Strong winds blew over parts of Trump's new border wall with Mexico. TV News
Evaluating Trump's effectiveness as president is not as simple as it seems. We incline to view Trump as a clown whose primary accomplishments are criminal. Because this is our tendency, we must apply some systematic method to guard against our biases. The media's standard practice compares candidates' campaign promises to their accomplishments. This method can undercount Trump's achievements.
When Politifact considered a selection of Trump's campaign promises, Trump did not appear to be very effective. Ten promises and their outcome follow: build a wall — and make Mexico pay for it (failure); temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States (partial success); bring manufacturing [jobs] back (failure); impose tariffs on goods made in China and Mexico (partial success); renegotiate or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership (success); fully repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a market-based alternative (failure); renegotiate the Iran deal (failure); leave Social Security as is (success); cut taxes; bomb or 'take the oil' from ISIS (success), and appoint conservative judges (success).
First, some of these campaign promises are feckless. For example, if 'leaving social security as is' and 'bombing or taking the oil from ISIS' is considered a campaign promise, they are Trump's accomplishments. But fulfilling these promises took little effort on Trump's part. Second, the media's method of measuring effectiveness does not consider the importance of one accomplishment relative to another. Cutting taxes for the rich and appointing conservative judges are two enormously meaningful accomplishments. Failing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act was one of Trump's biggest failures and liberal successes. Cutting taxes was consequential because it cemented the wealthy donors to Trump for the 2020 election, although it did not lead to victory. Appointing conservative judges may have resulted in the ultra-right's long-term effort to dismantle liberal democracy in this country.
Trump is capable of spearheading success. He may need enablers, but there seems to be no end to them. We must not underestimate or ignore Trump.