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You don't need to gatekeep legitimate criticisms of Trump. He was robbing taxpayers well before he fucked up his COVID response, and just because he did worse things doesn't mean we can't point out the other bad shit he did too.
Oh that is very true, I just think a US president playing golf is a nothing burger. And the fact this douchebag owns a country club/resort/golfcourse and thus chooses to play and stay there is more indicative of a broken political system owned by the elite than anything else. And the fact this is even possible in the US system makes it even worse.
Here in the Netherlands using a government vehicle to go anywhere not for a business appointment means the cost is paid by the person themselves. In the US the president gets a salary and has 0 cost of anything while president. That's a pretty sweet deal.. and the US elected someone that pigged out in his "all you can spend" deal.. but this was the deal..
And his base is apparently OK with it.
By any metric trump was a terrible president, as a European I cannot understand how this is happening. A little like the EU getting shafted by Orban... Just HOW?
Okay, I see where you're coming from.
The issue here is one of context. Yes, golf is traditionally a leisure activity of US Presidents. There are a few military bases near Washington DC that have golf courses on them, which is where Presidents usually go. Because they're on secured installations, the additional security required (read: the cost, in taxpayer dollars) for a Presidential visit is minimal.
Donald Trump didn't do that. He would either fly to his golf course in New Jersey, or his course in Florida. Because neither of those locations were secure, it cost the Secret Service a lot more time and effort (read: taxpayers' dollars) to secure the area for a Presidential visit. Also Donald Trump forced the Secret Service agents to rent rooms and golf carts- in other words, the agency tasked with protecting the President of the US had to pay for rooms and carts for its agents, and since Trump didn't divest himself from his businesses that money went straight from the USSS to his pockets. He essentially was at one of his properties every weekend for his entire Presidency- over 360+ days were on a Trump property, which means that a full 25% of his term in office was spent on a golf course.
So not only was he absentee from the White House for a significant period of time, he was doing so in a way that forced taxpayers to give him money above and beyond his salary. Profiting off the Presidency is supposed to be illegal, but since we have a legal system that has proven it's willing to bend over backwards in its refusal to hold him accountable, nothing was done about it.
In contrast, Obama usually went golfing near the WH and did so at a lower average rate than Trump. Fox only complained about him because, well, they're racists.
Not to mention putting local cities on the hook for his safety