What will Trump's legacy be?

Had Donald Trump won in 2020 much would have been better than what did happen. Most importantly, Russia would not have invaded Ukraine.

Winning a second consecutive term would have meant his first was not a blip but mattered. Yet I imagine that his second term would probably have resembled his first.

We would never have known about the bad things that Biden did that Trump's victory had saved us from.

What would his legacy have been? 

It would have been much bigger than had he been a one term President like Carter and Bush 1 but in the imaginary universe where he won in 2020 politics as normal might very well have resumed in 2025 under President Pence or, save the mark, President Kamala.

Instead Donald Trump went back to Mar-a-Lago, faced the very real risk of going to prison and more than one assassination attempt.

He knows that but for a split-second turn of the head he’d be dead and many would have been delighted, the many who rejoiced that Charlie Kirk was killed.

He is four years older, prolix, forgetful and clearly showing signs of incipient dementia, an old man in a hurry in the phrase Lord Randolph Churchill applied to Mr Gladstone.

What will his legacy be? 

Obviously it's impossible to know.

His obsession to leave a legacy has led him not to be a peace president - Coolidge and Hoover are not remembered or not with gratitude - but to use the US armed forces to murder or kidnap the leaders of countries that defy American hegemony.

He may be be remembered mostly for doing so much to benefit Israel. 

Some people say the attack on Iran is not for Israel's benefit but he himself said in September, 'Nobody has done more for Israel than I have, including the recent attacks with Iran, wiping that thing out'.

He'll be remembered for threatening other countries including allies like Canada or Denmark and for making America openly rather than covertly lawless. 

In other words, making America another Israel.

European countries protest in defence of Denmark, understandably, but not say nothing when Middle Eastern countries or Venezuela are attacked.

Trump will be remembered for raising the issue of illegal immigration and this time trying to deport illegals. But then he backed off when two protestors were killed. 

A Napoleon would not have minded about a whiff of grapeshot

Trump's cavalier way of ignoring the constitution when it comes to tariffs or acts of war is Napoleonic and was described by Chas Freeman as the end of the American republic.

We shall see what he leaves behind and when he goes. He may be impeached and thrown out of office by Congress after the mid-term elections.

Now he has something he did not have in 2020, an heir in JD Vance.

Epstein's pal and lawyer Alan Dershowitz praised Trump for the assassination (a nicer word then murder) of the Ayatollah but expressed regret about the three members of his family, one of them a baby. That was decent of him. 

Murders are normal for US Presidents. Apart from the murder of Osama bin Laden Obama authorised 540 drone strikes that killed an estimated 3,797 people, including roughly 324 civilians, one of them an American. George W Bush authorised only a modest 50, Biden authorised 555, a number almost equalled by Trump in the first 5 months of his second administration. 

So that's another achievement.