Brash and pugnacious, Trump has presided over a tumultuous presidency
Businessman-turned-politician Donald Trump has promoted "America First" nationalism, withstood impeachment and a bout with COVID-19, and taken contentious stands on race and immigration during a turbulent presidency that detractors say has flouted U.S. democratic norms.After decades of fame first as a brash and media-savvy NY real estate developer and as possible TV personality, the pugnacious Trump tapped into discontent among many Americans to become political phenomenon unique in the country's 244 years.
Seeking re-election on Tuesday against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, Trump at first encountered fierce resistance within the Republican Party but were able to remake it in his own image and won loyalty even among some Republicans who had once denounced him. On Twitter and in raucous rallies, Trump eviscerated opposition Democrats and the news media together with some fellow Republicans, Cabinet members and other officials he appointed. "
If I don't appear to be an average Washington politician, it is because I'm not really a politician," Trump told an Oct. 26 rally in Pennsylvania. Trump, 74, assumed the presidency in January 2017 after his surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in November 2016. He lost the nationwide popular vote by about 3 million ballots but prevailed in pivotal battleground states to amass an Electoral College majority.
His 2016 victory made him the first U.S. president without prior political or military experience as he pursued a right-wing populist approach. Trump's ascent was part of a populist wave extending from Britain's EU "Brexit" to the election of Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro. Trump denounced "globalism" and focused U.S. foreign policy around an "America First" world view. His presidency came at the same time of deep polarization in America and political dysfunction in Washington.
In the home, Trump curtailed legal and against the law immigration and slashed the number of people admitted as refugees and asylum seekers, secured sweeping tax cuts, moved the federal judiciary including the Supreme Court significantly rightward and rolled back environmental regulations that he called burdensomely. Abroad, Trump helped broker deals between close U.S. ally Israel and three Arab states, abandoned international agreements that he portrayed as unfair to America, alienated longtime allies and praised authoritarian foreign leaders.
He showed deference to longtime U.S. adversary Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. U.S. intelligence agencies figured Russia used a campaign of hacking and propaganda to improve Trump's 2016 candidacy and that Moscow was interfering again during the 2020 campaign to try to denigrate Biden. Critics including senior Democrats and former members of his own administration portrayed Trump as a peril to democracy with autocratic tendencies.
"I believe that the president generally is an existential threat to America," Biden said of Trump this past year in Iowa. "This is a guy would you everything to split up and frighten people. It's about fear and loathing." "Donald Trump may be the first president in my own lifetime who does not make an effort to unite the American persons - does not even pretend to try," Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps general who served as Trump's first defense secretary, said in June. "Instead he tries to divide us."
But even through a parade of controversies, the passionate support of several Americans - especially white men, Christian conservatives, rural residents and persons without a college education - seemed undimmed."I've joined the political arena in order that the powerful can't beat up on people that cannot defend themselves," Trump said in accepting the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. "Nobody knows the machine better than me, which is why I alone can correct it."
Democrats accused Trump of putting himself above regulations and disregarding constitutional constraints on presidential powers as he ignored congressional subpoenas, complained in regards to a "rigged" American voting system, refused to invest in a calm transition of power if he lost to Biden, and assailed figures in the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies. Critics also denounced Trump for employing falsehoods; fact-checkers listed a large number of them during his presidency.
