Matthew Tully

Three months in, the Trump presidency is worse than even many of its biggest critics predicted it would be. Three months in, I still find myself occasionally stunned at the thought that America is being led by this mess of an administration. Three months in, Donald Trump has already done great damage to the country, its level of discourse, and the office of the presidency.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence spent time on the North Korean border, highlighting an increasingly dangerous situation that demands the most serious of minds. Meanwhile, back at home, Trump was tweeting away. The fan of the National Enquirer criticized what he calls the “fake media,” while also lobbing petty partisan jabs at Democrats and, of course, quoting a cable TV news personality who had offered flattering praise of him.

Much will be said about the Trump presidency in the coming days, as his 100th day in office approaches. But the verdict is in: In his early days in office, Trump has been a uniquely bad president. He’s been a mean-spirited president. He’s been a president unworthy of the office. The only up-side is that he has also been ineffective, so some of his worst intentions have thankfully stalled.

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Like other Trump critics, I’ve often been told to “get over it” — to accept the 2016 election results and move on. Well, I long ago accepted the results. I don’t dispute them. Trump got more votes than anyone last year (well, except for Hillary Clinton) and he is without question the president of the United States. But as for shutting up — sorry, I feel guilty every day in which I don’t speak up and speak out.

I recently visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. What struck me most were not Kennedy’s policies, nor his successes and failures, but rather the words in speech after speech that at their core sought to uplift and unite Americans. That’s what we expect of our presidents, and it explains why Barack Obama and George W. Bush are more popular now that their days in the White House are over and they are being compared to its current occupant.

Since being elected, Trump has fueled unfounded doubts about the integrity of our voting systems. At 70 years old, he has called a political rival a clown and tweeted about a reporter’s looks, like a mean kid in middle school. Without evidence, he has accused Obama and others of serious misconduct. He has obsessively criticized his predecessor at a time when America needs him to look forward. He has threatened to starve huge parts of the health care system, threatening the security of consumers and patients, simply because the master of “the deal” couldn’t get a deal done with his fellow Republicans in Congress.

He has stood for nothing, other than his own glory.

A Fox News headline about a special congressional election this week said, “Trump taunts Dem candidate in Georgia election.” There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a president being involved in elections. But the accurate use of the word “taunt” said so much about the caliber of this president. He taunts. He mocks. He diminishes others. In doing so, he has diminished his office.

None of this should be surprising. Trump ran a petty campaign and things turned out fine for him. He mocked his opponents, along with a war hero, a reporter with disabilities and so many others, and it didn’t cost him. He proposed policies riddled with bigotry, and his campaign soared. He played by his own rules, refusing to release his tax returns so that America could learn about his interests. And now, despite all the leaks, his administration is turning its back on transparency, refusing to let America know who is coming in and out of the White House.

Of late, Trump has flip-flopped on several critical issues. Every time he does so, many of us breathe a little easier, because it means he is being pulled into a D.C. swamp that, while far from perfect, is a lot less scary than the vision of America Trump has espoused. But those flip-flops only underscore that this is a presidency about nothing other than its leader.

Fortunately, Congress shrugged off much of what the Trump administration proposed in its first budget plan. Still, that document told us a lot about this president. He was willing to slash assistance for rural businesses, for after-school programs, for food-security aid, for clean water initiatives, for teacher training, and so much else. He sought to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, kill climate change programs, and rip out nearly one-fifth of the resources allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to a Washington Post analysis, Trump tellingly called for an end to initiatives such as NASA’s Office of Education, the Energy Department’s Office of Science, and, of course, the U.S. Institute of Peace. The budget slashed spending on transit in cities and for rural airports. It attacked neighborhood investment initiatives and cut work-study programs.

It was as reckless as Trump is on Twitter. It was as poorly thought out as a travel ban that, along with so much anti-immigrant rhetoric, has led to reported reductions in tourism — massive reductions that will hurt workers at hotels and restaurants as well as American communities and the very essence of what America means.

It didn’t have to be this way. With his many gifts, and his outsider’s perspective, Trump could have rallied America. He could have replaced Washington gridlock with a new spirit of collaboration. He could have reminded all us of that, in the end, we are one.

Three months in, he has done none of that. He has failed America.

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to email me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or follow me at Twitter.com/matthewltully.