Trump’s last year in office will define his legacy, historians say

CNN — Historians face a daunting task when it comes time to assessing Donald Trump’s presidency, during which news often moved at breakneck pace, and the ramifications of his one-term presidency have yet to be determined. Jeff Engel, a presidential historian and author of “Impeachment: An American History,” told CNN that he doesn’t “think that anything that President Trump did this year surprised anyone – either his supporters, or his detractors, or neutral critics.” “What he managed to do over the first three years was to genuinely reveal who he was and everything the last year has just deepened the color palette for that portrait,” Engel said. Trump, Engel said, had an opportunity to rise to the challenge and change the narrative of his presidency, and “one of the things every President needs in order to go down in history as a significant or great president is a great crisis.” January 6 – a ‘defining’ day Historians also told CNN that Trump’s legacy will be marred by his refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election and advancement of misinformation and distrust in the American electoral process. History scholar Lindsay Chervinsky, author of “The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution,” told CNN that the turnover in Trump’s Cabinet has been “un-paralleled in American history” and is “perhaps one of the most unprecedented things about his presidency.” Johns Hopkins University history professor Martha Jones and others told CNN that the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy that led to thousands of migrant children separated from their families, will certainly be revisited and have historians grappling with how it’s possible the policy was permitted. “Our international standing has really suffered.” Trump’s GOP US President Donald Trump raises his fist at the end of a rally to support Republican Senate candidates at Valdosta Regional Airport in Valdosta, Georgia.