I was chatting with a guy at a wedding recently who told me that Donald Trump was the best president in American history.
You have to be careful these days. Was he pulling my leg? Was he serious?
I explored: “What do you have in mind?”
“Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and he negotiated the Abraham Accords.”
Got it. If you’re a strong supporter of Israel, and you ignore everything else, Trump’s great.
I headed to the bar for another drink.
If you ask me, Trump is the worst president in American history. In 12 short months, Trump has changed the world in ways that it will take decades — or longer — to recover from. A year ago, American medical research was the envy of the world. No more. And one can’t easily replace the institutional knowledge that has departed government agencies.
A year ago, America had allies around the world who we could count on for support. No more. And now that countries have learned that the United States is untrustworthy, it’s not clear that we’ll ever be able to restore our reputation.
A year ago, most countries were showing restraint in their pursuit of nuclear weapons. I’m pretty sure those days are over. If European countries in NATO and Asian allies can no longer trust American security guarantees — and Trump has made clear that they can’t — then Germany and Poland and South Korea and Japan, not to mention less prominent countries, will think again about developing nuclear deterrents.
Trump has changed the world, perhaps permanently, for the worse. There’s no going back.
I’m not talking about political foolishness — pardoning the January 6 crowd — or economic foolishness — imposing, and then lifting, and then imposing again tariffs. Those are short-term harms, from which the country might recover. I’m talking about long-term damage that may be irreparable.
And that’s giving Trump the benefit of the doubt about whether he’ll try to do something venal in connection with this year’s midterm elections.
Despite all that, I guarantee — guarantee — that at some point during the 2028 presidential election campaign, Democrats will say that one or more Republican candidates are “worse than Trump.”
These are Democrats who scream that Trump is a fascist, compare him to Hitler, and believe that the United States may never again have a fair election.
I guarantee you they’ll say the 2028 candidate will be even worse.
On what basis do I give this guarantee?
First, there’s the logic of political campaigns. Every Republican candidate is the worst ever. Bush lied and people died; no one could be worse. Romney strapped his dog to the roof of a car; no one could be worse. Trump ran companies into bankruptcy and had no government experience; how could things get worse?
Folks always go nuts in political campaigns to gain an advantage over the other side. Democrats will do it again in 2028.
Second, there’s past precedent. In 2024, it looked for a while like Ron DeSantis was gaining ground and might become the Republican presidential nominee. So what did Democrats say about him?
There was the opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times describing a DeSantis presidency as a “catastrophe in other ways,” potentially more dangerous in certain respects than Trump. There were political forums in which folks wrote that “DeSantis would be worse than Trump.” There were Facebook discussion groups in which people explained that DeSantis’s politics were to the right of Trump, and he was a more effective spokesman for those views, so DeSantis was the greater of two evils.
Finally, I guarantee that people will say that other candidates are worse than Trump because they already are doing precisely that. A few weeks ago, in an opinion piece for Fox News, Hugh Hewitt canvassed the many places in which people have already said that JD Vance is worse than Trump. Vance appears calmer, can speak more crisply, is more reactionary, and would be more effective. He’s worse than Trump!
No, no, no.
Trump is terrible.
Some spineless lickspittle Republican who showered praise on Trump during cabinet meetings or didn’t have the gumption to call him out in Congress is surely a disgusting human being. That person may be stupid or may be smart, may be trustworthy or not, may be a felon or have been found liable for damages for sexual assault, or may have many other reasons to oppose him (or her).
But having proclaimed that Trump is the worst, and with all the evidence to back it up, the 2028 Democratic campaign must be run on other issues.
No matter how bad the Republican candidate in 2028, that person is not worse than Trump.
It’s simply impossible.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.
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