By Chris Satullo
Donald Trump didn’t get the perp walk he was perversely clamoring for this week. Of course, he never will. No prosecutor on earth is dumb enough to invite public chaos and wounded credibility in that way. Still, The Donald does seem to be cruising towards an indictment by the Manhattan district attorney. This would be for lying on official documents as he schemed during the 2020 election to pay hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Most of us who are appalled by the damage Trump has done to our nation in particular – and to humanity in general – would prefer that the long-awaited first indictment of this hate-filled egomaniac could be for something other than that tawdry liaison. Unless you were his pregnant wife at the time he was schtupping Stormy, this Donald deed probably ranks nowhere near your personal Top 10 list of his worst sins.
Which got me to thinking: How would I rank Trump’s 10 Worst Crimes among the tragically vast field of options? (I’m using the word “crime” loosely here, not in a technical sense; some of the worst things he’s done were not strictly illegal, just immoral and damaging.)
Facing a winnowing task this daunting, I needed a rubric to help sift the candidates. I came up with these four criteria:
Harm – How much damage to ordinary human beings, or to core national principles, did these Trumpian actions cause?
Permanence – How much of the damage was irrevocable vs. there being a chance that kinder, wiser, more ethical spirits could undo or mitigate it?
Norm breaking – To what degree did these deeds involve Trump ignoring, undermining or shattering the norms that make constitutional democracy and decent society possible, vs. simply doing – albeit at a high-octane level – what other politicians often do?
Leading the way – A related but distinct point: To what degree was Trump the main culprit vs. merely going along with or facilitating a project that some large group of Americans had long favored?
I scored each Trump sin on a scale of 0-10 for each criterion, with 10 being Mephistopheles and 0 being Mother Teresa.
The result: My personal list of Donald Trump’s 10 Worst Crimes against America and Humanity. (The list actually has 11 items; no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break a tie for first place).
Your results, obviously, may vary. I’d love to hear how your list turns out.
First Place Tie: COVID-19 and Stop the Steal/Jan. 6
COVID-19 – 36 points
HARM SCORE: 10
All such studies are speculative, but outlets as respectable as The Lancet and the Kaiser Family Foundation estimate that at least 230,000 to 400,000 of Americans’ deaths from the pandemic were preventable, if people had followed the best available advice about masks, distancing, and vaccines. For context, the American death toll from World War II was 405,000. Beyond that, the wake of harm from Trump’s habit of minimizing the crisis, thwarting precautions, and trumpeting quack cures includes long COVID-19, rooted vaccine skepticism, and rends in our societal fabric.
PERMANENCE: 10
Death is as permanent as harm gets – and the anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-expert sentiment that Trump didn’t invent, but clearly fomented, will continue to lead to preventable deaths.
NORM BREAKING: 8
Elected officials often downplay risks from crises that erupt on their watch. But few have ever done so with the insistently inaccurate bravado that Trump displayed.
LEADING THE WAY – 8
Unquestionably, Trump did. But not 10 points, because he had a shamefully large amount of help from others who were supposed to protect Americans from harm.
STOP THE STEAL/JAN. 6 – 36 POINTS
HARM: 10
The death toll here, while appalling, pales next to the pandemic. But the harm to our democracy, and the social trust that is its bedrock, is dire. One man’s titanic, sore-loser ego brought us as close to civil war as we’ve been since 1861.
PERMANENCE: 7
A scary score, but with a dash of hope. For my sanity, I have to believe the damage Trump has done to our system will wane as he does, but it’s not clear to me right now exactly how long it will take. (In other words, will my aged bones live to see the fine day?)
NORM BREAKING: 9
It’s not a 10 because Republicans have been rehearsing this “massive voter fraud” horsepoop for a long time. It’s not a 4, either, because no one else has pushed the nonsense as far as Trump, and no one else ever fomented an attack on our Capitol.
Third Place: PUTIN-UKRAINE – 32 POINTS
HARM: 10
I care about dead patriots in Kyiv and Kharkiv, too. If you don’t, I’m not sure what to say to you. Beyond that, Trump’s rapt admiration and kowtowing have emboldened the villainous autocrat in Moscow in multiple ways that make our world a riskier place.
PERMANENCE: 6
We’ll never raise the innocent dead – and many more will likely die before Russia limps out of Ukraine in exhausted defeat. But someday it will.
NORM BREAKING: 8
Remember when Republicans used to decry everyone else for being “soft on Russia”? Now, MAGA’s favorite TV talker mouths Kremlin propaganda nightly on Fox News. (Never forget, Trump’s Don Corleone turn with President Zelensky on that phone call was an unforgivable, impeachable offense.)
LEADING THE WAY: 8
Trump’s leaning towards authoritarians is clear, and he had special financial and political reasons to smooch Putin’s behind. Still, it’s also clear that the American right was developing a taste for autocracy even before Trump came along.
Fourth Place: LETTING WHITE NATIONALISM OUT OF ITS CAGE – 31 POINTS
HARM: 10
I’m thinking broadly here, including in the toll all the deaths where racism, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism motivated mass murders. Also weaving in Trump’s rhetoric defending, even encouraging, police violence against Blacks and other minorities.
PERMANENCE – 5
He’s unleashed some ugly viruses, which we’d at least previously relegated to dark corners. But I have to believe the fever will recede and our better angels will rise.
NORM BREAKING – 8
You always knew some Americans privately harbored rancid thoughts, but we were doing OK at exacting workplace and social penalties for trotting them out in public. Trump gleefully made it OK to be awful and, what’s worse, millions adored him for it.
LEADING THE WAY – 8
This was clearly key to his program, but a disgusting number of people joined in eagerly.
Fifth Place: CLIMATE CHANGE – 29 POINTS
HARM – 10
Don’t get me wrong. This score could be 11. Or 15. Nothing matches the existential impact on our species. The lower ranking here is Trump-specific, explained below.
PERMANENCE – 10
Ice caps do not regenerate themselves. We’ll never get back those four years of inaction and retrograde messaging.
NORM BREAKING – 4
Yes, Trump withdrew from the Paris Accords, but that was within his executive discretion. And any other Republican nominee from the 2016 field would have done the same.
LEADING THE WAY – 4
This is an example of him getting in front of an already formed crowd, rather than summoning a mob to do his specific dirty work. (His thing against windmills really is amazing, though.)
Fifth Place: IMMIGRATION – 28 POINTS
HARM – 9
First, think of the separated families, and the others who deserved refuge from violence. Second, though, also acknowledge that open borders are a fantasy; every stable nation needs boundaries, rules and processes to decide who gets in. Trump’s toxic fantasies about The Wall, and the feverish reactions to them on the left, have sapped our ability to have a sane discussion about what needs to be done.
PERMANENCE – 7
For individuals, the harm is enduring. For the nation, we can reverse course, but it will take a while to cleanse the Trump toxins from our civic bloodstream.
NORM BREAKING – 6
Trump was a loud megaphone for xenophobia, but he stands in a long line of such demagogues.
LEADING THE WAY – 6
His prattle about his “beautiful wall” provided a powerful, unhelpful focal point. But it just highlighted long-standing confusions on the right and left. It didn’t spawn them.
Sixth Place: ABANDONING THE KURDS – 26 points
HARM – 8
I’m including this 2019 betrayal of American allies because it’s one of the worst things Trump did that no one seems to remember. It’s hard to do something that at one fell swoop pleases Syria, Russian, Iran and ISIS, as well as Turkey’s dictator, but Trump pulled it off. Why would any nation or group in peril ally itself with America, if this is how we’re going to do you?
PERMANENCE – 8
Again, dead is dead. What followed Trump’s sudden betrayal was described by one American diplomat as “an ethnic cleansing.” We Americans all may have forgotten this sickening episode, but everyone in that bloody region will remember it for a long time.
NORM BREAKING – 1
Abandoning allies in faraway regions has become an American habit, though doing it by tweet was something new.
LEADING THE WAY – 9
This was all Trump, at his willful, impetuous worst. No adults in his foreign policy circle agreed.
Seventh Place: COARSENING THE DISCOURSE – 25 POINTS
HARM – 7
This interweaves with other points made above, but Trump’s ceaseless invoking of insults, stereotypes, conspiracy theories, anti-intellectual tropes, and toxic contempt for any and all who don’t feign worship for him has helped drive us into a ditch of polarization, nastiness and paranoia.
PERMANENCE – 6
Lots of people in lots of places are working on the cure but many people all over the political spectrum are proving resistant to the therapy.
BREAKING NORMS – 7
Among presidents? For sure. But Trump had a horde of emulators and cheerleaders online and on cable.
LEADING THE WAY – 5
It’s too easy for us to just blame him. He had plenty of help.
Eighth Place: THE MIDDLE EAST – PLAYING FOOTSIE WITH MBS AND BIBI – 24 POINTS
HARM – 8
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is a murderous thug. The Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu is a criminal demagogue. No wonder Trump loved ’em both and did their bidding.
PERMANENCE – 7
Someday, the sea of oil beneath Saudi sands will run dry. Before then, will any American president ever stand up to the House of Saud?
BREAKING NORMS – 4
Trump was not an outlier, only the most abject and self-dealing.
LEADING THE WAY – 4
Like many presidents, Trump saw political benefit in pleasing AIPAC and feeding Americans’ lust for cheap gas. He just added his trademark touch of familial self-dealing. Now, we know why son-in-law Jared Kushner was so intent on control of the Middle East portfolio. It set up a $2 billion post-White House Saudi investment in Jared’s new business venture.
Ninth Place: SELLING OF THE PRESIDENCY – 23 POINTS
HARM – 6
To Trump, the office of President was clearly a cornucopia of grifts. Lobbyists and moguls flocked to his hotels and golf resorts, while government officials were forced to. His kids and other familial hangers-on leveraged their connections around the world in search of business deals. After only his first two years in office, New York Magazine’s 2018 rundown of his self-dealing and peddling of favors took 20 minutes to read. The direct dollar cost these grifts inflicted on taxpayers was considerable, but it paled next to the damage to wise policy and respect for the office.
PERMANENCE – 3
Just don’t re-elect him and this is all just an ugly memory.
BREAKING NORMS – 6
Yes, since Biblical times or before, power has corrupted. But no other president – not even scandal-ridden ones such as Grant, Harding and Nixon – have pursued personal monetary gain by leveraging the power of the presidency with the scope and shamelessness of Trump.
LEADING THE WAY – 8
No one looks out for No. 1 like Don.
Tenth Place: Tax Cuts – 21 POINTS
HARM – 7
Federal budgets and tax codes are a nation’s values and moral code distilled into spreadsheets and statutes. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts signaled an era of government by the wealthy for the wealthy. Even before the spurt of pandemic deficit spending, these pointless tax cuts added $1.9 trillion to the national debt – about $23,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
PERMANENCE – 6
The tax breaks are supposed to sunset in 2027; we’ll see. Uncle Joe would like a word.
NORM BREAKING – 2
The GOP is addicted to the fanciful claim of the Laffer Curve i.e. tax cuts pay for themselves. Here, Trump just did his party’s traditional bidding.
LEADING THE WAY – 6
It’s the one piece of major legislation he did get passed. And, what do you know, the tax breaks are designed to particularly benefit real estate developers.
So that’s my list. The dishonorable mention list of misdeeds that didn’t quite make the cut, such as packing the Supreme Court with a conservative Catholic cabal, constitutes a Second 10, yet it still doesn’t include Stormy.
It was a busy four years, with a painful aftermath that lingers. The Republic might not withstand another four.
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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia