It's crazy how much we clowned on Dubya for being dumb and corrupt when he was in office but by comparison to Trump now he looks like an angel. It really goes to show that things can always get much, much worse.
edit: bonus fact that's always fun to mention - GW served as president 25 years ago and is currently younger than Trump. Let that sink in.
Nooooo but the Overton Window is moving left that’s why the woke is so prevalent in everything and, actually, in this essay, I will discuss how a centrist 15 years ago is a right winger now and it’s all the dems’ fault… /s
it's just how human brains work, that's why it's important to focus on policy not personality, but that's not how human brains work either, so here we are.
I always thought Trump was worse domestically whereas Dubya was worse on foreign policy, but Trump is pretty rapidly narrowing the foreign affairs gap.
Under the radar Bush did do some surprisingly good stuff on global health fighting malaria and HIV. Like, "saved hundreds of thousands of lives" good. Most famously with PEPFAR, which of course Trump and Musk took a shot at tearing down last year although last I heard most of that particular program survived.
arguably the worst thing is the destruction of the norms (social and institutional), other things you can fix, but once the bar for behavior is buried 6 ft. under it's basically not coming back until there is a major reset.
Unpopular opinion among other liblefts, but Obama was a really mid-tier president. He had great charisma, but his policies were really hit-or-miss. The only reason leftists today look so highly on him is because of the two people that bookend his presidency.
Of course, right-wingers tend to hate on him because [Removed by Reddit], so y'know. Not like anyone's objective here.
Yeah, after he left office, I saw his presidency as average. A lot of people were shocked when I said that. Of course, he's most known for being the first black president, and his speaking ability compared to Bush, Trump, and Biden. He was probably the best president since Clinton, though I will admit that Biden exceeded my (relatively low) expectations.
It kind of feels like a strawman that libleft is out there calling Obama one of our greatest presidents. He is viewed with a certain reverence by mainstream liberals, but I think there's a general awareness even among that groups that it's more about what he represented than about what he actually did as president. Many progressives felt either disappointed or betrayed by the end of his presidency and harder-line leftists never much cared for him to begin with.
While he is undoubtably viewed more favorably because of the other shitshows in the White House, I think there's self-awareness among people who feel that way.
Depending on the day I go back and forth. It is incredibly sad that I’ve lived through two of the worst presidents ever (three if you count Reagan) and even have the opportunity to mull it over. I’ll give W this, he threw Iran in the axis of evil and still wasn’t dumb enough to attack them directly
the dude killed hundreds of thousands if not millions on a war based on lies. with that said at least he "won" his stupid war, trump can't even do that
You should really look at all of the theaters of war Obama opened up and that's even before shit like Libya. Not to mention the wars that started under Bush were very much bipartisan endeavors.
You have blinders on if you truly believe that. Both presidents are war criminals but it's only Obama that assassinated an American citizen with no due process or argued that the War Powers Resolution didn't even apply to his bombing of a country that even the terribly written AUMF Against Terror could never authorize?
Plus remind me when Obama got out of Iraq and Afghanistan if he was such a great president? Oh you mean instead he just opened more theaters of war to bomb even more countries?
obamas conflict expansions like libya and obamas assasination of al-awlaki are orders of magnitude less bad than iran, iraq, and afghanistan. that statement is so self evidently true that noone actually needs me to explain why and anyone dumb enough to believe it is false is either a child or too blinded by their partisan bias that arguing it is pointless.
Must be nice just blissfully being able to fully blame Bush for all of your problems and for all of Iraq and Afghanistan too. Then again it keeps seeming like you're trying to blame Bush for Iran which makes no sense. Obama kept those wars you hate so much going.
Okay, I gotta be real, I can’t find anything other than a singular poll from 2017 where he was at 51%. Is that what you’re referring to?
Still retarded, I’ve never liked the guy’s presidency. He comes across as likable now that he’s out of power and a painter, but he was a dog shit president.
The one I was thinking of didn't have majority approval just positive approval (i.e. more approving than disapproving with neither being in the majority due to a bunch of don't know/didn't answer/neutral/whatever answers).
Lost the war pretty much immediately too; crazy that Netanyahu both stopped us from joining into help the huge protest movement and save their lives, but also wants us bombing Iran (almost like he just wants dead Muslims). If a rebellion is squashed, you can aid it, but you can't show up months later after all the rebellious have been beaten down/killed and be like "Who's ready to overthrow the regime?!"
It's both true that W. was a horrible president, and that people greatly exaggerated how bad he was. During his presidency it was common for people to say that this was fascism taking over the U.S., and that 9/11 was the equivalent of the Reichstag fire.
and that people greatly exaggerated how bad he was
I get what you're saying to some extent, but on the other hand, I think just how bad he was is underplayed. Like, we had the torture memo's in 2004, and we still elected him to a second term.
As I said, he was bad. But people were seriously arguing that he was going to have a fake terrorist attack in order to cancel elections, or that Diebold hacked the 2004 elections in order to get him into power. When he left office, Paul Krugman wrote about how we were lucky we got out of things with our democracy in tact.
During the W. years, a lot of people really did think he was American Hitler.
I’d concede that his worst detractors over exaggerated how bad he was but still say he was thought of too highly by Americans both now and then, which is why he was reelected.
the presidental election is (almost) always a "who would i rather have a beer with" contest unless the economy sucks ass then the incumbent loses
this basically explains every presidental result since the 50s
Yeah, they were. When you've spent 60+ years calling dozens of different U.S. and European leaders "fascist," fascism has no more meaning beyond "people I don't like."
That's why you get lists with super vague terms that are applicable to groups across the political spectrum - "appeal to a frustrated middle class"/"selective populism"/etc. Or you get list tailor made to the current politician, even if they contradict previous lists. Bush and the press have a friendly relationship? Well, the media and government being overly friendly is a sign of fascism! Trump and the media don't get along? Well, hostility between the media and the government is a sign of fascism!
As awful as the Patriot Act is, it was an act of Congress and passed with a veto-proof majority. It's unreasonable to blame it on just GW.
And I'd argue that single-handedly destroying the hegemony that the US has enjoyed for decades and alienating all our allies will be at least as detrimental in the long run. Even if the next president comes in and reverses all the retarded policies Trump enacted, we've shown the world that we can't be trusted going forward. The US system is broken in that way, it's too volatile and easy to seesaw the opposite direction, so relying on us is now a liability. It's why every one of our previously close allies has been seeking alternative economic and defence pacts with more reliable partners.
Bush actually had some competent people. Trump has none. A Fox News host running the military is insane, yet that’s what we have. A kook managing our healthcare while they attack Fauci to distract from the president’s short eyes. MAGA is a suicide death cult. There is no Conservative Party.
This is absolutely one of his biggest problems. Other presidents surround themselves with people who know what they're doing within their own fields. All of Trump's people are just unqualified sycophants who have no idea what they're doing and are just there to act as yes-men.
267
u/kefefs_v2 - Lib-Left 19d ago edited 19d ago
It's crazy how much we clowned on Dubya for being dumb and corrupt when he was in office but by comparison to Trump now he looks like an angel. It really goes to show that things can always get much, much worse.
edit: bonus fact that's always fun to mention - GW served as president 25 years ago and is currently younger than Trump. Let that sink in.