Donald Trump’s presidency is a morality lesson. He is a living example of what happens when a man is given power that far exceeds his character. It is time for America to acknowledge the lesson and move on.

Trump is engaged in a constant struggle for respect, seeking affirmation to maintain his facade of respectability. In reality, he seems to have starved his soul in pursuit of material wealth, power and fame.

This facade is as unstable as a Jenga tower. Trump fears that someone will pull out the piece that makes it topple, so he relentlessly punishes anyone who might try.

The real estate mogul constructs monuments not to great Americans or moments in history, but to himself. They include resorts, hotels, golf clubs and skyscrapers. Now, they include a Trump ballroom at the White House and a prospective Arc de Trump imposing itself on the Lincoln Memorial. His portrait hangs throughout the capital like Caesar’s adorned Rome. Soon, Trump’s likeness will appear on U.S. currency and commemorative gold coins.

He doesn’t understand, or perhaps will not admit, that he is memorializing a decade in which he caused decay, division, degradation, degeneration and disgrace. Once Trump leaves office, the plaques on his monuments will explain how the government failed America and nearly allowed the world’s continuing democracy to slip away.

Trump has imposed his will on the nation’s cultural institutions, dictating what the Smithsonian museums should exhibit and what the renamed Donald J. Trump-John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts should host. Once he is gone, a permanent exhibit at the National Museum of American History should teach schoolchildren how easily tyrants can mislead the people and fill the void left by a passive citizenry.

The Trump decade should be remembered as a period when a president commandeered every news cycle by creating fresh controversies. As his power crumbled, he escalated his outrages so that each one distracted national attention from the last.

Many theorize that he even launched a war to divert persistent attention from the most sordid scandal in American history: the Epstein affair. His badly conceived attack has so far cost the lives of 15 U.S. soldiers, wounded 400, and killed or injured nearly 30,000 Iranians while pushing the world economy to the brink of recession and imposing economic costs on people around the world.

The diversion has worked — at least, for now. Epstein has been pushed off the front pages, even though the Justice Department has unlawfully refused to release 2.5 million pages of evidence.

While two members of Congress have just resigned because of alleged sexual misconduct, Trump has been accused by at least 19 other women of sexual misconduct. He has so far been shielded from accountability in the Epstein scandal by his own Justice Department. But detailed accounts of Trump’s alleged predation are already part of the public record, including in documents filed as part of civil lawsuits.

The stench of scandal has characterized the Trump White House. The president and his Cabinet have repeatedly violated the Constitution, engaged in profitable conflicts of interest, abused his pardon power, deployed the military against the civilian population, ignored citizens’ constitutional rights, withheld public funds from states that didn’t vote for him, and used the threat of legal action and the denial of federal funds to extort private corporations and universities into conformance with his policies.

Trump has turned the U.S. Justice Department into his personal goon squad with specious investigations of his perceived enemies. Now, as they watch Trump’s support slipping among voters, his allies are reportedly working to rig this year’s elections and the presidential election in 2028.

That is the presidency to which Trump is building monuments.

Not all of America’s presidents have been paragons of virtue. But they have generally understood that their legacy would not be enshrined in white marble or gold coins, or in awards designed to bribe them. A president’s legacy is defined by deeds. It is enshrined in policies that make America stronger, democracy healthier, life better, justice more equal, and citizens more secure.

The voting public has twice given Trump the opportunity to redeem his legacy. Each time, he has only made it worse. His last chance is to resign now, citing health reasons.

If he doesn’t, then the challenge of redemption will pass to Congress. History will remember its current members more kindly if they do their jobs by removing Trump from office before he does irreparable damage to the country.

William S. Becker is co-editor of and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” and a contributor to Democracy in a Hotter Time, named by the journal Nature as one of 2023’s five best science books. He previously served as a senior official in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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