Leubsdorf: How Trump is entering the rare club of consequential presidents

Over the past three elections President Donald Trump has redefined the United States politically strengthening Republican endorsement among blue collar workers and reducing traditional Democratic majorities among racial minorities Now with the enactment of his misleadingly titled One Big Beautiful Bill Trump has for better or worse redefined the shape of the federal establishment The measure will reverse nearly a century of efforts to help the poor the elderly and minorities by cutting key aspects of the social safety net to deprive millions of their medical insurance At the same time Trump s decision to bomb Iran s nuclear sites may have launched the greater part extensive effort in more than four decades to achieve a broader Middle East settlement If achieved it could further enhance his historical legacy Related Articles Letters State should protect science with reliable funding FBI director Dan Bongino reportedly eyeing resignation Who will and won t benefit from the bigger SALT deduction Trump to host Philippine president to discuss deal and assurance in Asia States scramble to shield hospitals from GOP Medicaid cuts Rare achievements It s an extraordinary set of achievements for the often dismissed New York City real estate mogul increasing the likelihood that his presidency will be seen as one of the the bulk critical of the past century along with those of Franklin D Roosevelt Lyndon B Johnson and Ronald Reagan This had to be the best two weeks Trump reported at a July Des Moines Iowa success rally celebrating enactment of his signal tax and spending ordinance He predicted the measure will deliver the strongest boundary on Earth the strongest commercial sector on Earth the strongest military on Earth But critics contend the ultimate damage from reduced governmental services a shattered safety net trillions in added deficits and his extra-legal efforts to expand presidential powers will darken historical assessments of his significance and rank him among the worst U S presidents That negative assessment seems likely to contrast sharply with history s more positive ones of other critical presidents Roosevelt engineered the market s rescue from the Great Depression created the safety net with ground-breaking measures like Social Defense and successfully managed the defeat of German and Japanese aggressors in World War II Johnson expanded FDR s safety net by taking advantage of huge Democratic majorities to pass Medicare Medicaid federal aid to mentoring and array of vital civil rights laws though those domestic successes were offset to selected extent by his disastrous mismanagement of the Vietnam war Reagan restored the country s faith after the national traumas of the Vietnam era and won passage of a considerable tax improvement bill and a major immigration measure though his efforts to tame mounting federal deficits proved largely unsuccessful All three won landslide elections but all ultimately encountered political resistance losing vital sponsorship and in selected cases their majorities in mid-term congressional elections FDR in LBJ in and Reagan in Small margins big impact Trump s electoral margins were smaller but his strong leadership enabled the small but cohesive congressional majorities he helped to elect to muscle through his massive bill by a single vote in the Senate and two in the House But even as the president celebrated his biggest legislative triumph a few Republicans expressed fears that provisions likely to cost millions their robustness care benefits along with other governing body aid like food stamps will cause a political backlash next year that could cost the GOP its congressional majorities Even before Congress acted Republican Sen Josh Hawley of Missouri warned that building a bill around slashing medical insurance for the working poor which it ultimately did was both morally wrong and politically suicidal If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits Missouri workers and their children will lose their strength care And hospitals will close It s that simple And that pattern will be replicated in states across the country he predicted in a New York Times op-ed Similarly House Republicans wrote GOP leaders declaring we cannot patronage a final bill that threatens access to Medicaid coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers But the bill did exactly that requiring states to implement an array of work requirements and other administrative restrictions that independent analysts noted would cost millions their benefits and prompt the closure of rural hospitals that Medicaid funds have sustained Nevertheless Hawley and the lawmakers all voted for it listing sections that helped their states and ignoring damaging ones When Republican Sen Lisa Murkowski of Alaska cited provisions helping Alaskans as her reason for voting yea she also acknowledged It is not good enough for the rest of our nation and we all know it Potentially pyrrhic One of the five congressional Republicans who resisted Trump s pressure North Carolina Sen Thom Tillis noted It would impact in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina including our hospitals and rural communities We can and must do better than this he explained But after his message provoked Trump to vow a primary fight against him next year Tillis disclosed he won t seek re-election the latest GOP Trump critic to quit rather than fight Meanwhile House Democrats vowed to use GOP justifications in their fight to overturn the GOP s current five-seat majority After former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly declared of the bill s critics that they ll get over it House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries threw those words back at the Kentucky Republican No Mitch the people won t get over it the New York lawmaker declared in his -hour -minute speech detailing Democratic objections to the measure But they will get even next November Unfortunately it will take more than a Democratic resurgence to undo the damage that the historically bad Trump presidency is causing Carl P Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News The Dallas Morning News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency