Where Donald Trump ranks among the other 45 US presidents

Sometimes Donald Trump really is the GOAT, the greatest of all time among American presidents, at least. Of course, larger in this case refers to quantity or volume, not quality.

The biggest liar, given that the media has tracked an unprecedented number of repeated lies and gross exaggerations (more than 30,000 during his presidency and 40 at a single recent campaign rally in Reading, Pennsylvania).

The biggest critic of the laws since his famous statement: I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? to the January 6, 2021 incitement of an insurrection against the U.S. government, and his subsequent denials of any wrongdoing.

The biggest narcissist as in Only I Can Fix It, which encompasses the economy, the border, the welfare of women (I'll protect you), the alleged American blood poisoning, the war in Ukraine, etc. .

Trump against everyone

If Trump tops the ranking of American presidents in dubious categories, he is however not without competition among the 45 others.

Dishonesty has long emanated from the White House. Examples include Dwight D. Eisenhow's denial of CIA involvement in the 1954 coup in Guatemala and Bill Clinton misrepresenting his remarks about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Clinton denies having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998, which he later admitted to. (The Associated Press)

Other presidents considered themselves above the law. Andrew Jackson defied an 1832 Supreme Court ruling declaring the removal of Cherokees from Georgia illegal: (Supreme Court Chief Justice) John Marshall made his decision, he said. Now let him apply it. Richard Nixon tried to bluster his way out of the Watergate scandal.

Narcissism, however, is the trait by which Trump appears to leave his peers in the dust. Not that American presidents have ever lacked ego or its more viral variant, hubris, an extreme and unreasonable sense of pride and confidence. White House occupants and their aspirants invariably develop high self-perceptions and ambitions, since no one enters the presidential race from the stands at a small championship game.

The lust for political power increases steadily in escalating steps, a sequence that might be described as a compound appetite process, where each new success encourages a more intense lust for power and/or a greater sense of entitlement.

Compound Interest vs. Compound Appetite

Compound interest, as opposed to compound interest, is a phenomenon familiar to anyone with a savings account or mutual fund: it is calculated on the principal amount and accrued interest from previous periods, and can therefore be called interest on interest.

Investing sage Warren Buffett describes compound interest as a snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down a long hill in winter.

Trump’s life story embodies a foodie version of this compound dynamic. His life also demonstrates the dangers that an ever-larger snowball can pose to anything in its path.

Trump initially leaned on his father's New York real estate business, turning resources from the outer boroughs into a Manhattan tycoon. He then used the media notoriety, financial harassment and multiple bankruptcy maneuvers to build a global empire of hotels, casinos and golf courses.

The appetite for the spotlight was then fueled by the television success of The Apprentice, cultivating Trump's shy lust for political power into an unbridled thirst for it that is now manifesting itself in astonishing ways.

A former NBC marketing executive who promoted the series even recently apologized to Americans, saying he helped create a monster.

The rest against the best

Trump's snowballing appetites have reached GOAT proportions in the annals of the American presidency. Ambitious predecessors managed to stop (or were forced to stop) at a higher, safer place on the winter hills figuratively sloping from the White House.

The best of them, while inevitably imperfect human beings, have harnessed their egos to fuel and sustain transformative leadership.

George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt are examples. Each had a patrician personality and high self-esteem, but they also demonstrated self-control and a genuine respect for the democratic principles and public service ideals of their time.

Read more: How the fireside chat provided a model for calming the nation that President Trump failed to follow

The history of the United States during and immediately after the American Revolution would have been more arduous and uncertain without self-control, as would the future of the country during the brutal storms of the Great Depression and World War II without a commitment towards democratic principles. and the public service.

Some presidents have had a more mixed record, with impressive accomplishments sometimes undermined by a hubris that proved costly to themselves and others. Lyndon B. Johnson, a devoted heir to Roosevelt's New Deal vision of social and economic justice and a masterful engineer of legislative advancement, knew that his astonishing Great Society legacy was deeply tarnished by what he called this shitty war in Vietnam.

Overconfident in American power and in his personal abilities to strike a winning balance between military spending and social programs, Johnson joined a parade of presidents eager for victory in Vietnam, which he once called a damned pissy little country.

A crowd of American soldiers crowds around U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in October 1966, shortly after he arrived in Cam Rahn Bay, South Vietnam, while visiting troops during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo) Absurdity versus danger

In Trump’s case, hubris bred appetites that reached a scale that oscillated between laughable absurdity and profound danger.

On the one hand, is there anything he would not stoop to spending to increase his wealth? Merchandise recently offered to candidates includes pieces of the suit he wore during his June debate with President Joe Biden for US$1,485, succeeding the steaks and Trump University diplomas he once sold.

On the other hand, Trump's insatiable lust for power could spawn a second January 6 scenario if he loses next week.

Victory could lead to alternative scenarios: Trump has said he would veto a national abortion ban, but does his history of lying portend an escalation of the success he and his allies have achieved in overturning Roe v. Wade once electoral pressures are gone?

Read more: Abortion bans are changing what it means to be young in America

Could building a border wall lead to mass deportations? Could vulgar insults towards opponents and rejection of serious political debates lead to police or military actions against the so-called internal enemies against whom he has been rebelling for months.

Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion with Latin American leaders on October 22, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) How power corrupts

Trump's ego/appetite conflation and snowball dynamic that took him to new extremes is ultimately a variation on a famous dictum of British historians from the late 1800s about how power corrupts:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Although the phenomenon is observable in many areas, such as the behavior of Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley potentates, it was, for example, clearly highlighted during the 2024 American election campaign.

The presidential election and its aftermath will help clarify whether American politics will return to a more traditional minefield in which presidents navigate ego and hubris or whether Trump's jump from compound appetite to greedy narcissism power will bring new dangers to the United States.

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