One of my pals, a retired physician living in Santa Fe, says the Trump years are the worst of times.
Hacks in executive government jobs. Economic chaos and decline because of ping-ponging tariffs. Due process violations. Pointless, relentless bullying of Canada and Greenland. A president whose reality is so warped he claims Ukraine started the war with Russia.
Are you tired of winning yet? Me either.
President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal seems tame compared to the crimes of Donald Trump, a convicted felon 34 times over. He's gotten away with more, like trying to steal the 2020 election. Remember the tape-recorded phone call in which Trump tried to browbeat Georgia executives into switching thousands of votes in his favor?
As bad as this time is, it's easy to forget life was worse, even if an overview is limited to a few events of the last 100 years.Â
- 1925, "LOWELL, Miss. (AP) — No arrests have been made as a result of the lynching of a Negro, J.P. Ivy, burned at the stake in a farm community last night. Sheriff John P. Roberts, from whom the Negro was taken by a crowd of infuriated citizens, said he did not recognize anyone who rushed in on him." The wire service got the victim's name wrong. He was L.Q. Ivy, a 17-year-old kid. Rumormongers said he raped a white woman.
- 1935, WASHINGTON — With unemployment at 20%, President Franklin Roosevelt pressed for passage of the Revenue Act, commonly called the Wealth Tax. Those with the highest incomes were taxed at a rate of 75%.
- 1945 — Platoon Sgt. Mike Strank of Pennsylvania is identified as one of the six Marines in Joe Rosenthal's famous photo of the U.S. flag being raised during the Battle of Iwo Jima. An immigrant from Czechoslovakia, Strank died six days after the photo was taken. A mortar blast killed him as he outlined a battle plan in the sand. Combat for U.S. soldiers in World War II lasted 1,335 days.
- 1955, MONEY, Miss. — Thirty years after L.Q. Ivy's death, lynchings of Black people continued without punishment for perpetrators. Two white men kidnapped and murdered Emmett Till, 14, on grounds he whistled at a white woman. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted defendants Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. They later confessed to murdering Emmett after being paid $4,000 to tell their story to Look magazine.
- 1965, ALBUQUERQUE — Brief newspaper stories about U.S. soldiers dying in Vietnam became more frequent. One told of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Secundino Baldonado dying in an attempt to save buddies after several 500-pound bombs accidentally exploded on a base in Bien Hoa. Baldonado was married and had three children, ages 4, 8 and 12. U.S. soldiers spent nine years in combat in Vietnam.
- 1968 —The Tet Offensive starting in late January made clear President Lyndon Johnson's administration was lying about progress toward winning the war in Vietnam. Assassins murdered Martin Luther King Jr. in April and Robert F. Kennedy in June. A riot by Chicago police, not Hubert Humphrey's nomination, became the biggest story of the Democratic National Convention in August. Republican Nixon capitalized on the splintered Democratic Party to win the presidency in November.
Other notable episodes weren't as destructive as Trump's first 100 days in 2025, but they inflicted plenty of damage.
- 1995, LOS ANGELES — Televised trials always take longer than necessary. Justice is the casualty, as lawyers and even judges are prone to grandstanding. O.J. Simpson's double-murder trial dragged for 266 days. Judge Lance Ito basked in every minute on screen. Prosecutors watched their case fall apart when a police detective who investigated Simpson invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while testifying. Simpson's nationally televised acquittal seemed anticlimactic after the bungling.
- 2005, WASHINGTON — Lobbyist Jack Abramoff portrayed himself as a religious man. All the while he lied to and overcharged Native American tribes that paid tens of millions of dollars for his influence with Congress. Abramoff eventually pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion. He spent three and half years in prison, then resumed his lobbying career.
Columns beginning with Trump usually circle back to him and his minions.
His onetime lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, lied early and often about how Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney and former mayor of New York City, favored incongruous claims. One was either 8,021 or 30,000 dead people voted in Philadelphia.
His costliest whoppers involved mother-daughter election workers he accused of ballot fraud in Georgia. They sued for defamation and won a $146 million jury verdict. Giuliani reached an unspecified settlement with the women this year.
He and Santa Fe-based attorney John Eastman, who devised a wild, unlawful plan in hopes of overturning Biden's victory, proved Trump wants yes men, not counselors.
Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, dead since 1950, still has the best quote for this era: "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."Â
