You may like Trump’s policies, as I do, but let’s admit that his rash behavior could tarnish his legacy. Top story at RealClearPolitics today and bound to be controversial.
By FRANK MIELE
President Trump claimed recently that “they’re saying this is the best 10 months in the history of the presidency.”
Hmmm. Maybe the merry elves are saying that in the Oval Office when they tell Trump he is the best Santa ever. You never know about those elves. But one thing is for certain: 2025 will go down in the history books as one of the most consequential years in American history.
And that’s because, despite Time magazine getting it wrong, 2025 was the Year of Trump. Triumphant Trump. Trump unleashed. Towering Trump. Glowering Trump. Trump unhinged. Truth Social Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump.
You can’t legitimately dispute the impact he has had. From deporting thousands of illegal aliens to protecting the streets of U.S. cities with National Guard troops, there is no doubt that he is a most consequential president.
For those of us who labored for a decade to make the year of Trump happen, it started on a high note. After an astounding comeback election victory in 2024, the once and future president seemed to be putting together a Cabinet that conservatives could trust. Sean Duffy at Transportation, Linda McMahon at Education. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Russ Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He even went outside the Republican Party to appoint Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Bobby Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services.
But even from the start, there were warning signs that the surprisingly strong victory of Trump at the ballot box, and perhaps his bare survival of an assassination attempt the previous July, might have given the president a false sense of his own invincibility. That dynamic first reared its ugly head when Trump nominated controversial congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general. Sure, Gaetz was a fearless advocate of Trump’s America First agenda, and he had a law degree, but he was everyone else’s last choice to be the balanced arbiter of right and wrong. He had his own ethical improprieties under investigation by Congress and the Department of Justice and would have been widely viewed as an even more partisan attorney general than Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s self-described “wingman.”
The disastrous nomination ended relatively quickly when Gaetz was replaced by Pam Bondi, but the damage was done. What was Trump thinking? Did he really intend to govern with an eye toward settling old scores? Or was he going to reach across the aisle and try to heal the wounds of bitter partisanship that has plagued the nation for decades? It didn’t look good for the latter.
Putting aside the lessons learned from Trump’s Cabinet appointments, there were more warning signals from his policy decisions – starting with his creation of the ad hoc Department of Government Efficiency that fell under the leadership of maverick entrepreneur Elon Musk.
It sounded good in theory. Everyone knew the government was throttled by a costly bureaucracy that was partisan, institutionally moribund, and bloated. But the rash decisions by Musk and his minions to tear out whole agencies root and limb quickly caused unintended consequences that left millions of Americans in doubt about government services they had come to depend upon. In some cases, the decisions were reversed either by courts or common sense, but in many other instances the damage was already done. If there was a parallel to the Department of Government Efficiency in history, it was perhaps the use of the guillotine in the French Revolution.
In tandem with that questionable exploit was the rollout of tariffs as a means of punishing trading partners and at the same time raising money for the U.S. Treasury. Trump was convinced that because tariffs had been a steady source of income for the federal government in the distant 19th century, they could go so far as to replace the income tax in the 21st. Maybe he’s right. Time will tell, but few economists agreed, and so far there are mixed results.
Voters who expected Trump’s economic policies to boost their wallets instead found themselves spending more on a variety of items – including groceries. Inflation was not as out of control as during Joe Biden’s presidency, but nor did a sense of calm return at the family dinner table.
So, let’s forget about trying to neatly categorize the calendar year by way of ups and downs of the new administration, and instead look at some of the bigger-picture issues where Trump seemed intent to modify Theodore Roosevelt’s motto, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” into: “Screw ‘soft’ – I’ve got a big stick and it’s aimed at you.”
Domestically, that meant Trump went after his enemies – James Comey, Hillary Clinton, Letitia James, CBS, John Bolton, Jimmy Kimmel, the list was long. For those of us on the right, it was amusing – to an extent. But the presidency is about more than score-settling, right? The public’s needs take precedence over personal politics, don’t they? But Trump didn’t see it that way. And most of his supporters were happy to be on the winning side for a change, so they cheered him on.
Maybe that’s what made the president think he could do or say whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America? Check. Rip down a wing of the White House to install a massive ballroom? Check. Suggest that the brutal murder of a brilliant filmmaker was somehow divine justice because he had opposed Trump’s politics? Check.
I’m the first to admit that Trump’s forceful personality has been instrumental in rescuing the nation – and perhaps the world – from a dangerous leftward drift that threatens Americans’ individual freedoms. But I don’t believe in giving free rein to any one man to say what is right and wrong. Yet Trump too often in this chaotic year has acted as if he alone knows what is best for us all.
On foreign policy, Trump had some successes, but at what cost? His campaign promise was to put American interests first and stay out of needless foreign wars and interventions. Instead, we are edging closer to war with Venezuela, we pulverized Iran, and we are now heaving missiles into Nigeria. On the question of Ukraine, Trump promised peace within 24 hours, but has proven incapable of convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin that the world will not tolerate his naked aggression against an independent sovereign nation. Ukrainian President Zelensky is making yet another effort to win security guarantees from the United States to make a peaceful outcome possible, but Trump seems oblivious to the lopsided moral equation at play in this bloody conflict.
Likewise, the president has infamously misjudged the national response to his stonewalling efforts to release the so-called Epstein files. Though he campaigned on a pledge of bringing transparency to what the government knows about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump suddenly turned tail and condemned calls to release the files as a hoax. The more he tried to deflect, the more it looked like he had something to hide.
But if you had to point to one instance where Trump went off the rails in 2025, perhaps nothing better sums it up than the renaming of The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Talk about tone-deaf. Trump claims that this boneheaded move came from the board of directors, but everyone knows his own ego is the birthplace of such vanity. In his private life, Trump put his name on everything he touched. But he owned those properties. As a public servant he has no business re-branding America in his own image.
I’m not ready to write off Trump’s second term as an utter failure. Not yet. Because there is still plenty of time for the long-term impact of his decisions to pay off. But unfortunately, there is also still plenty of time for the Democrats to take back the House and even the Senate and start impeachment hearings early in 2027.
If Trump doesn’t settle down soon, that is almost certain to happen. So my advice for the president as we prepare to enter the 250th year of our glorious nation’s existence, is two simple words: “Cool it!”
It’s not about you; it’s about us.
About Heartland Diary USA
Heartland Diary is solely operated by Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will SUBSCRIBE to www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com by leaving your email address on the home page. Also please consider purchasing one of my books. They are available through the following Amazon links. My new book is “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends” and is a collection of personal essays that transcend politics. My earlier books include “How We Got Here: The Left’s Assault on the Constitution,”“The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” and the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website.
