The Trump Legacy and the Need for a New Republican Party

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon

The moving vans pulled up to the White House. Trump's personal belongings, as well as whatever pieces the government owned Trump wanted, were packed away and removed from the residence and the Oval Office. The carpet in the Oval was changed from Trump's favorite gold to a more traditional dark blue carpet.

The portrait of Andrew Jackson was replaced by a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A bust of Winston Churchill was replaced by a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The official photos of Trump and Pence were replaced by portraits of Biden and Harris.

Donald Trump left the White House on Wednesday morning and boarded Marine One for the final time. He took a flight around Washington, D.C. and headed to Joint Base Andrews for his triumphant farewell rally. But there were no huge crowds of adoring admirers in attendance.

Most of the elected officials decided to forego attending his send off and decided to stay in Washington for the inauguration. Others decided to simply stay home.

Well, at least Trump would be met by scores of his favorite photo props - generals. Surely there'd be several Army, Marine, and Air Force generals in attendance, their shiny stars glistening on their shoulders. There might even be some sdmirals there, with the gold rings on the cuff of their jackets blinding all the news cameras there.

Instead, a colonel met him when the doors of Marine One were opened.

Trump tried to rouse the few people in attendance one last time. In usual Trumpian fashion, it was a lie-riddled rambling of just how awesome he was and just how much he did. It was almost reminiscent of Joe McCarthy trying to explain his actions when a lawyer hired by the Army finally had enough of his antics and interrupted him.

"Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

It almost seemed as if someone was going to interrupt Trump's ridiculous speech and tell the same thing at him.

"You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

Of course he doesn't. He skulked off the stage, went to his family, then slithered his way up the stairway and boarded Air Force One. He waved at those in attendance, as did the First Lady. Bringing back memories of a disgraced Richard Nixon boarding the plane for the final time, Trump disappeared into the darkness as the door to the plane was shut. The plane taxied down the runway and flew down to Florida.

I wonder if Trump was still in the air when the pilot would have come on the PA system as Joe Biden was taking the oath of office. "Air Force One is changing it's call sign. Air Force One is now Air Force (insert generic flight number here).

So many people rejoiced as Joseph R. Biden became President of the United States. Many are hoping for a return to normalcy. But what will Trump's legacy be?

Trump has caused damage to the idea of separation of powers. Never before in the history of the United States has the Executive Branch of the government done so much to prove the impotence of the Legislative Branch. Many government experts have said the Legislative Branch is the most powerful branch of government. This was proven false by the Trump presidency. Trump was able to get away with almost anything and everything he wanted. Despite Congress demanding the president release his tax returns, he simply ignored their demands. He never once gave Congress any cooperation with any investigation or provided any documents they requested. He extended the concept of Executive Privilege to cover people who had never been protected by Executive Privilege in the past. He didn't allow members of the Executive Branch to give testimony to Congress. He kept replacing cabinet officials with acting secretaries who were never confirmed by the Senate. And what were the president's consequences for doing all this?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened to him.

This lack of consequences emboldened the president to just continue ignoring Congress, proving the idea of checks and balances was more of a theory than something the branches of government actually have to abide by.

This will be the cornerstone to Trump's legacy. He proved the Executive Branch can pretty much do whatever it wants with nobody to tell him what to do, or that he needs permission to do certain things. The concept of three separate, and equal, branches of government, separation of powers, and checks and balances has been forever changed.

Another key part of his legacy is the damage he has caused to media organizations. We have always been taught we are all entitled to our own opinion, but we are not entitled to our own facts. 

This too, has changed.

One of the president's closest advisors, Kellyanne Conway, showed Goebbels-esque, blind loyalty to Trump in always explaining and justifying his actions. My jaw still drops to the floor when I see ths video clip of Conway presenting something she called "alternative facts." If something is a fact, there cannot be an alternative version of it. That's not how a fact works, but Conway and people like his other Minister of Propaganda and Information, Kayleigh McEnany, twisted everything he said and explained how he was always right, and presented these alternative facts to fit his narrative of lunacy and demagoguery.

When presented with facts, Trump simply stood up at the podium and said everything was "fake news," and called the media "enemies of the state." Those words may not sound like much to some, but he was calling reputable journalists traitors. That's a terrifying thing to do. When government leaders call members of the press traitors, there's something seriously wrong with the administration. Just because he stood at the podium and said, "no," or "wrong," didn't make what he said right.

And that's the Trump legacy. This disgraced billionaire who stole, lied, and conned his way through the majority of his business dealings, this draft-dodging jackass, this member of the New York elite, managed to convince so many people he was just an ordinary, everyday, plain-spoken guy who fought the elite his entire life. He manipulated his narrative and fooled everyone into thinking he was something he isn't.

He is the elite. 

And perhaps the most damaging plank of his legacy is how his actions and words proved it was OK to hate. It was OK to just divide the country and if your ideas and thoughts didn't align with mine, then you are the enemy. This is something that will not go away anytime soon. This is something I run into on a daily basis. I am not a Democrat. I am not a liberal. Many of my political views actually align with the real Republican Party. Some don't. I am an Independent. But since I am not a fan of Trump, since I dislike his methods and what he's done to the country, I am a liberal, and a Democrat, and I want open borders, and the government to turn socialist and communist, and I hate the police, and I hate God, and I'm an anarchist and a communist.

I'm none of those things.

Trump has also made it OK for people to be racists, and xenophobes, and homophobes, and nativists. The Proud Boys, white nationalist groups, white supremacist groups, and the Ku Klux Klan have no problems proudly marching with their Confederate battle flags, their Aryan Nation flags, swastikas, and Trump flags. How many of these people proudly display their MAGA hats right next to their Klan hoods?

"Stand back and stand by," right?

Not every Trump supporter is a bad person, or a racist, or a homophobe, but you're supporting someone who embraces those who are. Maybe they thought they were getting someone who was really going to represent them, but he really didn't.

The bottom line is this: Trump only ever cared about Trump.

And for some strange reason, he must have photos of all these Congressmen and women who support him playing golf with Satan at one of his clubs because he still has a stranglehold on the Republican Party. This is the last piece of his legacy I want to bring up. He has completely altered the complexion of the GOP. 

Although the Republican Party has been going through changes since the Tea Party crazies have been around, Trump has radicalized the party even worse. 

I fear nothing will change until the real Republicans break away from what the Trump Republicans have become. Political parties have split in the past, and this Republican Party has been around since the time of Abraham Lincoln, and is no longer the party of Lincoln. The real Republicans should break away and form the Real GOP, or the Real Republican Party. However, I'm sure this won't happen since the Republican "base" has become way too radicalized.

While I'm glad Trump is no longer President of the United States, his legacy will continue to scar this great nation for years to come.