In a recent message posted to his personal account on X (the social media platform formerly called Twitter), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) characterized the years when Donald Trump was in power as fundamentally better for the United States.
He did not mention the extremely lagging response to the emergence of COVID-19 that no doubt spurred significant, deadly impacts among Americans and temporary economic crises — all of which combined to essentially create Trump’s dismal send-off.
Characteristically, neither did Cotton mention that it was another of the last acts of Trump’s term when he’s argued to have incited a clearly violent, insurrectionary attack at the U.S. Capitol that threatened the lives of police officers, journalists, Congressional staff members, members of the House and Senate, and even the vice president. While arguments back and forth persist, multiple courts have held Trump meaningfully responsible for what happened, and such is also the path taken by federal prosecutors in Trump’s criminal case over his post-2020 election schemes to hold power. What would have happened if the mobs actually reached, say, Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi?
Neither did Cotton mention the tariffs to which Trump was obsessively committed, which constituted tax increases on the American individuals and businesses doing the importing covered by those new taxes — a connection Trump consistently ignores. Trump also upended foreign policy in key areas, helping effectively derail the nuclear arms control deal with Iran and threatening the orderly continuance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is a key line of defense for what’s termed the West.
“When Donald Trump was president, America was safe, strong, and prosperous. The economy was booming, working-class wages were growing, our border was secure, and our enemies feared us. With Joe Biden as president, everything has gone to hell: families can’t afford groceries, our border is wide open to a full-blown invasion, and our enemies are starting wars everywhere,” Cotton claimed, brazenly misrepresenting the actual facts in key areas.
“Amazing how Trump gets a pass on that whole pandemic thing that he accelerated by denying it would ever be a problem to begin with. Pass the bleach?” writer Amanda Carpenter posited in reply. “There’s this sort of collective mindset amongst the right that the last year of Trump’s presidency simply didn’t count because of Covid. But obviously a huge part of being President is handling unexpected crises and Trump was indisputably awful at that,” Charles DeLoach, a lawyer, added. And journalist Aaron Rupar pointedly replied: “This is bonkers. The month Trump left office 80,000 Americans died from Covid and unemployment was over 6 percent. It is indisputable that the country is in much better shape now.”
When Donald Trump was president, America was safe, strong, and prosperous. The economy was booming, working-class wages were growing, our border was secure, and our enemies feared us. With Joe Biden as president, everything has gone to hell: families can’t afford groceries, our…
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) January 3, 2024
