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Who did the most damage of the last 6 Republican Presidents?
- Thread starter Deleted member 31923
- Start date
To everyone saying Trump, Trump is basically a twisted echo of Reagan. Reaganomics sacrificed the foundations of the American economy in exchange for a short boom for the investor class. He promoted the Evangelical fundamentalism that slowly spread its tentacles into the media landscape, and gave free reign for the hard right to take over AM talk radio, leading to the current extreme divide between the left and right. His War on Drugs was engineered to do as much damage as possible to the black community. The list goes on and on, all behind a cult-like "beloved" celebrity façade that has stood the test of time.
I mean...
Trump didn't even come up with his own goddamn slogan.
I mean...
Trump didn't even come up with his own goddamn slogan.
W has a lot of blood on his hands.
Reagan is responsible for a lot of the political shit we have to wade through all these decades later. I think Trump's legacy will be similar to Reagan's in terms of his effect on the country.
So my vote probably goes to W, considering the amount of lives lost.
EDIT: Didn't see lunarworks' post before posting my own thoughts on Regan/Trump. Totally agreed.
Reagan is responsible for a lot of the political shit we have to wade through all these decades later. I think Trump's legacy will be similar to Reagan's in terms of his effect on the country.
So my vote probably goes to W, considering the amount of lives lost.
EDIT: Didn't see lunarworks' post before posting my own thoughts on Regan/Trump. Totally agreed.
War on drugs was started by Nixon. If we're comparing fucking up Latin America vs fucking up the MIddle East I'm going with the latter because W directly started two wars.
Trump's abuse of power and challenging of norms of decorum as well as the challenging or should I say completely ignoring the division of power has lowered the bar beneath the ground and instilled a new level of distrust in a large portion of the populace as well as concerns about how future presidents will conduct themselves if we do not shore up constitutional gray areas (which won't happen).
Number 2 is Reagan.
Number 2 is Reagan.
Aside from the courts, the international embarrassment, and normalizing fascist rhetoric Trump ain't shit compared to Regan, W, and Nixon. Their legacy's are far worse then the one Trump will probably leave.
Trump for not addressing climate change and rolling back every environmental guidelines set by Obama. It isn't showing now, but his presidency will have the biggest negative impact in the next 20 years.
Trump may be the slimiest person in the history of the US presidency, but he's also completely incompetent. So was George W Bush, but he had Dick Cheney's calculating hand firmly up his ass.
i wasnt around for when reagan was president but its really shocking to me how much in love the usa was with him, those landslide sweeps during his elections and his constantly high approval ratings over the years are shocking to me considering it sounds to me like he was pretty blatant about killing the poor so the rich can thrive. or was it just because of the cold war.
looking at someone in a vacuum means taking away the effects they had though right?
It's hard to judge trump because we don't know how the story ends. Given the possibility that his influence is not as pervasive than Reagan's i think people are jumping the gun by saying Trump has already eclipsed both terms of Reagan plus everything his goons have been able to facilitate since. These links are much more concrete then just saying that something paved the way for something else. Reagan's legacy, in contrast to Nixon and GW is made more damaging by the positive mythologization he was allowed to enjoy in public memory.
Allowed by way is the correct word as he was deliberately kept out of investigations as a lame duck hoping to avoid another Nixon situation. Like the aids crisis and support for death squads via arms dealing are pretty fucking bad.
The Maddow podcast Bagman definitely presented Spiro Agnew as a clear populist, fabulist, proto-Trumpian figure, and Bush Sr. and whatnot were involved in Watergate coverup, so it's hard to point to Reagan as the root of the contemporary GOP imo...
Not defending him by any stretch... just noting that the same strain of wretchedness goes back beyond him.
Not defending him by any stretch... just noting that the same strain of wretchedness goes back beyond him.
That depends on whether he successfully gets a second term or not. I don''t think I've ever seen as much public vitriol launched at a president as I have with Trump. Trump supporters are pretty much in the closet and the ones who come out and say it outright risk losing a lot. Even W during his worst days didnt inspire this kind of pushback.
While I do think Cheney's influence shouldn't be ignored I think people let W off the hook way to much. Especially centrists who just see him as a goofball who paints.
Reagan because we're still feeling the effects of 'trickledown' and deregulation that he got rolling, at least economically. In terms of social shift, the war on terror and the social divide of us versus them was completely altered probably forever by W Bush. Toss up, but I feel others built of Reagan's horseshit, so he;s the seed of the all the terrible.
Many will say Dubya and I understand that. I picked Reagan because the same assholes who were running things back then are still the ones fucking things up now.
Bush is #1 since he's a monster who murdered over a million peoples and who's actions have caused countless more to be murdered through America's disastrous foreign policy over the years.
Next would be Reagan for all the horrible things he did abroad and overseas.
Next would be Reagan for all the horrible things he did abroad and overseas.
Yup. It's hard to not vote for him when you can trace so much of our current political climate & system to him.
Hard to say, but Reagan was both the culmination of the right's plan to disenfranchise the working class (see the Powell memo) and the start of our current conservative party. Also, the War on Drugs.
Trump, probably. He's eroded so many norms that have basically turned the country into a banana republic. This has far greater-reaching and long-term consequences than some of the "set up" norms erosions previous presidents have done. The consequences of foreign intervention or the war against drugs, or the subjugation of black communities might pale in the face of what's coming. No president has tested and withered the constitution like Trump has. I don't think people fully understand the damage he's done to the future of American politics, probably because it's so hard to look past the horrors now and everyone is distracted by the Democratic primaries.
Only other viable option IMO is Reagan for getting white evangelicals involved in politics, which laid most of the groundwork for how systemic the corruption is now.
Maybe Reagan for now, but over time it will increasingly become clear that its Trump.
Only other viable option IMO is Reagan for getting white evangelicals involved in politics, which laid most of the groundwork for how systemic the corruption is now.
Maybe Reagan for now, but over time it will increasingly become clear that its Trump.
there have been presidents that have done more damage to the economy, with more blood on their hands, who sowed the seeds for people like Trump, etc, but I still voted Trump. I think he's done more damage to our democracy and institutions than the rest of them, and it feels like it will take decades to return to any sense of "normalcy", beyond repair of just a Dem government coming in after him. he made the country more polarized then ever before too, to the point it seems like compromise is forever off the table. not only that, but humanity is at such a tipping point with climate, wealth inequality, fascist/communist governments becoming more prevalent, that Trump's damage seems like it is not only accelerating this, but will basically fuck us over at this most important time to the point of no return (climate). with Raegan and Bush, we didn't have as many of these existential threats looming over our heads.
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Feel like Nixon and the Southern Strategy was the real patient zero if we're looking for someone to blame for the modern GOP
Reagan, followed by Sonny Bush. Trump's up there but for now he's the symptom of a disease Reagan caused.
I went with Trump, but I've had to change my vote to Gerald Ford.
Realistically speaking Reagan is the start of the GOP's insanity, but it's Ford's decision to pardon Nixon that basically gave the carte blanche to everything that followed. Presidents should not be able to pardon other presidents, to prevent corruption of character and the institution.
remember: we didn't get "when the president does it, it's not illegal" from a trial, but from an interview that hinged on early television being a free-for-all still at the time.
Realistically speaking Reagan is the start of the GOP's insanity, but it's Ford's decision to pardon Nixon that basically gave the carte blanche to everything that followed. Presidents should not be able to pardon other presidents, to prevent corruption of character and the institution.
remember: we didn't get "when the president does it, it's not illegal" from a trial, but from an interview that hinged on early television being a free-for-all still at the time.
This is exactly how I feel.
Bush W had really bad foreign policy blunders and set us back environmentally which is why he is a VERY close second.
After him, probably Trump.
Reagan arguably did worse in foreign, and absolutely did worse domestically.
As an aside, sometime down the road when historians have a complete picture and distance from the issues, I would not be surprised to see Trump categorized as the beginning of something all together different. Not removed from the GOP, but some sort of offspring that led (leads?) to its own brand of Republicanism.
I can see a future historian writing something like the following:
"The conservative backlash that gained electoral dominance with Ronald Reagan in 1980 saw numerous electoral victories at the Federal level in the late 20th century. It culminated with George W. Bush's highly controversial election in 2000 (and narrow reelection in 2004) and the implementation of a deeply conservative agenda powered by christian evangelists and so-called Neo-Cons. With the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, the Republican Party's evolution took a dramatic turn. While still supported by a similar electorate that powered George W Bush to victory, the philosophy of the party had changed dramatically. At Trump's 2016 inauguration, even Bush (just 8 years removed from his own Presidency) remarked "That was some strange shit" when he heard Trump's depiction of "American carnage". Through constant scandals, accusations of supporting Russian interference in elections, impeachment, and attacks on previously sacrosanct individuals and institutions, the Republican Party from 2016 to ???? morphed into something that previous Republican Presidents would not have expected. Less a party of small government individualism, the Republican Party of this era grew into a party of militant anti-government, anti-liberal extremism. While earlier Republican administrations had push forward a conservative agenda, the very definition of conservative was changed to promote the desired short-term outcomes, and less that of a larger ideology. Thus, this represents a fundamental realignment of the party itself. While it is irresponsible and impossible to completely divorce the Republican Party of 2004 (Bush's second inauguration) with that of 2016, the world views of both its leaders and electorate are sufficiently different to be considered distinct from one another. Fundamental views on the role and authority of the Executive Branch that were unthinkable in 2004 were thrown away in 2016 and replaced with a grandiose vision of the Executive Branch, a view that was solely intended for a Republican Administration."
I can see a future historian writing something like the following:
"The conservative backlash that gained electoral dominance with Ronald Reagan in 1980 saw numerous electoral victories at the Federal level in the late 20th century. It culminated with George W. Bush's highly controversial election in 2000 (and narrow reelection in 2004) and the implementation of a deeply conservative agenda powered by christian evangelists and so-called Neo-Cons. With the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, the Republican Party's evolution took a dramatic turn. While still supported by a similar electorate that powered George W Bush to victory, the philosophy of the party had changed dramatically. At Trump's 2016 inauguration, even Bush (just 8 years removed from his own Presidency) remarked "That was some strange shit" when he heard Trump's depiction of "American carnage". Through constant scandals, accusations of supporting Russian interference in elections, impeachment, and attacks on previously sacrosanct individuals and institutions, the Republican Party from 2016 to ???? morphed into something that previous Republican Presidents would not have expected. Less a party of small government individualism, the Republican Party of this era grew into a party of militant anti-government, anti-liberal extremism. While earlier Republican administrations had push forward a conservative agenda, the very definition of conservative was changed to promote the desired short-term outcomes, and less that of a larger ideology. Thus, this represents a fundamental realignment of the party itself. While it is irresponsible and impossible to completely divorce the Republican Party of 2004 (Bush's second inauguration) with that of 2016, the world views of both its leaders and electorate are sufficiently different to be considered distinct from one another. Fundamental views on the role and authority of the Executive Branch that were unthinkable in 2004 were thrown away in 2016 and replaced with a grandiose vision of the Executive Branch, a view that was solely intended for a Republican Administration."
A lot of those problems with Trump are a culmination of 20 years of effort by Newt Gingrich, Fox News, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and social media propagandists. His malignant narcissism was just the missing piece of the puzzle.
"Sarah Palin?"
She was another "outsider" who took George W Bush's folksy charm, and injected it with an unhinged element that energized the lunatic fringe and drew them into the political mainstream, fermenting a perfect base to follow and worship Trump.
Pretty much what I was going to say. Trump is a worse human being at his core, but the Bush administration's effects on the world are still leagues ahead in terms of damage done. The Iraq war is a generation-defining calamity.
I mean they all did fucked up things in different ways. Bush Jr really fucked up the Middle East, and created the necessary conditions for groups like ISIS to exist. So special fuck you to that piece of shit. Trump has shown that US domestic laws mean jack shit, so as far as destroying things at the domestic levels he's probably at the top. However, Reagan did help propel this Reaganomics, hate the poor, "welfare queens" hysteria, that the GOP live for. So I suppose Trump was always the logical conclusion to the bullshit he helped cultivate.
While I think Reagan is worse than Trump.
It's worth noting that Reagan was bad because we saw how the world changed after.
We can only predict what happens after Trump. 20 years from now we might consider Trump to be the worst president of all time based on his lasting impact.
It's worth noting that Reagan was bad because we saw how the world changed after.
We can only predict what happens after Trump. 20 years from now we might consider Trump to be the worst president of all time based on his lasting impact.
