It's not easy to judge a president. It's tempting to hold the ones you dislike to a higher standard while making excuses for the mistakes of the ones you like.
That's why at the beginning of Donald Trump's second term, I settled on a handful of benchmarks to measure how he's doing.
The goal was to periodically provide an interim answer to Ronald Reagan's famous response to a 1980 debate question about judging the incumbent president:
"Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe? That we're as strong as we were four years ago?"
As 2025 draws to a close, it's a good time to check on how Trump's doing. On the two core economic questions, the results are mixed so far: Inflation is a little lower, but unemployment is a little higher.
But other benchmarks paint a troubling picture for the next three years: The national debt is higher than ever, America is held in lower regard by other countries, and polls show that Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going.
Read Ryan Teague Beckwith's assessment of Trump's first year in office here.
