences with John C. Calhoun reflected that value, a belief in the Union, not secession or "states rights."
Who does he remind me of? With the way he has taken over total and absolute control of the GOP, he reminds of a certain person back in the 1930's Europe who rode to power with a minority popular backing and seizing total control of a party.
33
This personality profile of the president lines up fairly comprehensively with every trait used to describe Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the latest edition of the DSM. To have them concentrated and distilled into the personality of one man is a statistical anomaly that presents a unique danger to the viability of our longstanding democracy. Trump may inspire apoplexy in people like me, but that's because he's quite capable of ushering in the apocalypse. The author's mocking attitude of voices resisting the Trump onslaught reminds me why I don't read publications like the Washington Examiner.
24
He reminds me to vote him out in 2020. And to vote out as many supporting senators and representatives as we can.
23
@Susan Josephs ...I agree but it's also important that we take as manyy likeminded Voters to the polls with us in 2020...just as a precaution. The Fox's Nation is over 60 million strong...and they do Vote as well !! I for one have had enough of their Russian endorsed President and his failed policies and Alternative Facts !!
This article is scary in that it's a preview to how history will probably remember Trump. People will call him polarizing without explaining the reasons why he repelled people, they'll call him charismatic without describing how that charisma rose from an ability to fabricate and hyperbolize, they'll call him unconventional without clarifying that the convention he was breaking was the one where a president has experience in the public sector (maybe also the one where a president doesn't make a profit off his office while in office).
If you generalize this presidency, yes, you can come up with synonyms and commonalities between this presidency and those before. If you look at the specifics though, Trump is still an outlier in so many ways.
28
I don't think the term "monarchical" adequately describes the Trump show in DC. Monarchy suggests "class", a feature noticeably lacking in the Trump mis-administration.
10
He reminds of the very, very, very spoiled, very, very, very rich 13 year-olds who never evolved emotionally; and who never develop any genuine intellectual or spiritual curiosity. I'm approaching age 83, and I'd rank him at the top of the list of those types that I've encountered.
I characterized him that way to a neighbor, who responded: "More like an 8 year-old!" To which I said: "No. An 8 year-old wouldn't know better. A 13 year-old should." She agreed.
22
This article reveals far more about Mr. Terzian than it says about Trump.
A former Weekly Standard alum, now a Washington Examiner writer, he represents the last gasp of privileged white male elitism,
of Republicans who have never recovered from FDR, and who romanticize an era of Ike and Rockefeller, until hardcore conservatism became their mantra.
Trump is unfamiliar, period.
Trump is destroying rule of law, the Constitution, and the nation as we know it.
Rather than deal with these facts, Terzian hauls out trivial comparisons with past presidents, and works hard to make Trump appear to fit into our presidential history.
It's a painful exercise in futility.
And it says more about the author's need to normalize Trump while totally disregarding Trump's abnormal, unfamiliar and truly dangerous behaviors.
Ah, the ethos of the country club.
67
It is an appropriate to compare President Trump to Andrew Jackson, especially because of the public's tendency to either love or hate him. There was little middle ground or dialogue between Jackson's political base and otherwise. Two major differences, however, are Jackson's absolute determination to preserve the unity of our country and his not-necessarily-so-ethical successes in the practice of law, horse training, gambling, and military conflict.
5
@Huntley
"Two major differences, however, are Jackson's absolute determination to preserve the unity of our country ..."
One should read "American Lion" by John Meacham. Jackson was the "Lion" of which he wrote. Trump is the little barking "purse dog" of the White House.
2
Military conflict? He was a murderer.
Harry Truman. Trump stoped Isis, brought NK to the negotiation table, improved the terms on NAFTA, pushed China to finally address their questionable trade practices, pushed US firms to keep manufacturing jobs in the US, and reduced unemployment to its lowest level in 50 years. None of which occurred under Obama.
4
@George: Trump did not stop ISIS, they're regrouping, Kim Jong Un is performing nuclear tests again, China will do what is wants and tariffs hurt many American businesses (Obama partnered with other countries in reining in China, an effort that Trump smashed), manufacturing jobs are on the decline and the number on unemployment are deceptive because they don't account for the over fifty people who don't try anymore and the fact that most of the new jobs are in low-paying fields with little or no benefits. Under Obama there was real progress, even if slow due to Republican obstruction (especially concerning health care, addressing climate change and reducing the deficit), but under Trump there's only turning back the clock and destruction of the common good.
15
@George
Trump did NONE of those things. He merely took credit for the few things that went right in his mis-administration. The reduced unemployment rate was a result of the policies put in place during the Obama administration and Trump had nothing to do with it. It is highly questionable rather anything has "improved" inre the NAFTA negotiations and manufactoring jobs in the US continue to vanish. ISIS is by no means extinct and we are faced with the problem of what to do with the countless women and children left behind by the former ISIS leaders. The major problem with the next administration is going to be how to undue the damage caused by the Trump fiasco.
1
@George None of which is really Trump. Isis has not been defeated and will reemerge because of Trump. North Korea was nothing but a photo op and is now gone, he will never lift the tariffs because that is what gives him attention, manufacturing has not returned to the United States and unemployment was going down and is low in spite of Trump rather than because of Trump. All what you say lacks truth and lacks a real tie to Trump.
1
Yeah... I don't think the similarities outweigh the many and egregious differences.
And he certainly is a threat to democracy and the constitutional order (albeit not so great as the politicians who willingly act as his enablers).
I'm sure you're very good at historical research, but I'm afraid your character discernment is notably inadequate to the task.
38
"Whom Does President Trump Remind You of?"
Trump reminds me of Il Duce (Mussolini, for those who've forgotten or never learned their history).
The U.S. is not Italy and the times are different, so Trump can't do everything that Il Duce did, but the desire is there, and much of the style. There's even a certain physical resemblance in they way they carry themselves.
This article is all about political style, but the comparisons are strained and superficial. More important are the actions that accompany the style, and in that category Trump is in a class by himself in American history.
Mr. Terzian's conclusion that Trump is not a threat to democracy or the constitutional order is more a reflection of his own myopia than an honest assessment of the facts of this presidency.
64
Well, I'm not so sure about the sheer smugness of "those who've forgotten or never learned their history", but for certain Mussolini, for all of his horrific contributions to history, was a more honorable man than Trump. By a league. The one similarity is that we'd all be better off without him.
8
Bingo. Trumpolini is a “pox Americana” that needs to be purged from our midst before too many mindless souls become accustomed to such egregious authoritarian behavior as somehow being acceptable in America. Throw the bum out!!
I hope, for his sake, he doesn’t want to be like Mussolini. We all (or at least many of us) know how that ended.
It's not whom he reminds me of, it is what. Stable genius, indeed--at least, of the stable.
3
Philip, can you please provide a list of Russian and Soviet-era Vice Presidents and their profiles throughout history?
That comparison would be more accurate for historical purposes.
26
The president and all the contests of his times are, for purposes of comparison, an indivisible package,
Naughty and nice leaders through history don't offer comparable templates.
Trump's broad out front persona and appearance in fact remind me of many people.
However his stand alone cruelty, lack of broad humanity, morality and insight appear to be a unique combo.
20
The difference is that unlike the other Presidents cited, Trump does everything to advance the interests of Russia over the interests of the USA. He weakened NATO, withdrew troops from Syria so that Russia could move in. He weakens Ukraine to benefit Russia. He reduces environmental protections in the USA that can only benefit foreign adversaries, especially Russia.
The President may be under Putin’s thumb. How else to explain everything he does to benefit Russia.
26
Try as hard as I can, I cannot remember a single President who habitually reached out to other nations to rig our elections. Nor can I recall from history any president who directed our foreign policy and trade to the benefit another nation and to the detriment of our own.
89
Perhaps our fear should be that Donald Trump is the tip of the iceberg. That we are now portraying him as somehow akin to past presidents does not bode well for our expectations in future presidents.
31
Wow, thanks for explaining this to me in a new kind of way, I feel better. Because, obviously I’d been a bit concerned, as a Democrat, that Trump was like this sub-social, semi literate stampeding elephant of chaos in the room, that up until now had no precedent whatsoever. I mean, liberal echo chamber and all.
Fireside Chats, I get that. Comforting to a lot of good Americans.
I don’t really know all my presidents but I’ll bet some of them were a tad rough around the edges. Who doesn’t make sport of their adversaries, after all?
I suppose this Trump guy is pretty normal now that you mention it.
May history smile upon our moment and give this a pass.
25
The author of this piece has shown that many of the historically worst traits of sitting presidents are exemplified in trump. How comforting.
I wasn't alive when Andrew Jackson and most of those earlier presidents occupied the office. I know what I hear and see of the 45th. Why do I need comparisons to judge his conduct? When something is wrong, it is wrong. "It's been done before" doesn't make it any less wrong. We have to judge the president we have and act in real time, and our judgments and our actions will become part of history just as every president becomes history. We, the people, have a great responsibility as our forebears did in their time. What will our legacy be?
83
Excellent comment! Thank you.
The "American civic tradition" has included many things that we shouldn't try to repeat including slavery, blacklisting, and civil war. Hopefully a country learns and tries to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Mr. Trump has no knowledge of any of the history you describe or any appreciation of your attempt to "fit" him into the mainstream of our political history. He seems determined to stretch the bounds of union because it benefits his political ambitions. He has to have enemies -- the media, immigrants, the "liberal elite", people of color, the state of California, ........ the list keeps growing. He lies, often for no discernible reason.
He radiates contempt for everyone and everything that does not serve his transactional needs, something his followers will find out if they stop cheering him. If this is the secret sauce of his success, we are in serious trouble.
43
Trump reminds me of an anti hero we all need to experience in life. Hopefully, we learn sooner than later, he meditates upon the bad luck of being born without concern for the harm he can cause others or himself. The silver lining is that Trump's behavior prompts us to grow up. Rather than waste our time pointing out Donald Trump's many flaws & faults, we learn the 10 most common defense mechanisms that hinder us. Once we’re aware of the things that most often distracts us emotionally, we can do a better job of recognizing and removing the self imposed obstacles that cloud our emotional state.
- Denial
- Projection
- Repression
- Displacement
- Regression
- Rationalization
- Sublimation
- Reaction Formation
- Compartmentalization
- Intellectualization
Ideally, we'll be able to place no expectations on others when sharing love, kindness & good vibes. Since at times, we’ll go unnoticed, unheard, ignored & unvalidated. Despite this, strive to be conscious, grateful, forgiving, envisioning a perfect future, in the moment and blessed.
8
@José Franco Puhleez... save the mantra... Trump does not even come close to being an antihero. First, he would have to be of our same species.
I disagree. The comparisons made in this column amount to cherry-picking: finding a trait that Mr Trump shares with some previous presidents, another he shares with a couple more, etc., and then concluding that this shows he's an all-American guy like his predecessors. I could find a behavior pattern I share with Einstein, another similar to one of Mother Teresa's, a way in which my writing is like Kazuo Ishiguro's, and then say that I deserve a Nobel Prize in everything.
I think there are fundamental differences between Trump and previous presidents. These differences exist in areas such as integrity, knowledge, competence, and values. Teddy Roosevelt may have been impetuous, for instance, but I think he knew the value of conserving natural lands, understood military affairs, knew enough about economics to see that trusts could have some ill effects ... Okay. I'm not an expert in American history. But I would ask someone who is: Has there a been a president who scored so low in so many important areas as our current one?
88
He doesn't have to resemble other people of power but his speech reminds me more of the character Archie Bunker, the taunts, the names and the mannerisms.
21
This is the saddest article, relating to the political values, in the USA, that I've ever read, regarding what we, as a country should accept. Nothing has ever been as demeaning to this country as Trump and the entire Republican entourage. In its totality, there has never been anything comparable that has so demoralized the entire nation.
126
@Susan
Well said.
While you can cite particular features of Trump's personality that are analogous to those of other presidents, the total package of flaws and their combination with bare-faced corruption, ignorance and negligence is unprecedented--to the extent that it is an excess of courtesy to think that he is motivated by any public good.
While you can cite some of Trump's particular policy positions that may be legitimate or even commendable, the capriciousness with which they are pursued and abandoned is likewise unprecedented---to the extent that it is an excess of courtesy to consider them policies at all.
39
Nah, there’s Mussolini. Or Jack Oakie playing him.
Look at the jaw, the dreadful jaw.
Trump reminds me of King George III, King of England and of America during the Revolution.
George was also crazy, disorganized, and brutal to his enemies who were numerous. Although he didn't tweet, as far as we know, he did on occasion issue forth with strange sounds and bizarre behavior.
He was also strangely popular in America. Many Americans, not just loyalists but many revolutionaries as well, believed Lord North's government would be chastised once the king found out what injustices had been done to the king's loyal subjects here.
Of course, George believed he had a divine right to rule and that whatever he dictated was perfect. His friends were other kings and nobles.
When George III heard about the rebels in America and their Declaration of Independence calling out his tyranny for what it was, he was furious and told his commanders to punish the upstarts. Several cities and towns in America were burned to the ground on his orders.
Also, of course, he was not a soldier, not because of bone spurs, but because he too, essentially was a coward unfit to lead men in battle, and much more comfortable on his golden throne.
28
Trump reminds me of Walter Block author of "Defending The Undefendable" who wrote - "Consider what is implied by the laws against prostitution. These laws prohibit trade between mutually consenting adults. They are harmful to women in that they prevent them from earning an honest living. If their anti-woman bias is not clear enough, consider the fact that although the transaction is just as illegal for the customer as for the seller, the male (customer) is almost never arrested when the female (seller) is".
3
But getting 3 million less votes than other candidate was unique to Trump, though.
38
A president that rejects scientific consensus in a subject of a planetary-scale consequences, who imperils an alliance that is the backbone of peace since WWII, who blatantly admits to his own corruption in foreign affairs, who never denounces gangster dictactors and their actions, who suggests that his presidential candidate be shot, and who almost every day displays some of the worst character flaws known to humanity. So, no Mr. Terzian, I am sorry, Trump is truly exceptional.
44
US President James K. Polk - who went on to say - I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great.
3
I watch a lot of movies and playing "Who's the Trump-Like Character?" This is a fairly easy game, though not at all fun. Here are a few examples, but as you might imagine, the list is endless: Mr Potter (It's a Wonderful Life); the Wicked Witch (The Wizard of Oz); Jim (Edward Scissorhands); Prince Prospero (The Masque of the Red Death).
6
“We might wish, at times, that Mr. Trump were a little less juvenile, or insensitive, or hypersensitive...”
What?!
I want a president who is thoughtful with a view toward the long term, understands and respects our founding documents, respects the structure of our government, appreciates the dedication of thousands of career government employees and—perhaps above all (but certainly not least)—respects the natural environment for future generations.
59
"Mr. Trump" is a New York con man, pure and simple. Enough of voting America bought his spiel that the Electoral College made him president. It's time and past for him to go. We have real problems that need dealing with.
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In my 74 years, there have been many presidents I admired (Eisenhower, Obama) and those I disliked (Clinton and W), but not once did I ever consider that we had a US president who didn't love his country or would sell it out to the highest bidder...until now.
148
The idea that we have had Presidents like Trump before scares me. It means that we survived to where we are today through exceptional good luck.
7
The parallels Terzian tries to draw between Trump and past presidents are flimsy at best. Trump is more like a malevolent version of the character, "Chauncey Gardiner" in movie Being There.
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How is he not a threat to democracy?
59
Exactly. This article is disingenuous at best. Since when are Autocrats or would-be Kings not a threat to Democracy?
Oh YES, HE IS a threat to the democracy!
No matter what you say, Trump is not a normal president and never will be. As several professors of psychiatry have concluded, he is a man with serious mental and emotional issues. Most American I know, who are well educated and savvy about politics, are genuinely concerned and fearful about the future of our democracy under Trump. They do not share your nonchalant and detached views of him. Not even after a few martinis.
105
Even after reading this article comparing Trump to Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt and others, Trump still reminds me most of Triumph The Insult Dog.
21
@sashakl Triumph is funny. Trump is not.
We must live in the present and confront the failings and threats poses by the present moment and the present president. Had the author lived during Jackson's time, he would be excusing his deadly excesses as well through the lense of historical comparisons. Trump's penchant for isolationism or climate change denialism are not abstractions that will only appear as such in future history books; they kill. Save the history lesson for when Trump is in the rear view mirror of history. Let the future speculate upon the past. Whatever Trump is doing now, today, let us not historicize it, but meet the challenge head on, with vigor, man! That way, we too can be a part of the people's history, and not some observe, removed from the field of action to play himself the presidential historian.
17
At first I thought this was satire. But sadly the attempt to normalize this president by comparison with other flawed characters dismissed outright the deliberate hate-mongering and divisiveness that are the favored methods of his amassing and holding power. His intentions are not to hold the nation together but to drive a stake in its heart and let it weaken as it bleeds to death. I don’t know if Putin genuinely has any hold on him but boy is he happy with what our guy is doing.
110
A wise friend said that Trump was the combination of Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin and Huey Long. Terrifying
27
He left out Joe McCarthy.
This piece was acceptable until the last paragraph, where the writer states that Drumpf "is not a threat to democracy or the constitutional order". Nothing could be more incorrect. He is, as was said in the Judiciary hearing today, "a clear and present danger". He needs to go away, far away, forever.
81
You note the superficial similarities between Trump and other presidents but miss the essence.
It's like saying, look at these two blocks of metal. They're both square. They both have a shine to them. They're both smooth. But one is aluminum, and one is gold.
You can always find similarities between people who, when taken in totality, are clearly very different.
51
Yes, if you add up all the cruelty, amorality, disregard for the law, crime, cash, and corruption of all the preceding presidents you can find little bits of Trump here and there.
But never all in one place at one time.
And even the Times is buying some of it.
With an economy showing signs of preparing to fall off a cliff, it was easy to find today’s “last month’s new jobs,” hard to find mention of how many were “created” by GM workers returning after a strike to win back a bit of what they gave up during the Great Recession of GWB, nor a mention of the soaring national debt/deficit. Or the number of folks underemployed, underpaid or needing to work two or more jobs to support just themselves.
His method of thwarting impeachment is so ugly, that we would find it laughable elsewhere.
He has refused to provide Congress with the evidence required to perform duties of oversight - data, documents and witnesses, knowing they would lead to his destruction.
And his surrogates in the House shout about the lack of evidence admissible in a law court, which the House is not.
He might even beat the rap and become king because the House is split between doing things fast and doing them right, approving a dozen charges against him after the Roberts Court is forced to tell Trump he is not above the law - see decisions in the Nixon and Clinton matters.
But that will put the trial too close to an election, Republican members claim.
This country is too young to fall to King Donald I.
40
The day after the electoral college handed Cheeto Jesus the election, I faced a roomful of depressed, scared, and in some cases crying students. I told them about my reactions 36 years earlier the day Ronald Reagan was elected - a B movie actor, star of "Bedtime for Bonzo," an "amiable dunce" indeed, who my friends and I thought could never be elected, and who we feared would diminish America's stature on the world stage. To a large extent we are still living with the catastrophes Bonzo's costar visited on this country, but I assured the students that we had survived Reagan, and that we would survive this. I hope we do. At least Reagan could talk in sentences.
47
An invigorating breath of fresh air. And especially welcome in the Times. Perhaps freedom of the press is alive and well after all.
4
In addition to these thoughts, he also attempted to trade what belonged to this country to gain advantage over his future political rival. That’s where another section of this article on the comparison of corruption by presidents would be helpful. Teapot Dome scandal, Watergate, Iran Contra... Congress can’t do nothing and must sanction this behavior.
18
What was the point of this article? I don't draw any conclusions nor insights at all from this piece.
Regardless of who or what Trump resembles, there is no doubt he is the only President trying to sell out our country (literally) to the Russians. I'd like your take on what other president ever did something like that.
132
@KR: After the US is dissolved, China may beat Russia to the pieces.
Folks here seem mostly to be missing the writer's most acute point: "Mr. Trump seems to have the chattering — or in this case, sputtering — classes where he wants them."
Our reflexive outrage at the President's every gesture — whether temperamental tweets, treasonous telephone calls, or terrible tax bills — makes it easy to paint all criticism as an attack on the man, calling for an equally reflexive dismissal.
Dial down the (public) outrage and focus on the policy failures. Otherwise, we're playing Trump's game — and playing right into his hands.
28
@Bill . Trump uses numerous rhetorical and truth-destroying techniques that were used by Hitler. Not saying he is a Hitler in all his actions--as Burt Neuborne observes, "It trivializes Hitler’s obscene crimes to compare them to Trump’s often pathetic foibles.” But Trump's communications techniques are so similar, it's not a game. I'm not dismissing him at all. And my reaction to him is not reflexive--more like, "Where have we seen that before?"
He deserves all the attack he gets.
But what makes him different are the articles of impeachment drafted in a New York Times op-ed on the very same page I'm reading this. The problem is that the things the author mentions are what provoke all the outrage and self righteous indignation to the left of the political spectrum, and this is Trump's special ability. To have people focus on that which is comparatively unimportant while he balloons the deficit with a tax giveaway to the rich, stacks the courts with partisan judges, reverses statutes to protect the environment and mitigate climate change, and hollows out the agencies that do the real work of government which is securing the nation and its borders and protecting the most vulnerable of its citizens.
46
@alan: I think it is "centrist" to hold that the public sector of a mixed economy is socialistic, with coercive powers to move money by taxation and spending to do things to benefit the public at large, and regulatory powers over the private sector to assure standards of conduct high enough to prevent the bad from driving the good out of commercial activities.
2
Indeed, Trump has a present political doppelgänger and that is Rodrigo Duterte, the populist, insult-prone, strongman president of the Philippines. They are remarkable similar with notable exception that Duterte's Twitter feed is civil, upbeat and reads like the diary of man focused on promoting the best of his country.
18
I cannot think of a single human being who has caused an entire political party opposed to him or her to fall apart.
With the advent of Pres. Trump, Democrats abandoned EVERY single good thing or idea that had made them succeed in the past.
Past Dem presidents were strongly Christian, strongly patriotic, and nationalist. None of those traits are popular among Dems today.
This magical change has to be credited to Donald rump. The thing is, were we able to go back to previous decades, would even Mr. Trump want his election to wreck a political party so completely?
2
@L osservatore: Trump validates everything cynics have noted about flag-wrapped carpetbaggers selling snake oil distilled by a secret process that will make it feel like we're all in Heaven.
7
@L osservatore
Hillary Clinton is a lifelong Church-going Methodist. Like her or not. I'm not sure Donald Trump has ever gone to church. So I don't know if that's the barometer.
1
The assumption here is that this country always has been and will always be puerile, vicious, uncontrolled, and disgusting.
30
Exactly. Reflective of human nature, with some improvements over the historic and international mean.
3
"Moreover, the president has a genuine gift for this sort of thing. Even his famous nicknames — “Crooked Hillary” Clinton, “Sleepy Joe” Biden, Stormy “Horseface”
I find no "genuine gift" here, only genuine bully who is using plain vulgarian lexicon to prove to his "poorly educated" base that he didn't do anything wrong.
All the adjectives to describe his obnoxious behavior been used and reused, would anything move the needle in sold out GOP, that looks absolutely disgusting to any average thinking person.
Does anyone still have any doubts that they filled their pockets with Putin's money.
I don't think so, as we watching all this travesty unfolding, I'm losing hope that we can ever become a normal country again, not exceptional, just normal!
40
Similar to FDR? Unconventional? "None of this is altogether a bad thing"?
What planet is this writer living on??
The real parallels to Trump: Benito Mussolini and Huey Long. Both of whom were, altogether, wholly bad things.
102
Mussolini more than Long. They shared an ability to make aggrieved common people believe that they were their champions. The Kingfish’s appeal was both more narrow and less vindictive. Mussolini was able to appeal to a wider swath of the population due to his mastery of media and public presentation, and evoked much more violence than did Long.
@Thomas Givnish: Huey Long promised to make every man a king. Trump wants to monopolize the job.
Honestly, I've never known or observed a person as narcissistic, odious and despicable as our president.
As far as utterly horrible personalities and amorality, he is unquestionably perfectly unique.
78
How can Mr. Terzian rationalize the behavior of a pathological liar and sociopathic narcissist ? In the event of a serious national emergency , could anyone possibly have faith or believe in this man? I can think of no other chief executive who approaches Trump’s level of dishonesty. JimS
54
Mike Francesca
Big mouth, always wrong, insists he's always right, somehow succeeded, soon to be retired
5
The writer belittles citizens of the nation and the world for being appalled at the behavior of this ignorant, cruel, juvenile, Russian tool.
The Times is to be commended for its tolerance for diverse thinking which also provides a glimpse into the minds of those who embrace his perpetual bullying and lying.
39
How painful it is to watch men of certain age grind this silly little threadbare axe--that of, don't worry, the Republic has survived several leaders of similarly great incompetence and corruption and will survive this old fool too. It's as though Mr. Terzian cannot see his own point.
The stooges that preceded Mr. Trump into the Oval office paved the way for Trump. This is not something to take a light-hearted comfort in. Rather, this is the moment when men of every ilk, but especially the white ones, should step back and say, my god how our sweeping privilege has brought our country, species and planet to the brink.
With all the exhaustion of women who has been banging her head against the prevailing blockhead mindset for far too many decades, I try again to make plain that we need new narratives, new minds and imperatives on the job because simply put these old coots have about two speeds firing in their alarmingly inferior processors--those of rape and pillage, metaphorically as well as literally.
24
Speak it, sister!
Caligula’s name starts with the same “c” as Caesar. See? They’re the same.
36
As always, the NYT feels the need to accompany an article with *yet another* awful photograph of Trump. As if we don't see him enough. You just feed the monster by doing this, giving him an endless platform. How about offering your graphics team a chance to use their creative skills to use another image in place of him once in a while!
17
@Linda
West coast
Thank-you. Thank-you. Thank-you. I started this presidency by turning off the volume whenever I heard his voice. It is amazing the number of times this charlatan’s face appears in the media. Please significantly reduce the frequency of his name in headlines, his face on the page - it only feeds his megalomania.
He's an eerie, disquieting combination of Frank Rizzo and Chauncey Gardiner.
5
Trump reminds me of every woman's ex-husband.
12
Looking forward to reading Mr. Terzian’s next book, “Developers of Delusion: Trump, Giuliani, and the Un-American Nanosecond.”
6
Sheer nonsense. Roosevelt wanted to help people who were suffering during the depression. And he surrounded himself with the most brilliant young people of that generation fashioning new and complicated solutions to profound economic and social problems. Trump cares for no one but himself, surrounds himself with sycophants, and is destroying the rule of law and constitutional democracy. The comparison is as preposterous, if not more so, as comparing Trump to Hitler.
48
@Michael Halberstam
I agree with your first point.
But I do not think it is preposterous to compare Trump with Hitler. He is the American version of Hitler - nearly as full of hate, and just as narcissistic. And given that he is both impulsive and narcissistic, and has control of nuclear weapons, he could be nearly as dangerous too.
Trump’s impetuous behavior and loud voice reminds me of “Teddy” in a play, Arsenic and Old Lace. “Teddy” believes he is Theodore Roosevelt and rushes about waving a sword leading charges up the stairs to his bedroom. His two sweet old aunts help lonely old men who stop in to a final meal laced with arsenic. “Teddy” buries the bodies of the old gentlemen in the basement where he is digging the Panama Canal. In the end, “ Teddy” and his aunts earn a one way trip to Happy Dale Sanitarium. “Teddy” meant well but he was delusional.
5