Donald Trump has a new website highlighting just how brilliant he was at being president.
Called 45office.com, its glowing “About” section has condensed what appears at first glance to be the best presidency in the history of presidencies into just 850 words of achievements in the face of overwhelming adversity.
But, as anyone with a functioning memory spanning four years or more will be able to spot, it omits quite a lot of what actually happened.
The election
According to the website, Trump “launched the most extraordinary political movement in history” and “achieved a decisive victory, winning states no Republican presidential candidate had won in decades”.
While this may be true of the 2016 presidential election, there is no mention of his defeat by Joe Biden four years later, which made him the first president since George H W Bush to lose a re-election bid.
The environment
The website, without any hint of irony, includes the following two sentences:
“President Trump boldly unleashed American energy, and our Nation soon became the world’s number one producer of oil and national gas in the world.”
And:
“Under President Trump, America led the world in reducing carbon emissions.”
Carbon emissions actually increased during Trump’s first three years in office. In his final year they dropped slightly – but still remained at a level higher than when he started, according to data from his own government.
That’s before we consider the damaging effects of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, rolling back countless restrictions meant to protect the environment, and his annoyingly frequent assertion that coal is “clean”.
The economy
According to the website, Trump presided over “a period of unprecedented economic growth, job creation, soaring wages, and booming incomes”.
This is largely true. What it doesn’t mention is that these achievements were largely wiped out by the effects of a coronavirus pandemic Trump and the Republicans did relatively little to prevent.
Speaking of which...
The pandemic
In a particularly dramatic passage, the website states: “When the coronavirus plague arrived from China, afflicting every nation around the globe, President Trump acted early and decisively to ban travel from China and Europe, which saved countless lives.”
It goes on to list achievements such as “mass producing and mass distributing masks, gowns, gloves” and the “aggressive action” that was taken “to get critical supplies to nursing homes in order to protect the most vulnerable among us”.
What it doesn’t mention is how a total lack of federal leadership led to the US suffering the highest death toll of any country on the planet.
Oh, and then there was that time Trump suggested maybe people could drink bleach to cure Covid. Funnily enough this also doesn’t warrant a mention.
The border
Given he never actually completed his infamous and much-touted border wall with Mexico, the website does spend quite a bit of time celebrating how Trump “achieved the most secure border in United States history”.
As The New York Times has reported, however, what does exist of the border wall isn’t that effective as anyone wishing to cross can just walk along to one of the many gaps in it.
The scandals
One section of the website lists the scandals, corruption investigations, two impeachments, and the attacks on democratic institutions that framed his presidency, as well as the January 6 attack on the Capitol which he encouraged his supporters to carry out and the 308 times he played golf instead of doing his actual job.
Oh wait, no it doesn’t.
Credit where credit is due...
One section does refer to “historic peace agreements in the Middle East” which was a genuinely praiseworthy achievement.
Oh, wait, hang on. That was mostly Jared Kushner’s doing. Oh well.