Basically, Trump Bad

Trump is a Bad Leader

I, like many disgruntled Americans, have been thinking a lot about how Trump is a bad leader.

When we think about the qualities of a good leader, we might list off the following:

• Critical thinking
• Clear communication
• Decisive action
• Strong ethics
• Empathy and understanding
• Processing constructive criticism

Trump exhibits none of these. He has never clearly articulated a problem and proposed a clear solution with any degree of nuance. If you’ve paid any attention to the tariffs fiasco, it’s clear he lacks the ability to stick to a clear plan or think anything through. Trump is the kind of man to pay zero attention to meetings and golf 25 hours a day—he is more concerned with looking awesome than doing the real work.

To go on a bit of a tangent, Trump operates like a sensitive, unstable mob boss. He cannot allow himself to be near the people who will tell him what he needs to hear. If someone disagrees, he forces them out. He surrounds himself with yes men of the snakeish breed. Those who are smart take a note from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Play the finesse game and always seem to be on his side while nudging him in your direction; trade your dignity for personal gain by stroking him off while tightening around the neck.

Trump is a Bad Person

Back on track, the more important point I want to make is that Trump is a bad person.

• He believes that his power allows him to sexually abuse women
• And has sexually abused women
• He is an unfaithful husband
• He bullies people, all the way up to Sen. John McCain who was a Vietnam POW (for the sacrifice he made to our country)
• He is an incessant liar
• He is reckless
• He is incapable of admitting fault

While I don’t think Trump is raging racist (though he is guilty of housing discrimination), he sure as hell is willing to capitalize on it and stoke the flames to the detriment of America. He’s an opportunist whom I doubt believes in God but takes advantage of Christian nationalism.

Trump is everything we raise our children, boys especially, to not be. He is a sinner that does not look for repentance, and he knows it too.

Trump Enables Bad People

As Trump parades around like a [fill in the blank] and gets away with it, the doors are swung up for raw sewage to pour into American culture. Had Trump not taken office, there would be no seat in Congress for the Marjorie Taylor Greenes (I wrote this before she gained back some of her sanity, but you get the point) of the world—they would’ve been shunned and ostracized. Today, it seems that fascists are more than willing to come out of the woodwork and show their faces (hint, hint: Nick Fuentes). It’s as if we’ve grown a tolerance, not for our fellow human beings but for hatred and bigotry.

Trump Unearths Evil

It seems like the Republicans who once seemed to care about respectability have done a complete 180. People who once spoke out against Trump have shifted their tone to gain favor. This video by Ezra Klein does a much better job explaining this than I could hope to write.

Trump Makes Everyone Else Evil Too

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting, liberal streamer Destiny began making jokes about it on X.

ending every conservative debate callout I do in 2026 with “don’t dodge, bro, that’s not what Charlie would have wanted”

Link

As one may expect, many replied to the jokes with shock and disgust. However, Destiny’s defense for his behavior, regardless of whether you agree with it or would adopt the strategy yourself, is well reasoned.

It is unreasonable for Democrats to play a forever game of showing empathy and calling for the temperature to lower while never receiving similar messaging from Republicans. Unreasonable, not just in terms of some abstract notion of fairness, but because constantly retreating allows conservatives to steamroll without ever taking a mirror to their own actions. Somehow, our party of Neville Chamberlains still struggle to understand this principle: when you’re fighting fascists, appeasement will never work.

A tit-for-tat strategy is thus a completely logical response to the situation. “I’ll stop if you stop. Don’t like it? Now you know how we feel.”

My fear is that we are approaching a reality where this environment of hyper polarization is normalized—where we think division is part of what we are as Americans. At the same time, so long as we exist in a disinformation landscape where people are pitted against each other, there seems to be no way to deescalate.

So, what are we going to do about it?