President Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention was an appropriate encapsulation of his disastrous presidency. 

For starters, let’s discuss his failure to lead the country on racial issues. During his speech, Trump proclaimed that “Biden and his party repeatedly assail America as a land of racial, economic and social injustice, so tonight, I ask you a simple question: how can the Democratic Party ask to lead our country when it spent so much time tearing down our country?” 

It is worth mentioning that this is coming from the same person who, when discussing life as a black person in America during a rally, said, “you’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose,” and stated during the 2016 Iowa caucus, “how stupid are the people of Iowa, how stupid are the people of the United States.” 

Nevertheless, this president has continually shown throughout his time in office an intentional ignorance surrounding racial issues. According to him, if you believe that America has systemic racial injustices that must be addressed, you hate America; this alone is an indictment of his presidency.

If convinced that the other side hates your country, as many of the president’s supporters believe, meaningful dialogue becomes mute.

Then there’s Trump’s condemnation of violence in certain cities where he’s said, “in the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities all, like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago and New York and many others.” 

Is it true that there are some isolated situations where there are violent protesters? Yes. Is it also the case that the vast majority of people protesting for black lives are doing so peacefully and responsibly? Absolutely. However, Trump chooses to amplify the small contingent of violent people within the black lives matter movement to score political points. 

But perhaps the lasting legacy of the Trump presidency will be his incessant lies and hypocrisy. During his speech, Trump railed against cancel culture, saying that its “goal is to make Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it.”

Though Trump says this one week, just last week he urged his supporters in a tweet to cancel Goodyear tires because of a misleading document. 

In his speech, Trump stated that he would protect Medicare and Social Security, yet earlier this month he both directly and indirectly called for cuts to each program. 

Trump said that he would protect those with preexisting conditions, but his justice department is in court, arguing that Obamacare, including the provision mandating preexisting conditions, should be unconstitutional.

Trump has also claimed that he replaced NAFTA with a better trade deal, yet the trade agreement he signed into law, the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, is essentially the same deal with a different name.

Finally, in perhaps his biggest and boldest lie of the night, Trump said, “I kept my promise. Together we have ended the rule of the failed political class, and they are desperate to get their power back by any means necessary. You have seen that. They are angry at me because instead of putting them first, I very simply said, ‘America first.'”

The fact of the matter is that Trump doesn’t care about his millions of supporters and he certainly doesn’t care about the majority of the country who oppose him; for the president, it’s not America first, it’s Trump first, and he will lie and divide this country apart if it benefits him.