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Mount Rushless: Trump’s Descent into the Basement of History [1]
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Date: 2025-09-03
History, as every schoolchild learns, is written by the victors. But sometimes it’s written by the losers—etched not in marble, but in the cramped basement of the presidential ledger, where the lights flicker, the floor smells faintly of mildew, and the only company is Franklin Pierce sighing into his whiskey glass.
Donald J. Trump, once a man with visions of his face blasted into granite beside Washington and Lincoln, has now secured a different kind of immortality: a slow but steady descent into the presidential cellar. The Independent reports that his approval rating has cratered to a record second-term low, even among Republicans. His supporters still chant, his enablers still flatter, but the numbers tell the tale: Trump is falling through the trapdoor of history like a reality show contestant who got the fewest text votes.
This polling decline is a remarkable turn for a man whose base once clamored to see him immortalized on Mount Rushmore—a fantasy you may recall I satirized in An Emergency Meeting at Mount Rushmore, where Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt convened to roll their stone-carved eyes at the prospect of Trump’s visage beside theirs. That was satire; this is history catching up.
The Basement Suite of History
Every president dreams of a legacy. Washington got the capital. Lincoln got the penny. FDR got four terms and a fireside chat. Trump’s prize is more dubious: a permanent reservation at the “Basement of History Inn,” where Andrew Johnson runs the concierge desk and James Buchanan tends the boiler.
Historians already ranked him fourth from the bottom after his first term, just above Pierce, Johnson, and Buchanan. That was before he unleashed his encore: tariffs that punished his own voters, the militarization of Washington, D.C., and a Middle East policy that managed to alienate both sides of a conflict simultaneously. Now the question isn’t whether Trump will stay above the basement; it’s whether Buchanan will have to give up his long-held crown as the worst president in American history.
Imagine the scene: a reality show called America’s Next Top Failure. The contestants—Pierce, Johnson, Buchanan, and Trump—parade across a shabby stage in ill-fitting suits. A panel of judges—historians with clipboards—scores them on “damage to democracy,” “executive incompetence,” and “sheer audacity of self-delusion.” Buchanan adjusts his cravat, sure he’s unbeatable. Then Trump strolls out, red tie flapping like a warning flag, and suddenly the room gasps: we may have a new champion of the bottom.
The Mount Rushless Ceremony
It’s easy to imagine Trump’s devotees still trying to spin this fall. “Don’t worry, folks, he’s not in the basement—he’s just visiting the foundation.” Or: “The fake historians are rigged, they’re jealous of his greatness.” But the polls tell a harsher truth: Trump is less popular now than he was during his first impeachment, less popular than after January 6, less popular than he was when bleach injections and “windmill cancer” were the national punchlines.
One can picture the inevitable ceremony: Trump, denied his Rushmore glory, presides instead over the unveiling of Mount Rushless. It’s a small, portable monument, perhaps assembled from discarded casino marble, placed behind a velvet rope at Mar-a-Lago. The faces are inverted—etched not in grandeur, but in caricature: Nixon peeking over a Watergate file box, Harding buried under Teapot Domes, and Trump himself, mouth wide open mid-tweet, eternally complaining about unfair treatment.
A brass plaque below reads: Dedicated to Presidents Who Made America Groan Again.
The Historian’s Revenge
The irony of Trump’s descent is that he always cared more about ratings than governance. Polls, Nielsen ratings, Forbes billionaire lists—these were his lifeblood. He once mused about Rushmore as though national monuments were real estate listings. (“What do you think, Ivanka? Good exposure? Decent neighborhood?”)
But historians will have the final word. They are the Yelpers of democracy, the long-term reviewers who show up years later to leave one star and a scathing review. The consensus is already hardening: Trump will be remembered not as a president who built but as one who dismantled, not as a leader who unified, but as one who curated division like a Spotify playlist.
Future textbooks may devote a chapter to him, but it will read like a case study in preventable mistakes:
How to alienate allies in a single tweet.
How to botch a pandemic with miracle cures.
How to incite insurrection while watching cable news.
How to win the title “most impeached” and still think you’re undefeated
Trump and the Company He Keeps
It is often said that you can judge a man by his friends. In history, you judge a president by his neighbors in the rankings. For Trump, those neighbors are not Washington or Lincoln, but Buchanan, Johnson, and Pierce—men remembered for presiding over division, incompetence, or outright collapse.
Buchanan, whose passivity helped pave the way to civil war.
Andrew Johnson, whose racism and obstruction nearly unraveled Reconstruction.
Franklin Pierce, whose greatest claim to fame is being forgotten.
Trump, in his own way, has combined all three: Buchanan’s negligence, Johnson’s racial animus, and Pierce’s irrelevance—sprinkled with a heavy dose of personal corruption.
It is a hall of shame, and Trump is busily elbowing his way to the front row.
The Basement as Legacy
There is a temptation to treat this as comic relief: laugh at Trump’s fall, snicker at his basement ranking, and gloat that history has had the last word. However, satire works because it underscores the profound truth: Trump’s descent into the basement is not just related to his personal fate; it is baneful that he drags the country downward as well.
Each point he loses in approval, each historian who marks him lower, reflects on the strained institutions, the shredded norms, and the eroded trust. The basement is not just a metaphor; it is a warning. Democracy cannot thrive when the presidency itself is a carnival act.
Trump once dreamed of being carved in stone. Instead, he has been written in pencil at the bottom of the ledger—erasable only if some future disaster makes him look better by comparison.
Closing Act
So here we are: Trump, the man who wanted to tower in granite, is now destined to squat in the basement of history. He may still throw rallies, sell hats, and insist that the polls are wrong. But the record is clear: the rankings are unkind, and the approval ratings are devastating.
He will not join Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore. His monument is already built: it is Mount Rushless, a small, sad pile of rubble at the bottom of democracy’s hill, where the clowns of history gather to swap grievances and rehearse their excuses.
And if you listen closely, you can almost hear Buchanan muttering in the corner: “Move over, son—you’re making me look good.”
~Dunneagin
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