Reagan
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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George W Bush Jr.
Yes I am handing him the worst president title, even over Trump.
Because, it was his mishandled War on Terror, that plunged the country into massive national debt. He crashed the housing market. He literally had waged a war on obese people, minorities and other things as distractions from his failure to capture Osama. He allowed American Surveillance with Patriot Act I and II. His cabinet were all crooks and he was just a dumb puppet.
He is essentially the ripple effect of everything we're dealing with today and Trump is merely the symptom of that.
Trump is definitely in the bottom quintile, but also anyone putting him in the bottom 5 is just recency bias.
Most people who argued for Trump said it's because of Jan 6th and his other felonies and that he was allowed to run again and became reelected (even tho a partition of the us citizens are to blame for the latter). I also think people already value him lower because of Project 2025 and out of fear what will happen during his 2nd term.
Wasn't it Nixon who sold the americans out? Or Truman?
George Washington. This thing should have been nipped in the bud.
Would that have changed much (Except for his name & face being literally everywhere in the US) or would they just have taken another founding father as their idol?
Ronald Reagan did more damage to this country than any president before or after him.
I'm continually shocked by how often I learn of some structural systemic issue, pull the thread to see where it started and- oh, surprise, it was once again Reagan.
It's no coincidence that Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had such a close relationship - they thought alike.
In Britain, Thatcher is still reviled by many for sweeping changes. Killed the coal industry without giving support to the many thousands employed there and put the North into recession, took milk away from children, depowered the unions (which were too powerful at the time, tbf) and generally put the Tory Party on the London & Banks first mantra that they've been on ever since.
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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.
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
Blemishes? FDR seized the property of 200,000 Americans and threw them into concentration camps because of their race. The guy's bottom 10 if not bottom 5. He's easily the worst Democrat of the last 100 years.
I would hire nucular George every day for the next 4 years to get rid of the orange dipshit.
It is absolutely fuckin bonkers that Trump is so bad that a person can say they yearn for the good old days with Dubya without a hint of sarcasm
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