I’ve worked with more egocentric, puffed-up personalities than I ever wanted—I’m a cardiologist—and the 2016 version of Donald Trump was just one more. I find all of them unlikable. Yet, I voted for him twice, and even donated a few bucks to his campaign because I thought he was better than the alternatives. 

I see yin and yang (dark-bright; cold-warm) in people and actions in every aspect of life. President Trump’s personality yins that I see include his management style, his mental-emotional incontinence, and his pettiness. His obsequiousness toward brutal dictators stands in stark contrast to his harshness toward his allies. He was a poor loser and left office badly with a giant exclamation point on January 6. My metaphor is that he prepared the menu, bought the food, and cooked the dinner but he didn’t start the food fight.

In terms of legislative accomplishments his were few, maybe only one: tax reform. That’s pretty meager when in his first two years both the Senate and the House were in Republican control. His absence of political experience and his insulting manner were problematic.

His performance had a host of yangs. Through appointments and executive orders, he enhanced the federalist nature of our government and was, in that regard, a very conservative president.  Judicial appointments are durable but executive orders are easily undone and Mr. Biden’s writers have been working overtime to reverse the meaningful ones. By being an ardent disestablishmentarian, President Trump gathered a great and loyal following of common people who love the country and distrust the career politicians that run it. The ideas he supported such as enforcing laws, rebuilding the military, supporting the law abiding and law enforcers resonate with many Americans, notably in rural regions; eighty-four percent of counties voted for him. The yin there was that his approval rating never exceeded fifty percent and that detractors became more stridently opposed to him.

He disdained the elitist policies and theories. In reducing taxes for the lower income brackets, minorities and middle class Americans saw more income and higher standards of living. The political opposition frothed and tried to destroy him. (Was it because they feared the result of conservative taxation was the empowering of the demographics that kept them in power?) In his usual self-promoting style Trump referred to his first three years as “my great economy.” Funding his economy came at a cost. In his first three years we averaged close to $1 trillion in annual deficit and the federal debt increased around $3.5 trillion. In 2020, there was blowout spending that increased the national debt by nearly $4.5. In Trump’s four years the national debt increased from $19.6 trillion to $27.7 trillion. This makes him the least conservative president in history in a fiscal sense. He increased the debt more in his four years than his predecessor did in eight.

Perhaps the country cannot fiscally afford another term of Donald Trump. But whom can we afford? The current occupant of the White House is headed toward one more year of more than $4 trillion of deficit spending. National debt has increased 320% in fifteen years and has doubled every nine years. Debt-to-GDP has increased 220% in the same period. When the crash comes, blame will fall on many, Democrat and Republican alike. Mr. Trump will deserve a lion’s share.