Summary List Placement
President Donald Trump entered the election year as just the third commander-in-chief in US history to be impeached.
He was ultimately acquitted, in an impeachment trial that would soon become a distant memory amid a pandemic that’s killed over 386,000 Americans and left millions unemployed.
But with just a week left in office, Trump was impeached once again — this time for inciting a violent insurrection at the US Capitol. He’s now the only American president who has been impeached twice.
Trump is just the 11th incumbent president who won their party’s nomination but failed to win reelection. He was defeated by President-elect Joe Biden in an election he has baselessly written off as fraudulent.
To many, Trump has been the most controversial and divisive president in modern US history, but has enjoyed a remarkably steady approval rating thanks to his staunchly loyal supporters.
Even as polling has repeatedly shown that most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his overall approval rating has barely changed.
Read more: Mass firings, frozen funding, and midnight rules: Inside the Democrats’ operation to fight back against Trump going scorched-earth in a Biden transition
Here are Trump’s biggest accomplishments and failures as president, measured by their overall impact and taking into account the general response from Congress, the public, and the world.
SEE ALSO: Angry protesters swarming the US embassy in Baghdad caps off Trump’s disastrous year in the Middle East
Accomplishment: Reshaping the federal judiciary
Trump’s most lasting impact on the country will be the reshaping of the federal judiciary.
So far, Trump has installed three Supreme Court justices and 220 judges overall to the federal bench — all for lifetime appointments. Amy Coney Barrett became Trump’s third Supreme Court justice on October 26, barely a week before Election Day.
By December 2019, Trump nominees made up roughly 25% of all US circuit court judges, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
In four years, he’s appointed 53 judges on the 13 US circuit courts. To put this in perspective, former President Barack Obama appointed 55 circuit judges in his two terms in the White House.
The courts get the final say in US politics, setting precedents that can shape the country for years to come.
Even though Trump was not reelected in 2020, his presidency will continue to have an influence on the direction of the US because of the sheer number of conservative federal judges he’s installed.
Accomplishment: Space Force
In signing a $738 billion defense spending bill just a few days before Christmas, Trump officially established the sixth branch of the US Armed Forces — the Space Force.
The Space Force is the first new military service since the US Air Force was created in 1947.
Despite its name, the new branch has not been established to protect the planet from extraterrestrial threats, but is tasked with protecting the US military’s assets in space.
“This is not a farce. This is nationally critical,” Gen. John Raymond, who Trump tapped to lead the Space Force, told …read more
Source:: Business Insider
