01-20-2021, 05:43 PM
(01-20-2021, 05:22 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I don't think he's even the worst President in modern history. I know there's always a rush to label the outgoing POTUS best or worst ever, and certainly being fresh in everyone's mind contributes to this.
George W. Bush was demonstrably worse. He lied to get us into a war to avenge his father, save his father's legacy and give Cheney and his cronies a chance to make a lot of money. Hundreds of thousand of people were killed and maimed, the region was further destabilized, leading to the fresh hell of ISIS. He also suspended the war in Afghanistan so we could pointlessly invade Iraq, allowing Bin Laden and other senior Al Queda members to escape for years to come. Iran gained a lot more influence over the region. On the home front he utterly squandered an enormous budget surplus to bribe his way into office. He ballooned the deficit with tax cuts for the wealthy and exorbitant spending on two separate wars. He squandered the goodwill of almost the entire world after 9/11 with his hamfisted handling of the resulting conflicts. He finally gave some credence to the oft spoken idea that the US is an imperialist nation. If I felt like digging I'm sure I could come up with more, this was all off the top of my head.
Trump deserves to be castigated for his many failings, but he did far less damage than W did, by far.
We will see here in a year or two as they usually survey presidential scholars with an even disbursement between DEM/REP/LIB and rank all the Presidents, it's kind of a cool thing as it shows survey over survey change and how people move over time. As for Tump, I was going off his record-low approval rating over his tenure (although his lowest was 4 points higher than Bush's), multiple time impeached (including highest bi-partisan support ever), etc. Although I think it's at least fair to say he is in the discussion for worst, which is really all that matters in painting just how bad the shitshow was the last four years.
I am excited to get to four years of hopefully uneventful stuff. If Biden is a Jimmy Carter, forgettable type of presidency I would just be so happy at this point.
