Kerr: Donald Trump had his shot as POTUS and he blew it. Bigly.

Donald Trump kicked off his 2024 re-election campaign by saying he wanted to return America to the glory of 2020. Apparently, as seems to be happening quite a bit lately, Trump doesn’t have a precise recollection of 2020, his last year in the Oval Office.

Well, I do. I remember the economy shutting down and the stock market collapsing. I recall empty store shelves, rioting in the streets, Americans dying by hundreds of thousands during the COVID pandemic and, through it all, White House leadership that was best described as schizophrenic.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, he had a politically spotless record because he had never held public office. This time around, he’ll be evaluated by more than outlandish promises and delusional boasts – he can be judged on his performance.

And of course, his bang-up job the first time around prompted his firing by a record-shattering 81 million voters in 2020.

By his own admission, Donald Trump put together the worst presidential cabinet in the history of our country. This was after he promised he would bring “the best people in the world” into his administration.

He described his own first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, as being “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.” The former president called his first defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, “the world’s most overrated general” and tweeted “I didn’t like his ‘leadership’ style or much else about him.” He said his second defense secretary, Mark Esper, was “weak and totally ineffective“ and “a lightweight.”

Jeff Sessions was “scared stiff and Missing in Action” as Trump’s first attorney general, while his successor William Barr is “a low life” and “a coward who didn’t do his job.” James Kelley, who served as secretary of homeland security and then White House chief of staff under Trump, “was unable to handle the pressure” and “wasn’t even able to function in the last number of months.”

Trump’s third national security advisor John Bolton is “a warmonger” and “one of the dumbest people in Government,” and the two previous selections were fired − one (Michael Flynn) for lying. Transportation secretary Elaine Chao is “crazy” and “a sellout to China."

The proclaimed incompetence extended beyond his cabinet as well. Current GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley is “a birdbrain,” but Trump asked her to serve as his first United Nations ambassador. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is “clueless” and former communications director Anthony Scaramucci is a “highly unstable nut job,” but FBI Director Christopher Wray was “the worst person in my administration,” according to Trump.

Even his right-hand man, former vice president Mike Pence, is “delusional” and “not a very good person,” and “didn't have the courage” to do his job.

Mind you, these are all folks Trump hand-picked to these positions.

So, if Trump by his own admission is such a terrible evaluator of talent, why the hell would voters send him back to the Oval Office to put together another team of incompetents? And considering Trump’s well-documented demand for absolute subservience, I don’t want anyone willing to serve in a second Trump administration anywhere near the White House. You have to question the character of someone so eager to be close to power they’re willing to publicly debase themselves.

In regards to his presidential tenure, it would just be too easy to focus on the failure of Trump’s two biggest promises – having Mexico pay to build a wall along our southern border, and repealing Obamacare. Or the $8 trillion he added to the national debt. Or the millions his businesses accepted from Communist China while he occupied the Oval Office (which I’m sure Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee will immediately start investigating.)

But consider this:

Trump has often criticized George W and/or Jeb Bush – he tends to get the brothers confused – for the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 happening “on his watch.” Nearly 3,000 Americans died during those attacks.

However, many of the same supporters who claim Trump would keep us safe and secure as president also promote conspiracy theories claiming the COVID pandemic was orchestrated by China.  Georgia genius Marjorie Greene has called COVID-19 a “Chinese made bio weapon.” By his own rationale, the pandemic happened on Trump’s watch. And nearly 1.2 million Americans wound up dying as a result.

As tragic as it was, COVID could have provided Trump his Winston Churchill moment. Instead, he more closely resembled a bumbling WC Fields, consistent only in his inconsistency.

You’ll recall back in January 2020, he told us, “We have it totally under control.” Then in February, he said it would likely “go away in April with the heat.” Later, it was just going to disappear “like a miracle.” In fact, this became Trump’s running mantra. “This is going to go away without a vaccine,” he said that May. In July, he noted, “I’ll be right eventually.”

The message regarding masks was even more garbled. During an April task force press conference, Trump declared the Center for Disease Control was “advising the use of nonmedical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measure,” then promptly added, “I don't think I'm going to be doing it." Later he started saying it was “patriotic” to wear masks but after a May factory tour, said he removed his because, bizarrely, he “didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”

“We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask,” he said in July. Then in August he offered this helpful gem: “Masks may be good, they may be just okay, or they may be great."

He also infamously suggested we look into injecting disinfectants as a way of “cleaning” the coronavirus from our bodies.

Trump repeatedly claimed COVID was no worse than the common flu, and even in September 2020 told supporters at a campaign rally “it affects virtually nobody."

As New Hampshire voters prepare for the upcoming January 23^rd primary, we could dive into Trump’s botched attempt to steal the 2020 election; the aura of corruption attached to nearly every aspect of his life; his increasingly rambling incoherence; or his blatant intentions of expanding a second term into a dictatorship.

But what it really all comes down to is a guy asking to return to his old job, hoping you’ll forget how much he sucked the first time around.

D. Allan Kerr is an ex-dockworker, former newspaperman and U.S. Navy veteran living in Kittery, Maine.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kerr: Donald Trump had his shot as POTUS and he blew it. Bigly.