The president of the United States has one job above all others. It is to keep Americans safe.

Trump failed last time around. He is failing again.

Whereas some U.S. leaders produce a list of accomplishments by which history can measure their terms, Trump is producing a death toll that will be the clearest metric of his leadership failures.

Not only is it already likely that the toll from Trump’s years in power will surpass that which occurred under any past POTUS but, given his disastrous choices with regard to public health, emergency preparedness, climate, guns and national security, his may be a record that is hard to beat.

And what is more, given that a U.S. president has a special stewardship role as the leader of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, the international death toll directly resulting from decisions taken on his watch is another crucial criterion by which Trump—and his enablers in Congress and on the Supreme Court—will be judged.

Once again, no American president in history will have been personally responsible for filling more graves worldwide than Trump.

During the administration of Woodrow Wilson, some 116,000 U.S. soldiers died during America’s involvement in World War I. That includes roughly 53,000 who perished in combat plus another 63,000 who died from accidents and disease, many during the influenza epidemic. The total deaths in the U.S. from that epidemic reached 675,000.

During World War II, more than

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