President Donald Trump, never shy about his accomplishments, has described himself as the “greatest” president ever, the “most successful” president ever and “a stable genius.”

The courage to admit these things is admirable and must strike fear in the heart of any Democrat nominated to oppose Trump in 2020.

So how is the “greatest” perceived by others?

According to Pew Research, Trump is far less respected worldwide than his predecessor, Barack Obama, is less respected than Putin or China’s Xi Jinping, two dictators, and his foreign policies are wildly unpopular globally.

Domestically, according to Five-Thirty-Eight polling, Trump has a disapproval of 52.1 percent and an approval rating of 43.3 percent. Trump’s approval rating has never reached 50 percent.

Among those leaders who have worked for Trump, his ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described the President as “a moron.” White House ex-Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump “an idiot” and “unhinged.”  Former economic adviser Gary Cohn stated Trump was, “dumb as s—,” and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster commented the president was a “dope.” Ex-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Trump had “the understanding of a fifth or sixth-grader.”

As for those who would question Trump’s foreign policy acumen, who can question his success with North Korea? Trump himself has said we no longer have to fear nuclear war from North Korea because of his great friend Kim Jong Un. Those missile launches mean nothing.

And who would question Trump’s abandonment of our Kurd allies, while retreating from Syria and giving power there to Russia and Turkey?

And what could be wrong about abandoning the Iranian deal to stop their nuclear development, given he had no plan what to do next?

And why not offend our Canadian friends and their prime minister? After all, it is not like they are a big trade partner after all, right?

Here in the U.S., Trump has been the greatest at passing legislation. He passed the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, tried to kill Obamacare and replace it with 23 million more uninsured, but failed at that, so that is good. He has given us the biggest debt and deficit in the history of the nation, but does that really matter?

And the stable genius has dismantled our diplomatic core, undermined our national security agencies, socialized our farming industry, ignored climate change and suggested cuts in Medicaid that would devastate millions of Americans.

The stable genius, who promised us a soaring economy of 4-6 percent growth annually under his MAGA flag has given us instead an economy that will grow at an anemic 2.0 percent in 2020, grew only 2.3 percent in 2019 and had his best GDP growth in 2017 of 2.9 percent, barely a match of Obama’s 2015 GDP growth.  The Trump economy is a story of huffing and puffing with no there, there.

Yes indeed, those Democrats fighting for the chance to face the “Greatest President Ever” really have their work cut out for them. Somehow, they must find a way to actually do the work of being president, rather than tweet in their pajamas and call it greatness.

The Greatest Ever, who wanted to lock up his 2016 rival Clinton, actually has seen his six closest advisors of 2016 locked up, not Clinton. Trump has seen Robert Mueller prove the Trump campaign knew the Russians were helping Trump, yet failed to report the Russian help to the FBI. And the Greatest Ever has now the claim of one of only three U.S. presidents ever impeached. Quite the achievement.

But he is genius, who else could take the failures of his administration and claim those wonderful successes?

Jim Crawford is a retired educator, political enthusiast and award-winning columnist living here in the Tri-State.