"Trump was the worst president ever" (Max Boot)

The challenge — and the opportunity — for Joe Biden is that he succeeds the worst president in U.S. history. 

Donald Trump’s tenure was characterized by colossal incompetence and mind-numbing indifference to the public good. His coronavirus management has resulted in more than 24.1 million cases in the United States and almost 400,000 deaths — projected to exceed 500,000 deaths by May. 

While overseeing arguably the worst loss of life since the great influenza of 1918, Trump also presided over the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. He is the first president in modern history to see a net loss of jobs during his time in office. Those bare figures — catastrophic as they are — barely begin to plumb the depths of Trump’s failures, which were moral as much as managerial. 

He was the most dishonest president ever: He produced more than 30,000 documented falsehoods. AD He was the most corrupt president ever. He used his office to enrich his businesses, interfered in Justice Department investigations, engaged in obstruction of justice, stonewalled Congress, refused to release his tax returns, purged inspectors-general and pardoned his cronies and co-conspirators. 

He was the most openly racist president in modern times — arguably since Woodrow Wilson. He consistently tried to fire up his White base with bigotry against people of color. His actions too often matched his vile words — most notoriously when he ordered the children of undocumented immigrants separated from their parents. 

He was the first president who refused to accept election defeat or propagated bizarre conspiracy theories to undermine confidence in the electoral system. 

He became the only president ever impeached twice — once for trying to blackmail Ukraine into helping him politically, the second time for inciting a violent insurrection to try to stay in office. 

He leaves office with only 34 percent approval in the Gallup poll after having been the first president never to crack 50 percent support since the advent of Gallup polling. 

Because of Trump’s calamitous and costly failures, Biden will take office with hardly anyone present to watch his inauguration in a city that now has more U.S. troops than there are in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. 

Biden will lead a nation where 75 percent of Republicans do not think he was fairly elected because they have bought into the Big Lie spread by Trump and the right-wing propaganda machine, who will continue to undermine and abuse him at every turn. 

The new president will face monumental challenges that exceed those of any incoming president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. 

Not only must Biden stop a pandemic and revive an economy, but he must address global warming, income inequality, racial injustice, restore confidence in government, reinvigorate the rule of law, return ethics to government, decrease divisions in U.S. society and depoliticize government agencies. 

It’s a daunting, nearly overwhelming to-do list. But, paradoxically, by taking over at such a low point in our history, Biden is set up for success.