According to its author, Trump considers Biden's presidency a “historical anomaly” and is trying to portray his four-year term at the head of the White House as illegitimate.
Trump intends to dismantle all “supports of the old liberal order” in Washington, media believes.
Axios named five issues on which Trump is acting contrary to Biden's actions.
First, Trump has “turned on its head” the premise promoted by Biden that the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which Trump himself was involved, was an attack on American democracy and a “national trauma,” the newspaper writes.
It notes that “obsessed with a thirst for revenge,” Trump pardoned “thousands” of defendants in this case, appointed to government positions those who denied the results of the 2020 election and used government resources to hush up this incident.
Second, Trump has abandoned the government's vision of diversity, equity and inclusion, cultivated under Biden, and launched a massive campaign against universities and institutions that he associates with the Biden-era agenda. In addition, the current head of the White House himself voiced overt racial accusations.
Third, the Trump administration fired thousands of career officials associated with Biden's policy of respectable expertise and professional institutions that were needed “especially in the wake of COVID-19 and the chaos of Trump's first term.”
The publication cited Trump's appointment as US Secretary of Health of Robert Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccination skeptic, as one example of violations of this principle..
Fourth, Trump, unlike Biden, does not view global warming as an existential threat and a fundamental principle of governance and, instead, has called climate change a “hoax,” waged a war on clean energy, and promoted fossil fuels as the key to lowering prices and fueling the artificial intelligence revolution.
The media writes that now the topic of climate has completely disappeared from the agenda in the United States.
Fifth, Biden's foreign policy, based on the idea of projecting American power through alliances including NATO and support for Ukraine, has changed based on Trump's vision of a new world order in which “great powers” make the rules and deal with allies through threats and territorial gains and economic coercion.
The authors of the material believe that Trump’s desire to “erase” Biden’s legacy “is deeply personal.” In particular, the publication draws attention to Trump's baseless claims about the allegedly fraudulent 2020 elections (he lost to Biden by a ratio of 51.3% to 46.8%).
Axios concluded that a presidential legacy now lasts only as long as its successors maintain it.
Trump is “determined” to leave his “physical mark” on Washington and is betting that his own legacy will be “more lasting,” the media writes.
