For the past year or so, in speaking to groups, I’ve ventured to suggest that Donald Trump will ultimately rank among the least consequential presidents in U.S. history. I did not intend that to be a laugh line.
Trump, I argued, was likely to end up being to the 21st century what James Buchanan was to the 19th and Warren G. Harding to the 20th – someone who, after occupying the White House for a time, departed and left nary a trace. In the end, Trump’s defining traits -- vulgarity, meanness, self-absorption, and apparently compulsive dishonesty -- would count for little in the scales of history. So I believed.
Let me confess that I have now begun to entertain second thoughts. Trump’s abrogation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the so-called Iran deal, easily qualifies as the most consequential decision of his administration.
