A reflection on what I wrote eight years ago and why it matters even more now.

If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve likely seen notifications like “You have memories,” linking back to posts from one, five, or ten years ago. The memories are generally happy ones. I suspect the Facebook algorithm chooses them with that in mind.

Today, I got a notification from Team Zuckerberg about a post I had written exactly eight years ago. It was a link to the Getting More From Les blog entitled “It’s Time to Repeal and Replace Donald Trump.” That blog remains the most widely read in my collection—the only one to surpass 10,000 views. Reading it today, I can only shake my head at how naive we were eight years ago.

My emphasis in that post, seven months into Trump’s first term, was on Trump’s attempt to abolish the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replace it with…nothing. I also wrote that Trump’s

“foreign policy is a sham apparently designed to protect his personal interests; his Cabinet is mostly packed with lightweights; and his communications team is a joke.”

I ended by calling for impeachment or the use of the 25th Amendment to terminate his presidency.

Could we have imagined in 2017 that two impeachments would mean nothing? That foreign policy would flip-flop daily? That cabinet members—already lightweights—would willingly sacrifice public health, national morality, and global standing to serve Trump’s grievances and ego? Or that a violent attack on the Capitol Building would be seen as a heroic event, its perpetrators excused from responsibility and prison.

Eight years ago, ICE was kept in our freezer, and the National Guard was kept at home. CBS still had some dignity, and Stephen Colbert’s best days were ahead of him. We could have a reasonable discussion with those on the other side of the political aisle. Does anyone still have discussions like that?

Trump will not last forever. But, likely, the damage he has done will long outlive him. He didn’t start the fire, but he has fanned the flames, and because of his presidency, we may lack the resources to put it out.

And eight years from now, I doubt Facebook will be reminding me of this happy memory.