Amid all the cyclonic turbulence that emanates from America's 47th president, the world is forgetting what the man has done.
This is not some sort of weird Julius Caesar moment for me. I have not come to bury him (figuratively) or for that matter praise him for everything like some of his diehard supporters. Yes, I did vote for him three times, but I did so largely because I could not in all good conscience cast a ballot for a person (Hillary Clinton) who called me and my ilk "deplorable," nor could I pull the lever for an ineffectual lifelong inept politician (Joe Biden), or a person who proclaimed her love for Venn diagrams and yellow school buses (Kamala Harris).
While that should clarify my reasons for voting for Donald Trump, I realize that it will not protect me from criticism from the left as a "willing co-conspirator" with the president on everything he says or does. This is one of the big present-day tactics of the Democrats as they attempt to label all conservatives as "fascists-in-waiting" and use false equivocation to their advantage leading up to the midterm elections just nine months away.
To them, and to any one who will listen, Trump supporters, MAGAts (as they say) or those who voted for the president now have automatic complicity in every action he takes whether that be from calling up the National Guard, bombing drug-running boats in the Caribbean or helping maintain law and order in the Middle East by setting Iran's nuclear program back.
Before I get to the point about what we are forgetting about Donald Trump, let me just remind everybody that the United States has been barreling towards a national nervous breakdown for a decade or more and this nervous breakdown will, if something major is not done soon, lead to an unamicable divorce whose cause will be "irreconcilable differences."
But don't take my word for it; look at just about any public poll and read just about any analysis of Americans' feelings about their government, their culture and every other aspect of their lives. Americans are fearful, angry, resentful, combative and have lost their capacity to be objective about a whole range of issues, and when objectivity goes, the group that stood for it will inevitably migrate to one of the two political parties that represent either conservative or liberal views. The question is are there enough of them to make a difference and which party will they join?
When Donald Trump took office for the second time he knew that he had to hurry to effect change, so instead of wasting his time conducting a hopeless crusade to unite Americans, he decided to make "his" share of the electorate stronger.
His method was to quickly rip off the bandage that covered the festering wound of four years of Joe Biden's presidency.
This defied the conventional wisdom that a new president should seek to bring Americans together for the "good of the country."
Trump's vision of America did not include one that had an equal partnership with the opposition because he knew that his base would never accept that nor did he personally believe that America was stronger when the liberals had equal power over his efforts to return America to its fundamental values.
In this case, he was way more honest than his predecessors whose "respect for the presidency" included appeasing their opponents.
Now, what are we forgetting about the new Donald Trump presidency? First and foremost, we have forgotten how old-style rhetoric almost always got us nowhere as a country. For all of Barack Obama's silver-tongued oratory, America did not move one step closer to unification, and this goes double for racial unity. Obama's presidency was like that of the "lost boys" of J.M. Barrie's book "Peter and Wendy."
Obama was Peter Pan and the boys were all those true believers of Mr. Obama's who lived with him in the Neverland of their heads. Barrie's lost boys were adventurous, playful, and sometimes mischievous and would be sent back to the prams from whence they came if anyone claimed them — but no one ever did.
Donald Trump is no Peter Pan nor Pied Piper nor Johnny Appleseed though he has planted his seeds in all of us. We cannot escape him and we cannot escape hearing about him. He is in our waking hours and in our subconscious. He is also responsible for a massive increase in interest in the United States if only to see the latest episode of the "Trump diaries" unfolding in real time in social media, the traditional media, at the water cooler, the dinner table and just about anywhere human beings gather. In that, he has succeeded in his ambition to create a brand legacy that will be talked about long after he has left the White House and indeed the face of the Earth.
Writers love Trump for giving them a villain or at least a foil to write about. And they hate him for his politics, but he is their catnip. Publishers and television station owners and network executives love him as well, cashing in on his off-the-wall daily pronouncements or actions by instructing the producers of their programs to go full bore on reporting and debating what he's done or said.
The Democrats both love and hate him because he is the "gift that keeps on giving" that enables them to raise vast sums of money to solidify their opposition to him. Pollsters and analysts, think tanks and university professors love him because he provides them with a living example of unorthodox leadership, one which they are able to use in "teachable moments."
Foreign leaders love him (and hate him simultaneously) because his example can be vilified and used to stick it to their respective "right wings" and give them an excuse to criticize the United States which is now almost daily fare in many European countries – these same countries I might add that are adopting some of Trump's policies, especially with respect to immigration.
In countries such as Denmark (where I live), there is a backlash against Donald Trump which has spilled over to a rejection of American products and services as well as tourism to the United States. This has benefited European food producers and manufacturers as the Danes are saying "Amerika, nej tak" (America, no thanks).
The Danes really should be saying "Thank you Donald Trump for boosting the sales of European-made goods," but of course, they don't.
In the case of Greenland, one should probably ask the Greenlanders if Donald Trump hasn't been good for their cause and if they have not gotten considerably more attention to their needs from their territory's protector in Copenhagen.
I realize that thanking Donald Trump for anything is the absolute last thing on any Democrat's, Progressive's, or leftist's mind, but all I ask of them is to be honest when it comes to looking at how much Donald Trump has improved their bottom line and how many more "followers" they have on their social media accounts or "likes" on their podcasts and how much Trump Derangement Syndrome has done to motivate people to leave the comfort of their easy chairs and "just say no" to passivity.
If no one else will thank you, Mr. Trump, I sure will.
Stephen Helgesen is a retired American diplomat specializing in international trade. He has lived and worked in 30 countries over the course of 25 years under the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush administrations. He is the author of fourteen books, seven of them on American politics, and has written more than 1,500 articles on politics, economics, and social trends. He now lives in Denmark and is a frequent political commentator in Danish media.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/02/what_we_are_forgetting_about_trump.html
