He certainly has been a distraction; indeed, he excels at that as a literal reality TV star. I assume eventually the chaos and corruption wrought by Trump's cabinet will be outed by lower-level, deep state tell-alls, once Trump is out of power. We know at least about the big tax cut for the wealthy and the trillions of dollars Trump gave away in the pandemic relief program. I'm sure all kinds of damage has been done also on environmental grounds, reckless deregulaltion, and so on. That's what the predators and parasites do: look for disasters to exploit (as explained in Naomi Klein's book).

The Republicans do love their empty figureheads and distractions: Reagan, Bush Jr, Sarah Palin, and Trump come to mind. I suppose that's because they're social Darwinians who don't think government works for the majority, or who don't think the majority deserve to be supported, so "libertarian" Republicans are interested in sabotaging the government, hobbling it so that all the smarts, talents, and expertise are in the private sector, which is supposed to be governed to perfection by the free market. Instead, that freedom generates corrupt plutocracies which are hardly self-correcting.