I think Trump should be viewed as an enormous success. The idea that someone with zero political experience could come up against the media and political industries and beat them each at their own game to win the White House was laughable prior to 2016. Then Trump managed to make it happen.
He hasn't won this election, but that was mostly due to the incredibly misfortune of having a 1 in 100 year event in the months leading into the election.
Had COVID not happened, Trump would have walked the election in.
Having said that, the reality is that Covid happened. This election has happened, and it looks as though Biden has won.
Honestly I think there were many aspects of the campaign that I think were more beneficial than most predicted. Obama's work definitely set the ground work for the economic turn but there's no denying that Trump's economic numbers were really good prior to the Rona.
But personally I think people give Trump credit for the wrong things. Everything introduced by Trump was stuff the Republicans have always wanted to do but couldn't do. Trump proved that you can go all out and not lose support. And that's what Trump is really good at. I listened to a talk the other day where they pointed out how appealing Trump is.
They pointed out something that's often pointed out. Trump is full of shit. Not meaning that as an attack or anything, that's just a statement of fact. One fact checking team pointed out that Biden usually averages 10 false or misleading statements per week, but during this campaign he has averaged 3 per week. Trump averages 50 per day. During the first presidential debate Biden made 7 false or misleading statements. Trump made 40.
But that works. Disinformation works so well and on top of this, Trump is being the friendly one. This is the key point. When the left are supporting what's often called "white guilt", encouraging BLM protests, telling people to answer for the crimes of the past. Trump is saying to the people, "You're not to blame". When the left say, "We are destroying this planet" Trump's response is, "We're not destroying this planet, it's not our fault"
He makes people feel comfortable. It's quite easy to see that he's full of shit but most people don't want to see it. Because no one wants to take the hard road. Everyone wants to take the easy road. They want to know that they don't have to suffer discomfort to help the environment. They want to believe that racism doesn't exist. They want to believe that the problems don't exist and Trump provides that re-assurance. That's one of the key reasons he has so much support.
Any which way, Trump's presidency has changed the landscape of US politics forever. The Republicans now know that they can go all out on these issues they support without fear of losing support. So they won't hold back in the future. The result is a massive bipartisan divide that could result in the collapse of an empire.