Is Trump All That Bad?

Now that Trump is back on Twitter, maybe it’s time to give the Devil his due and write something positive about him, if only because much of what has been said about him in the Fake News media simply isn’t true. And because much of what has been said about him isn’t true, he has an outsized presence in politics that he doesn’t deserve.

First and foremost, Trump is only the fourth President in the country’s history who never held any public office before becoming President. The other three were Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, and Ike. But those three all had long and distinguished military careers, so even if they hadn’t occupied an elective office, they all worked in the public sphere.

Trump on the other hand, is entirely a product of the private system where the rules are very different. And where the rules are most different is in the relationship between the individual office-holder or individual private citizen and the media. Which happens to be where Trump has scored his biggest triumphs as President, along with experiencing his biggest flops.

Here’s a guy who singlehandedly brought social media into the political environment. Nobody in politics was really using Twitter and Facebook as their primary or even secondary communication venues until Trump came along in 2016.