It took Donald J. Trump 64 minutes to announce his intentions to not just “make America great again” but to make it “great and glorious again” through a second presidential term.

In 64 minutes you could read 40 pages of that book for English, or write a practice FRQ for an AP class with time left. If you aren’t bogged down by homework you could bake two and a half batches of the divine cookies on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bags.

Or you could listen to Trump glorify his disastrous term as president.

On June 16, 2015 Trump descended his golden escalator at Trump Tower in New York to announce his candidacy for president. His campaign began with a lie—many of the “thousands” Trump claimed to be in attendance were in fact paid actors and building residents. The next five years would be a continuation of the same grandeur and thinly veiled lies.

According to the Trump White House Archives the four years in which Trump served as president were full of economic growth, improvements to environmental protection, and provided a “life saving response to the China Virus.” Aside from the blatant issue of calling COVID the “China Virus” most of these claims are hyperbole at best, pure fiction at worst. The economic growth Trump cites began primarily during Obama’s presidency, though this fact is largely unimportant given the surprising lack of power any president has over the economy. In fact, it is not until a crisis occurs that the leader of the executive branch, the figurehead of the country and chief of the nation will have any significant impact on the economy. And during Trump’s presidency such a crisis did occur. Yet, contrary to his claims otherwise, Trump did little to help either the economy or the public health crisis which decimated the country.

Between March and June of 2020 COVID-19 killed 120,253 Americans. Trump replied with a collection of tweets and press statements all amounting to the same, unfounded claim: stay calm and this deadly disease will disappear. Despite everyone from senators to his own National Security Advisor directing him to take action Trump did nothing more than provide the nation with fictitious “information” about the virus. As Harvard epidemiologist and health economist, Eric Feigl-Ding put it “an ostrich, head-in-ground political approach to an oncoming epidemic is the most surefire on-ramp to more infections and deaths.”

And this crisis is one from which the nation has yet to recover. Trump’s pride and joy, the economy, has continued to face ramifications unparalleled by other high-income countries.

Just shy of seven years later, Trump once again announced his candidacy for president. The announcement marked the start of the first significant 2024 campaign for presidency—but being first doesn’t make him best. In a nation yet to recover from a devastating pandemic and barreling towards a debt crisis; in a world where discussion of “World War III” is commonplace; in the face of ever present human rights issues, gun control debates, restrictions on abortion access—is now really the time to even propose a president whose ability to lead anything besides a mob is near nonexistent?

Another four years of “President Donald J. Trump” wouldn’t just be dysfunctional, it would be disastrous. In the age of radical polarization a president whose primary campaign strategy is to fuel extremism won’t resolve conflicts and aid bipartisan cooperation for the national good—he’ll divide the nation. So as the primaries approach Republicans have a choice: fuel national collapse by accepting Trumpism or reflect the true values of the party. There’s only one correct option. Hopefully it’s the one they choose.