The Trump Administration is finally over. Just as bad as anticipated, Trump leaves office having accomplished little of benefit, and under the flag of (so far) failed insurrectionists. His pettiness and ill-breeding compel him to leave without attending the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris. Like Andrew Johnson (the last President who refused, out of spite, to attend the inauguration of his successor), Trump will be forever seen as a terrible President who stained the office.
Long, discursive essays and books will be published for years about the Trump administration and its chaos, cruelty, and corruption. Taking a different approach, then, I feel inspired by the good old Harper’s Index, and its monthly attempt to describe the world through numbers.
401,777: deaths from Covid-19, as of January 19, 2021, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Source)
15.6 million: number of Covid-19 vaccinations administered in the United States, as of January 18, 2021 (Source)
806,716: doses of Covid-19 vaccinations administered per day. (Id.)
330.8 million: population of the United States (Source)
410: days it will take to vaccinate the entire population at current rate. (Math)
0: Number of nuclear weapons used on a hurricane. (Source)
0: Number of times Greenland was purchased by the United States. (Source)
2,975: deaths from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. (Source)
9: days after visiting Puerto Rico that President Trump argued that “We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!” (Source)
16: days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico that Trump made those remarks. (Math)
88: percentage of people in Puerto Rico without electricity one month after Hurricane Maria (Source)
29: percentage of people without access to tap water in Puerto Rico one month after Hurricane Maria (Id.)
$90 billion: economic damage caused by Hurricane Maria. (Source)
3rd: rank of Hurricane Maria in economic damage. (Source)
1: trade wars with the entire globe.
0: trade wars won, despite being easy.
$68.142 billion: trade deficit in January 2021. (Source)
$41.469 billion: trade deficit in January 2017. (Source)
5,400: children separated from their families at the border between January 2017 and October 2019. (Source)
666: children remaining separated from their families because the government cannot locate the parents. (Source)
0: number of Supreme Court Marshals executing any President, former or current.
0: number of Supreme Court Marshals, period…
489: average length, in tweets, of a typical Seth Abramson thread. (Sarcasm)
4.7: Unemployment rate in January 2017. (Source)
6.7: Unemployment rate in December 2020. (Id.)
March 2014: Last time unemployment rate was 6.7%, pre-pandemic. (Id.)
14.8: Unemployment rate in April 2020. (Id.)
10.8: Highest previous unemployment rate since 1948 (December 1982). (Id.)
9,105,650: Production Occupation jobs in May 2016 (Source)
9,024,560: Production Occupation jobs in May 2017 (Source)
9,115,530: Production Occupation jobs in May 2018 (Source)
9,158,980: Production Occupation jobs in May 2019 (Source)
53,330: Net increase in Production Occupation jobs from May 2016 to May 2019 (Math)
8,183,750: Business and Financial Operations jobs in May 2019 (Source)
7,281,190: Business and Financial Operations jobs in May 2016 (Source)
902,560: Net increase in Business and Financial Operations jobs from May 2016 to May 2019 (Math)
2: Number of Krassenstein Brothers kicked off Twitter.
1: Minimum number of times Trump suggested bleach could be injected
to kill Covid-19. (Source)
1: Number of Presidents of the United States kicked off Twitter.
73: percentage decrease in disinformation spread online after Trump’s accounts were removed from various social media platforms. (Source)
2,617: entries in Dan Drezner’s Toddler in Chief thread (“I’ll believe that Trump is growing into the presidency when his staff stops talking about him like a toddler.”) (Source)
2: Number of times impeached by the House of Representatives (Source)
0: Number of convictions by the Senate (so far). (Id.)
1: Number of Presidents who have been impeached twice. (Id.)
2: Number of previous Presidents to be impeached by
the House of Representatives (Source)
0: Total number of convictions by the Senate. (Id.)
10: Number of Republicans voting to impeach in December 2020. (Source)
1: attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act (Source)
0: successful attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act (Source)
1: Number of big, beautiful comprehensive ACA replacement plans promised in Trump’s 2016 campaign (Source)
0: number of big, beautiful comprehensive ACA replacement plans implemented.
$18,142: Average annual health insurance premium for family coverage in 2016 (Source)
$21,342: Average annual health insurance premium for family coverage in 2020. (Id.)
18: percentage increase in health insurance premiums for family coverage between 2016 and 2020. (Id.)
55: percentage increase in health insurance premiums for family coverage between 2010 and 2020 (Id.)
27: percentage increase in workers’ earnings in the same time. (Id.)
2: number of weeks (or months) Trump routinely claimed it would be before he announced his health care plan. (Source)
1: Armed insurrection attempts at the U.S. Capitol. (Source)
0: number of other armed insurrection attempts at the U.S. Capitol since 1865. (Id.)
$34.8 billion: customs duties collected by the United States at the end of 2016. (Source)
$70.8 billion: customs duties collected by the United States at the end of 2019. (Source)
0: percentage of foreign governments paying customs duties (Source)
1,954: length, in miles, of the United States-Mexico border (Source)
344: miles of replacement primary wall in places where wall currently exists (Source)
21: miles of replacement secondary wall in places where wall currently exists (Id.)
40: miles of new primary wall (Id.)
33: miles of new secondary wall (Id.)
438: miles of completed combined replacement and new wall (Id.)
738: miles of total combined replacement and new wall funded (including 438 miles already completed) (Id.)
$15 billion: amount allocated to building wall (Id.)
0: amount, in dollars or pesos, provided by the government of Mexico.
39.2: final approval rating average as compiled by 538. (Source)
0: Times Trump ever had more than a 50% approval average as compiled by 538. (Id.)
1: promised tax increase on “the wealthy” during 2016 campaign (Source)
0: actual tax increases on “the wealthy” (Source)
$587 billion: budget deficit in fiscal year 2016 (Source)
$1.1 trillion: budget deficit in fiscal year 2020 (Id.)
$1.09 trillion: budget deficit in fiscal year 2019 (Id.)
$779 billion: budget deficit in fiscal year 2018 (Id.)
8: years Trump said it would take in 2016 to shrink deficit to zero. (Source)
68: percentage deficit grew by October 8, 2019. (Id.)
8: number of people in the 2016 Trump Campaign who created substantial counterintelligence concerns due to their coordination with Russian interests, as determined by the Republican-controlled Senate. (Source)
3: minimum number of those individuals pardoned by President Trump (Source)
3: Justices appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States (Source)
54: Circuit Court judges appointed to the federal bench (Id.)
234: total Article III judges appointed by Trump. (Id.)
8: minimum number of judicial nominees rated not qualified by the ABA (Source)
6: number of not qualified judicial nominees confirmed (Id.)
49: current vacancies in the federal judiciary (Source)
5: expected future vacancies in the federal judiciary (Source)
3: Summits between Kim Jong Un and Trump (Source)
0: Denuclearized North Koreas. (Id.)
0: number of popular vote victories (Source)
1: number of electoral vote victories (Id.)
2,868,691: Trump’s popular vote deficit in 2016 (Id.)
6,898,049: Trump’s popular vote deficit in 2020 (Source)
$200,810: additional cost to clean the White House in
preparation for Joe Biden (Source)
2,243: drone strikes in the first two years of the Trump administration (Source)
1,878: drone strikes in Obama’s entire 8-year tenure. (Id.)
7,423: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2019 (Source)
2,758: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2013 (Id.)
947: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2015 (Id.)
7,362: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2018 (Id.)
1,337: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2016 (Id.)
775: bombs dropped in Afghanistan in 2020, as of “February 31, 2020” [sic]. (Id.)
4: minimum number of former cabinet secretaries who have called Trump some variant of “an idiot.” (Tillerson, Mattis, Kelly, McMaster) (Source)
1: leaders of ISIS assassinated (Source)
1: number of Iranian Major Generals assassinated (Source)
2: number of cabinet secretaries who resigned in protest because Trump incited an insurrection. (Source)
1: Number of speeches made to Boy Scouts during which Trump alluded to an orgy on a friend’s yacht. (Source)
0: Nobel Prizes awarded to Trump. (Source)
$4.558 billion: Retail sales at beer, wine, and liquor stores, seasonally adjusted, in November 2016. (Source)
$5.995 billion: Retail sales at beer, wine, and liquor stores, seasonally adjusted, in October 2020. (Source)
143: number of pardons and commutations issued on the last day of Trump’s term. (Source)
298: Number of visits to his own golf clubs in four years. (Source)
333: Rounds of golf played by Obama in 8 years. (Source)
1000: Rounds of golf played by Woodrow Wilson over 8 years (Source)
1: number of sitting Vice-Presidents refusing to attend Trump’s departure from the Presidency. (Source)
2: Minimum number of former Vice-Presidents, including Mike Pence, attending Joe Biden’s swearing in. (Source)
1: number of women who have been elected Vice-President. (Source)
1: Number of Black women who have been elected Vice-President. (Id.)
1: Number of Asian women who have been elected Vice-President. (Id.)
30,573: number of false or misleading claims told by President Trump in four years. (Source)
