HERE IS MY LIST OF WORST POLITICIANS IN THE UNITED STATES
Here is my list of the worst politicians in the United States.
1. Donald Trump. I don’t know how we got him. I keep pinching myself, hoping to wake up from this national nightmare. Can you imagine it? A guy who embodies all of our worst fears is steering the ship. He appears to be in bed with Vladimir Putin who is responsible for fixing elections. He considers some of the scariest, meanest totalitarian types in the world to be his “friends.” He also appears to be a misogynist of the worst order and a racist who will do just about anything to keep people of color and immigrants from voting, most likely on the theory that they are on the way to becoming the majority of the country’s voters and equality of opportunity will take hold. He has poisoned our judiciary and if he wins another term, the Supreme Court of the United States will be forever tainted.
2. Trump is aided and abetted by his lieutenant, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader who looks and sounds like a bad guy from a Harry Potter movie. As long as McConnell remains in power, he will do the bidding of those spineless Republicans who know that Trump is awful but won’t do what’s right and oppose him because he enjoys such huge popularity among your basic Republican voters. McConnell not only leads a United States Senate which is supposed to keep an eye on the president, but he has a wife who is a member of Trump’s cabinet. Talk about conflict of interest.
3. Jared Kushner. Continuing the theme of familial conflict of interest, here is the spawn of a convicted criminal who is married to the daughter of the President of the United States. Trump fires a lot of people but he’s not about to fire this pathetic guy. Rather, Trump keeps putting him in charge of the most serious and difficult tasks including the Arab-Israeli situation, leading to more and more jokes with the punchline, “How did that work out?
4. Then there is the well-known prevaricator and Attorney General of the United States, Bill Barr. He makes the list because no one has done more than he to keep Trump from the criminal indictments that he so richly deserves. Remember when he testified at his Senate hearing that he would be independent? Really? Are you telling me that he doesn’t know who he is working for? That he doesn’t go home and tell his family that Trump is an idiot? Unlike some of the others on this list, Barr doesn’t get the discredit that he deserves.
5. Vladimir Putin. This ex-KGB colonel learned his lessons well in post-Stalinist Russia. It may not be called communism but it is authoritarianism. This miscreant has spread his poison around the globe. He may talk about democracy, but his political rivals have a way of ending up in jail and it is clear that he has spent his considerable political capital on corrupting our elections and may, in large part, be responsible for getting Trump elected. Talk about a really bad dream.
6. Rudy Giuliani. “America’s Mayor” has so disgraced himself that he appears to have proven too much, even for Trump. He has virtually disappeared from the political stage. He has made it clear that Trump can’t double-cross him, perhaps indicating that he has enough dirt to sink Trump.
7. Devin Nunes. This guy has disgraced his position in the House of Representatives. We should all remember his running up to the White House to buttress the corrupt president. There really aren’t that many Republican Congressmen from California and there are likely to be fewer when this political fog clears.
There are others who could have made the list, but this is my current assessment.
Alan Chartock is professor emeritus at the State University of New York, publisher of the Legislative Gazette and president and CEO of the WAMC Northeast Public Radio Network. Readers can email him at [email protected].
