Don't disagree with any of that.
The person I spoke with was so impressed because he (and the others in the deal) were specifically protecting themselves against any Trump shenanigans, but the way Trump changed the whole plan showed he was thinking many steps ahead of them.

But he turned out to be a one trick pony- his trick is screwing over everybody (perhaps in very clever ways) to boost his own power and wealth. The whole selfless part where he does it for the good of the nation, that never happened.

Anyone giving Trump any sort of benefit of the doubt even in 2016 could only generously be described as extremely ignorant. Trump had even at the time an extremely proven track record, and all of us proclaiming doom and gloom if he got elected were proven right over and over. The only surprise from any of this is that he didn't start a war and instead just managed to create enough instability to lead us where we are now with Israel/Palestine and especially Russia/Ukraine. Like, there was a lot of us telling everyone exactly what was going to happen in 2016, whether that was Roe, the racist immigration shit, the threat of a pandemic, the growing wealth inequality, his ability to handle something like Hurricane Maria, etc. We knew he was a rapist then. We knew he was a conman then. He had already mocked the disabled, military families, called hispanics murderers, rapists and drug dealers. He already and still maintained the Central Park Five, who'd long been exonerated, should have been put to death. Fuck's sake the only reason he started running basically was because he got a lot of attention for the birther bullshit which tbh wasn't even a dog whistle and he might have just as well had a klan hood on during that whole thing.

I'm not sure if it's more an indictment of the media, the education system, or just Republicans working for generations to do exactly what they have that literally anyone could give him the benefit of the doubt.

Even in this very thread, we're doing their work for them. Biden's been a fairly successful president by most normal metrics, and the only thing the media (and half of this thread) want to talk about is that he's old. Meanwhile, Trump is actually, routinely now showing that he's losing his faculties and he's a spry 3 years younger with the diet of a frat party at 2am and the exercise regimen of a russet potato, but yes, let's really dissect if Biden's putting out an international fire fast enough as if the alternative in Trump wouldn't be literally to throw matches and gas at the problem.