this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
33 points (85.1% liked)

Asklemmy

43953 readers
766 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Depending on how the next four years go I'm on the fence between Bush Jr. and Trump but I'd like to hear from you

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 38 minutes ago* (last edited 36 minutes ago)

Plenty of choice. In my view, most presidents were rambling reeking right wingers in some way or other, save for FDR and Teddy Roosevelt, who were the two presidents I'd actually call capable and outspoken on civil rights (rather than just pragmatical like Lincoln). They did have their blemishes, but less than e.g. Andrew Jackson.

So many presidents were terrible for one people or another.

Andrew Jackson? Held hundreds of slaves and quite literally led an ethnic expulsion against Native Americans (the Trail of Tears).

Lincoln? Mostly good, but did not forbid slavery in the form of penal labour. If one were to abolish slavery, why not go the full mile?

Wilson? Rabid antisemite, pretty much.

Hoover? Might've tried to tackle the Great Depression -- but did so by allying with large coorporations, effectively being corrupt and choosing bribery.

Truman? Dropped nukes and set the stage for "we support any government that hates people being remotely leftist".

Nixon - corrupt and wanted to sidestep the rule of law, all for his own profit: to stay in power. Other than thaf, decent, but that's a big "other than that".

Reagan - enough said. Ultracapitalist, misleading, made the US economy far worse by accruing debt like there's no tomorrow, and shoving it onto the poor -- typical oligarch behaviour! Militaristic, power-hungry. And no, he did not end the Cold War: Gorbachov did.

JFK: socially pretty good, actually. But economically, the cutting of the top rates made the richest keep more money. At least it wasn't down below 50%, but still. Had that happened, I think the tax rates would've allowed wealth accumulation.

And so on.

So, in my view, it's hard to focus on who is the worse, and better to rather focus on what is the best. Ted would be my candidate. Not only social progress, but also economical, and in a way that favour the worker -- and he also was environmentally aware. That is a good president.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago

I would hire nucular George every day for the next 4 years to get rid of the orange dipshit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

George Washington. This thing should have been nipped in the bud.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

andrew jackson (or johnson can never remember which) for the trail of tears. absolutely awful

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Andrew Jackson was Trail of Tears, but I actually think Andrew Johnson was arguably worse. He was Lincoln's Democrat vice president (he was brought on to help "balance the ticket" instead of sticking with his strongly abolitionist first term VP Hannibal Hamlin), who started dismantling reconstruction and giving the power back to the former slaveowners.

You can pretty much lay Jim Crow at his feet.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Woodrow Wilson was so racist that he was quoted in an epigraph for "The Birth of a Nation." You know, the 1915 movie about how awesome the KKK was, which became the first true "blockbuster" film and which led to a huge resurgence in KKK activity. Not only that, but Woodrow Wilson also personally invited the filmmakers to screen the movie in the White House - the first movie ever screened in the White House, by the way. Honorable mention!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation#/media/File:Wilson-quote-in-birth-of-a-nation.jpg

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

As well as hating black people he also hated Slavs too and laid the foundations for anti-soviet US foreign policy

[–] [email protected] 0 points 30 minutes ago

what? He gave the Slavic nations self-determination, there are roads named after him in e.g. Czechia, Slovakia; and wtf is bad about anti-Soviet foreign policy?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Ronald Reagan did more damage to this country than any president before or after him.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Before or after him so far

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago

I feel like the "so far" is implied...unless you've somehow figured out how to 100% accurately predict the future and you haven't told anyone.

...By the way, if that's the case, rude.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 hours ago

It's Reagan or Nixon, no contest. Bush pales in comparison

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

If we’re talking strictly the neoliberal era would it be too out there to say 1. Bush Jr 2. Reagan 3. Biden? All time though probably Andrew Jackson

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

While i abhor Bush Jr, I would put Reagan as #1. He paved the way for Bush Jr. And Biden. IMO Bush Sr is tied for the #3 spot simply for pardoning members of the Iran-Contra affair.

Nixon is one of the worst presidents we've ever had though, and I would put him higher than any of the others. The "war on drugs" caused so many rippling horrors domestically. And those horrors don't compare to what he did abroad.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Andrew Jackson and it's not even close. Not to downplay the horrible crimes committed by many of our other presidents but I don't think anything rises to the level of the Trail of Tears.

Remove Jackson from the running and it's a more interesting conversation, however thinking about it reveals just how interconnected all of this stuff is. While the current genocide is occurring under Biden, we can't forget that the conditions that lead to Oct 7 were created under Trump. For that matter so were the conditions that lead to the escalation of the war in Ukraine.

I think the worst in my lifetime by a mile is Dubya, but while his wars were massive and consequential we can't forget that George Senior also killed scores of people in Iraq, and Clinton carried out the sanctions regime that killed scores more. Clinton was also the one who broke Labor's influence within the Democratic Party - but it was Obama who was swept into power on the promise of a working class revolution only to smother it in its crib.

But yeah my top two are Jackson and Dubya but beyond that I'm not sure there are a lot of crimes in the history of America's presidency.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

James K. Polk. He went into a bloody war for conquest with Mexico to conclude Manifest Destiny.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 hours ago

I think I have Trump derangement syndrome but for Bush Jr. instead cause very few people make my blood boil just by seeing their face like that scum.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

me if enough of you write in "EstraDoll" in 2028

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί