So What if Trump Had Won?

2020

 So, given that 2020 was a disastrous year, 2021 was a bad year, and this year is shaping up to be worse, would be have been better off if Donald Trump had won the election? (And by that I don't mean successfully overturned it, which would cause another set of problems, but had won fair and square).

Anyone arguing that has to begin with the obvious -- 2020.  That year saw a pandemic, shutdowns, economic upheaval, mass riots, and terrible forest fires with many people fearing to evacuate out of fear of Antifa.  Donald Trump and his supporters can give any number of reasons (of varying plausibility) why none of this is his fault.  And, indeed, one thing 2020 should make clear is that under our federal system the President's power is quite limited.  But the events of 2020 should also show anyone with any sense that Donald Trump is no miracle worker, and that his presence in the White House is no guarantee against disaster.

Still, given all the problems we have faced since, how would Trump have fared?

COVID

2020

My guess is he would have done better here in at least one regard.  He would have convinced his supporters to get vaccinated.  That would significantly lower our hospitalization and death rate.  Would it have convinced his opponents to refuse the Trump Vaccine?  If the vaccine came out after the election, rather than as an October Surprise, and if scientists vouched for it, my guess is his opponents would have gotten vaccinated, while denying it was the Trump Vaccine and pointing out the vaccine's shortcomings.  

I suspect Trump would not have gotten the vaccine out as quickly as Biden (he never appears to have had much of a plan in place), but the vaccine was getting out reasonably well anyhow, so I don't think that would be all that important. He would not have been able to stop the vaccine from starting to wear off after a few months.  Nor would he have prevented mutations of COVID from forming.  The only real way to stop mutations would have been to vaccinate the whole world.  Biden failed to do that and deserves our criticism.  But Mr. America First would certainly not have done any better.

My boss, while acknowledging that Trump would not have intimidated the virus into submission, says that he would have responded to failure of the vaccine by developing a better testing regimen. I will happily concede that our testing regimen sucks and the Biden could have done better.  But Trump was markedly hostile to testing from the start for fear it would show the full extent of the pandemic.  Given his overall track record, his most probable response to the Trump Vaccine not being as good as expected would be to try to happy talk it away and, once that failed, to lash out and blame anyone but himself for the problems.  He would no doubt promote treatment -- whether effective or not.  But overall Trump's chronic inability to acknowledge failure would have hampered him -- as always.

THE ECONOMY

2020

Inflation is a world-wide trend.  It would have been a world-wide trend under a second Trump term.  It is possible that under a Trump presidency we would have had a smaller stimulus, which would have led to less inflation.  But that would have come at the cost of a slower recovery.  Pick your poison. 

As for supply chain issues, they, too, are largely the result of recovery outrunning capacity, so much the same applies. I am absolutely certain Trump would not have been able to do anything about the computer chip shortage that has been a major bottle neck. Why?  Because computer chips are highly capital intensive to build and can take several years to ramp up.  That has nothing to do with who is in the White House.

THE BORDER

Trump would have left Remain in Mexico in place and greatly reduced border crossings.  Make of that what you will

CRIME

I would expect Trump to be rhetorically at least much tougher on crime than Biden and unveil federal initiatives to crack down.  How effective that would have been is anybody's guess, but it would have at least appeared to be doing something.

AFGHANISTAN

I think the general consensus on the Afghan withdrawal is that Biden was dealt a bad hand and played it badly.  What would Trump have done?  Well, one possibility I have heard is that he planned to withdraw right away without further ado.  This would have led to the collapse of the Afghan state as soon as the Taliban went on offensive in the spring, but by then we would be gone, so it would be somebody else's problem.  Alternately, other times Trump wanted to withdraw military forces, the military outfoxed him and kept them in place.  In Afghanistan that would have meant breaching our agreement and left the unpalatable choice between escalation and humiliating withdrawal.  I have no idea what Trump would have done.  But I am confident of one thing.  Biden deserves our condemnation for failing to save many of our Afghan allies.  Trump, to judge from his record, would not even have made the attempt.

THE UKRIANE CRISIS

I do not think Russia would be gearing up to invade Ukraine if Trump were in office.  Putin would have seen a friend in the White House and not have wanted to jeopardize that friendship.  Also, Trump would be in the process of wrecking NATO by picking senseless fights with allies.  Why unify them with an obvious threat?

OTHER

2024?

So, if Trump has won the White House, I would predict a higher vaccination rate leading to less COVID hospitalization and death, possibly a slower recovery that would not overstrain our capacity, a quiet border, the appearance of doing something about crime, and avoiding the current crisis.  Does that mean I regret my vote for Biden and wish Trump had won?

And the answer has to be no. Counterfactuals always seem better than reality because they assume that if we avoided our current problems, other problems would not take their place.  Trump was contemplating everything from withdrawing from NATO and South Korea to starting a war with Iran.  Certainly there is every reason to believe he intended to subvert the federal government more and more to make it an instrument of his personal power, to reward friends and punish enemies.  The grownups in the room were able to reign Trump in for his first term.  It is far from clear that they could have done so for a second.