• sugar_in_your_tea
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    1 month ago

    another four years of peace and quiet

    Yes, that would be nice.

    That said, for all of the nonsense Trump spewed, his actual changes were pretty mild:

    • increased deficit and probably contributed to COVID inflation (cash handouts and whatnot tend to cause inflation)
    • capital punishment - US previously had a moratorium on executions, which he lifted
    • immigration - reduced number of refugees admitted, increased border security; family separation was pretty awful too
    • trade - withdrew and renegotiated some agreements, levied tariffs; trade deficit increased
    • Russia - weakened sanctions on Russia
    • Afghanistan - negotiated withdrawal of US troops
    • Iran - withdrew from nuclear arms agreement and increased sanctions

    Most of that doesn’t impact anyone, except maybe the weakened sanctions against Russia encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. But that’s really hard to say, since the invasion didn’t happen until 2 years into Biden’s presidency, so it probably would have happened regardless. the trade negotiations were mostly directed at Asian trade partners (mostly China).

    He was a terrible president, yes, but most of the impact to regular people was him spewing rhetoric on social media. I honestly just ignored that noise and was relatively happy during his presidency (and the tax cuts were nice).