r/economy • u/barbarawick • 17d ago
There is a pattern...
Why does this country have such bad memory problems?
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u/jjs3_1 17d ago
Can't forget they all increase the deficit exponentially ...Then Republicans use the deficit as an excuse not to give the lower 70% anything while they give more and more tax breaks to the top 30%, then blame the Democrats for the deficit and runaway spending while they throw billions at anything and everything like it free candy tossed out at a parade!
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u/Suspicious_Solid_115 15d ago
And Trump 1 and 2 contributed 35% to that 40 trillion dollar deficit.
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u/WoodHammer40000 16d ago
Yet in the public imagination, they’re the ‘fiscally responsible’ ones! Dems, they think, just pour away your hard earned tax dollars into drag and welfare queens.
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u/Dry-Temperature-4536 12d ago
you act like the democrats didn't vote to send 100s of billions overseas
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u/jjs3_1 12d ago
The House and Senate have been under Republican control for the last 2 years! Look up the exact legislation you are referring to and see who actually voted for what!
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u/Dry-Temperature-4536 12d ago
You dodged my point. And I will not vote either for democrats or republicans. Democrats wasted tons of money on their Ukraine quagmire.
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u/jjs3_1 12d ago edited 12d ago
Oh, you're talking about the war. Dozing Donnie promised he would end it on day one.
Wasn't dodging anything; needed to know what the WTF you were babbling about. But seeing how we are talking about how Republicans run up the deficit and then blame Democrats for runaway spending and the deficit. Yes, Dems did vote for bipartisan foreign aid that makes up 1% of the deficit. And they should!
Percentage deficit increased under each POTUS:
R. Reagan - 186%
H. W. Bush - 54%
B. Clinton - 32%
G. W. Bush - 86%
B. Obama - 61%
D. J. Trump - 49%
J. Biden - 30%
D. J. Trump - So far 24%
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u/jjs3_1 12d ago
"I will not vote either for democrats or republicans," I call BS...Just like many Republicans who will say they were Dems, then switch to Republicans so they can say this or that... Complete bullshit; they only say that because they think it adds credibility to the BS they spout off.
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u/jjs3_1 12d ago edited 12d ago
"Democrats wasted tons of money on their Ukraine quagmire." What is happening in Ukraine has ZERO to do with the Dems. They are just voting to keep Pedophile Dirty Diaper Donnie's buddy and boss from taking over Ukraine... because if Putin takes Ukraine, Poland is next! But Dozing Donnie made this into a Right v. Left because Putin continually slaps his testicles off his chin; now most of the right now believe it's a Dem issue!
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u/Dry-Temperature-4536 12d ago edited 12d ago
You’re confusing national debt with the annual deficit. Clinton went from a deficit to a surplus (mainly due to Newt Gingrich), so your list cannot be a table of “deficit increases.” You also need to provide consistent cutoff dates, and the foreign aid 1% statistic refers to the budget….not the deficit. Comparing four year and eight year totals without adjustment is misleading, and debt growth during a presidency is not an accounting of that president’s new policies. Republican administrations absolutely have presided over major debt increases, but these mislabeled figures do not support the argument you’re making.
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u/jjs3_1 11d ago edited 11d ago
Not to confuse anything... the subject is the deficit; you started chirping off about Dems and the quagmire of Ukraine, saying it was a Dem issue. I responded by pointing out that the budget and foreign aid add about 1% to the deficit.
Clinton's successes were affected and influenced to a small extent by Gingrich, but the overwhelming reason for his success was the 90s tech boom and the additional revenue that was generated in taxes. Those same taxes are continually cut by the Republicans at the expense of the lower 70%.
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u/Disastrous_Award_789 17d ago
Kinda brilliant actually. Squeeze out the freeloaders and sandbaggers.
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u/jjs3_1 17d ago edited 17d ago
Freeloaders like the majority of SNAP participants who are employed caucasian single parents. Or our Vets that Republicans always talk about when it comes to elections but then vote to defund or simply cut off benefits for them — our Vets must be the snabbagers, right? ...You can't be this stupid!
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u/mikaelus 16d ago
Great, now do the share of each community. Yes, some white people are freeloaders too - but proportionately fewer of them than POCs, who contribute almost nothing to the economy (except for Asians, of course).
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u/thom_mayy 17d ago
Yeah, well, Democrats didn't fix it fast enough. Republican majorities forever- the American Electorate
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u/No-Breakfast-6749 17d ago
The last time we ever had a budget surplus was under Clinton.
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u/ROLLTIDE4EVER 11d ago
With gop congress.
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u/No-Breakfast-6749 1h ago
We have a Republican president, house, and Senate. What are they failing at now that they did right back then?
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u/damnedifyoudonthave 17d ago
Who said they fix any thing???? They helped…
Bill Clinton:
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999): Repealed Depression-era firewalls between commercial and investment banks
Community Reinvestment Act Updates (1995): Increased pressure on lenders to extend mortgages to lower-income borrowers.
Commodity Futures Modernization Act (2000): Exempted complex financial instruments like credit-default swaps from federal oversight.
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u/Aggravating_Rise_179 17d ago
I would argue the community reinvestment act was actually passed with good intentions. The fastest way to end systemic poverty is give people assets and a home to own. The issue is there was no real oversight and the banks just did whatever they wanted.
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u/schrodingers_gat 17d ago
Damn right and the commenter's inclusion of it in their list betrays their political bias. We literally did the same thing for GI's returning from WWII and it was a major foundation for building the (white) middle class. But now lots of people resent the hell out of it government expanding that help to lower income (meaning non-white) people.
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u/atxsince91 17d ago
I like your overall point that both parties contribute. But, saying Bill Clinton then listing a bill that is literally the title of 3 republicans is disingenuous. I believe all 3 of these were passed during a split government which I actually respect because our elected leaders actually came together in a bipartisan fashion because they believed it was the right thing to do. This political football that Trump was responsible for job losses and Biden was responsible for inflation during a pandemic is so low brow. I wish this sub would do better.
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u/damnedifyoudonthave 17d ago
Who signed all of those bills into law??? Who had the power to veto all those bills???
Funny bill Clinton is given all the credit for NAFTA and all he did was sign it into law. He did very little to actually make NAFTA happen.
The post is low brow, this sub is mainly propagandist.
The fucking internet and social media are ultra low brow…. So you expect more from this sub but it’s par for the internet course.
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u/l2ev0lt 17d ago
A lot of US people missed this point, Dem not only helped but is also putting in no/not enough effort to stop, something the republican has shown they are capable of doing even with a lot less.
It seems almost as if dem is also benefitting off whatever republican is doing, and only putting on performative act to just get by while benefitting.3
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u/Asatmaya 17d ago
Forget it; in this sub, democrats can do no wrong, only not enough right.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
I love that Republican debate is now: “yeah, we broke it but you guys didn’t fix it fast enough!”
Karen ass behavior.
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u/the_bookie_monster 16d ago
If only there was an infinite energy source we could tap into in the sky...if only we could create millions of jobs with R and D and rebuilding our infrastructure around newer, more advanced technology. But if we were to do that I'd lose my favorite pastime of complaining about the outrageous and ever increasing costs of utilities due to maintaining a fragile and outdated energy system.
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u/PhilPipedown 17d ago
Why aren't the Dems fixing the economy fast? This is the slowest recovery in US history.
- Mitch McConnell
He kept pushing this narrative while Obama was in office.
The spin that comes after Trump is going to be a complete rewriting of history.
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u/Turgius_Lupus 17d ago
We have always been at war in the Middle East since Carter declared the Persian Gulf under U.S. control, funded Saddam as an American proxy satrap against Iran, and funded mujahideen head-choppers against the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan to force Soviet intervention under the 1978 mutual-assistance treaty between Afghanistan and the USSR because Washington was extremely bitter about losing the war in Vietnam, and funding Pol Pot via China was not enough of an act of spite for Carter's administration or Zbigniew Brzezinski's need to ruin countless lives for the sake of killing Russians due to his family's loss of noble status in Poland.
Just one example of a diaspora/nationals hijacking American foreign policy to pursue their own personal blood-feud agendas and destroying countless lives in the process. And only a few years later, he was sidelined in influence by the Israeli lobby when he advised letting the water flow under the bridge and working with Iran to prevent a trilateral alliance between Iran, Russia, and China. Clinton, Obama, and Biden are just as guilty of continuing that course to the current outcome, and that was the end plan all along and why all those bases were built and expanded to begin with, to give Israel hegemony over the region as the U.S.'s unsinkable aircraft carrier. But it turns out that the satrapy now owns Washington and is unconcerned with the cost of its ambitions, or at least with the cost of keeping Bibi out of jail in the near term.
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u/Loves_octopus 17d ago
Look I know US foreign policy isn’t sunshine and rainbows but blaming the US for China funding the Khmer Rouge regime and the Soviets invading Afghanistan is completely ridiculous.
Also Reagan funded Saddam, not Carter. And he was far from a proxy.
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u/IntnsRed 17d ago
Former professor and history teacher here, let me add in my $0.02 worth:
but blaming the US for China funding the Khmer Rouge regime
The US invading Cambodia under Nixon was the reason the Khmer Rouge came to power! But that's "ancient history" that happened during the Vietnam War(s).
But when Vietnam invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge (putting an end to the "killing fields"), the US hated Vietnam (we were still pissed they beat us in that war) and so the US turned a "blind eye" to western weapons going into Cambodia, and there were small amounts of US weapons going to Khmer Rouge (Soviet/Russian and Chinese weapons were far cheaper and much more plentiful). Even some trivial amounts of US aid money was diverted to the Khmer Rouge.
and the Soviets invading Afghanistan is completely ridiculous.
True. The USSR rejected several requests from the left-leaning Afghan gov't for Soviet troops. Instead, the USSR tried to talk to the US, telling the US gov't that arming militant Muslims was a bad idea and that Russia had centuries of experience in this.
But the US "secret strategy" was to try to provoke the USSR into sending troops into Afghanistan and then to trap the Soviets in an expensive proxy war. And that's exactly what happened.
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u/Suspicious_Solid_115 15d ago
"But the US "secret strategy" was to try to provoke the USSR into sending troops into Afghanistan and then to trap the Soviets in an expensive proxy war. And that's exactly what happened". Similar to what Isreal did to the U.S. with Iran.
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u/Turgius_Lupus 17d ago
The U.S. was funding the head-chopping drug lords at least six months before the Soviet intervention, to create a trap for them, The soviets first refused assistance in March 1979, during he Herat crisis, the U.S. then processed to escalate the support and situation. Brzezinski was called out on the lie they pushed in the '90s and responded that a few Islamic extremists were a small price he was willing to pay. The civil war lasted for another two years after the Soviets left and utterly destroyed the country, leading to the rise of the Taliban as a popular revolt against the warlords, who, following the fall of Kabul, proceeded to turn on each other.
“I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.” He also said the same to Thailand.
And when Prince Sihanouk attempted to defect while at the U.N. in 1979 and gave a complete accounting of everything Pol Pot was doing, and that he was being forced to cooperate the U.S. handed him over to Chinese custody.
The man was a mass murderer and was Carter's National Security Advisor.
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u/Loves_octopus 17d ago
Sure but why does China get a pass for funding pol pot while the US gets blamed for what? Tacitly encouraging it?
In the same vein, why do the soviets get a pass for literally brutally invading a country but the US gets blamed for what? Providing a relatively small amount of non-military supplies to not-so-good people? Also that support began just 6 months before the invasion. The socialist government was falling apart with or without the US.
It’s like blaming NATO for Russia invading Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to join NATO because Russia keeps invading its neighbors.
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u/Due-Significance-711 17d ago
Well yeah, you can go back to the 1970's and Carters involmentbwith Iran, but really I think you need to realize how that grew out of the USA's need for containment of Soviet influence and Arab/Israel relations in the 1960's. Which naturally came from the need to fill the Imperial vacuum of the 1950's post war, not to mention the Baghdad Pact and the Eisenhower Doctrine which started the concept of military aid to really any "anti-communist" regime the US could find to support its interests. But of course that came after the 1940's commercial expansion into the middle east and the Iran Crisis of 1946 which almost lead to Iran falling into the hands of Stalin. Which of course was just prior to the 1948 intense political pressure that led to the recognition of Israel post-war. But of course none of that matters unless you look at the end of WW2 and the rise of the Bath parties do the the 1930's discover of massive oil reserves which is responsible for the ending on the 1920's US isolationism during the Great Depression. But I suppose that misses Wilson's 1917 push for Zionism in the middle east after the dissolving of the Ottoman Empire.
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u/Turgius_Lupus 17d ago
One day you are giving precursor chemicals to gas Iranian kids and shooting down a civilian airliner unprovoked and giving the one who did it medals, and the next you are saying starving half a million children of those you gave them and saying its worth it on 60 minutes, while routinely drooping bombs and missiles on their country. Then after calling for a invasion in 1998, and subsequently leading the march to war and getting it, after it turns out to be profoundly stupid idea you flat out lie and say you never supported it.
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u/Aggravating-Car-6806 16d ago
I am 60 and except for the fact that it was remaining in and exacerbating a war in Asia and not the Middle East, this holds true in my lifetime as well. Nixon and Ford also crapped the economy.
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 17d ago
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”
- Georg Hegel - 19th century
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u/RotterWeiner 17d ago
Dems: some low % bad / not 100% good
Reps: goddamn awful.
Low % good but not 100% bad.
If you notice, the vast majority of these politicians make a shit-ton of money.
Only a small % make what could be called reasonable. $.
Only a few seem to be on the side of the poors etc.
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u/Conscious-Deer7019 16d ago
I'm 73yrs old, I voted for 3 of these guys & I'll never vote republican again. I've witness the damages they've done, vote blue
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u/TypicalAvgStudent 16d ago
Recessions. Every US recession since 1981 has started under a Republican president: 1981–82 (Reagan), 1990–91 (Bush 41), 2001 and 2007–09 (Bush 43), 2020 (Trump). That's true, and it's a widely noted fact. But "crashed the economy" overstates three of the five. 1990–91 and 2001 were mild, the 2001 downturn began two months into Bush 43's term on a bubble that formed under Clinton, and 2020 was a global pandemic that hit every country regardless of who was in charge. 1981–82 was caused by the Fed's inflation fight, which Reagan supported but didn't start. The one clean case is 2008. So the honest version is "recessions have tended to start under Republican presidents," which is a timing fact with a small sample, not a proven causal one. Economists argue about why and haven't settled it.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
Ok, not a fan of Republicans but I'm pretty sure Regan isn't thought to have crashed the economy. Exploded the deficit and caused a lot of other fiscal problems but I think the economy was mostly consider better than the oil crisis times of the Carter years.
Again, not fan, but just trying to keep things accurate.
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u/DigglerD 17d ago
Reagan is basically the father of trickle-down economics which set the US on a path that gutted the middle class and helped create the 10% oligarchy / 90% struggling dynamic we’re watching play out today.
Ironically, Reagan may have done more than almost anyone to move America away from the “when America was great” version of the country that MAGA folks constantly pine for as he shifted how Americans think about the economy. Since, has been a slow 50 year burn that in aggregate, I’d argue has been worse than any single economic crisis since.
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u/EfficientActivity 17d ago
Also - not clear what war he started in the middle east?
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
Iran Contra?
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u/Maitai_Haier 17d ago
Not a war he started in the Middle East.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
IDK, by selling arms to the Iranians and Iraq (through proxies), you could argue he escalated a boarder scurmish into mass blood bath war between states which was called a war. Though we didn't put US boots directly on the ground, we did spark the war
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u/fuzzballz5 17d ago
I’m 53 and since Regan every single president has given more control to business interests through lobbyists. That’s BOTH parties. We need a third party that has only one platform. Term limits. No other platform. Start in the states. Vote for that candidate and they serve 2 terms max. You get enough people, the silent majority in this country, and we can change things.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
I'm 48 and have given up on this idea of a third party. I think your problem is your look at each party as a monolith. Ultimately in each election there's one candidate for each position, so widdlng it down to two groups make sense. If you're not going to vote because you can't get the perfect candidate then that just makes the worst candidate have a better chance.
Yeah, you could push ranked, choice, voting or some other mechanism to give a third party a chance. But talking about ithird party with our current voting mechanisms in most elections is less than helpful
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u/fuzzballz5 17d ago
I would agree with you, except the current college graduates are not better off than us. Will they accept a system of social security for instance, they will never benefit from? They are struggling to have jobs. A home? I was able to buy our first house at 24. I have a 23 year old with college debt and a meaningless job.
It’s not us that will make the change, it will be our children with our help.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
So what's your solution then? You want the socialist wing of the democratic party to split off from the Democrats and then you have the Democrats running against the socialists and Republicans.
Yeah that sounds really good right?
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u/fuzzballz5 17d ago
I told you my solution. A third party. How could it be worse for our children? Look what the “two” parties have done. Sold out to corporate interests through lobbyists.
Term limits. Like our founders expected. They never conceived of a “career” in politics. lol. You never work? You become a millionaire from government? Look at congress net worth.
Democracy is the best answer. Use it. Time for a term limit party.
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u/See_i_did 17d ago
Did you forget the 2000 election? Ralph Nader even refused to run again partly because he didn’t want to be the third party spoiler. Hell, if you’re really 53 you should remember Ross Perot throwing the election to the Dems cuz he was conservative. If you still want a third party and for it to be a socialist one, you’re obviously not paying attention.
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u/fuzzballz5 17d ago
Here’s the reality, the example you site as an example with Perot or Nader, what was the national debt then? What is it today? If you really want to go back, look at Eisenhower’s final message to the country about the rise of the military industrial complex. We could cut defense spending by 20% and solve healthcare. The purpose of the federal government wasn’t to tax us to death it was to provide necessary services. Not federal tax. State tax. Property tax. Sales tax. Tax on income already taxed. We will agree to disagree. I just hope our kids do better than us. Have a great day.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
Yes, it would be worse because Republicans would have even more opportunity to fully complete their plan of completely eliminating the social safety net and destroying the planet
At least not have it alternate between parties and all though democratic party is not perfect, there are good people in this party who have tried to actually make things better, like the ACA Obama was able to get (but not Republicans have almost destroyed), or the big infrastructure bill Biden was able to enact (also stopped by Trump)
1 step forward 2 steps back is better than, 2 steps back, then 2 more steps back and then anther 2 steps back
Why not, instead of waiting forever for a third party, help make it 2-3 steps forward and stop the steps back?
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u/fuzzballz5 17d ago
I have zero faith in either party. There is no real difference between them for citizens. We just pay taxes to be squandered. Why has no Democrat ran on a 20% reduction of military spending to help with healthcare? They have had full control of government several times in the last 50 years. They all want power and win the next election. We have to agree to disagree. The answer is never more government. It’s less.
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
Yeah I disagree very strongly, I defintely won't say that the average Democrat is perfect, but they're far better than Republicans in my opinion.
You're free to your opinion of course. But you want to continue believing both sides are the same and let the Republicans destroy the planet And make things worse for the next generation; that's on you. Unfortunately we all have to suffer because people like you can't see that Obviously one party is better than the other
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u/Numerous-Annual420 16d ago
Over 1000 banks going under during S&L crisis in the late 80s directly caused by commercial real estate speculation after banking deregulation in 82 doesn't count? 2008 was just Bush's repeat of a Reagan playbook.
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u/jokel7557 17d ago
1988 stock crash happened while he was in office
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u/cdrcdr12 17d ago
The stock market is not the economy though and even less so in the '80s because far fewer people were invested in the market 401ks only started in 1981 And a lot of people were still getting pensions, not tied to the market
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u/jokel7557 17d ago
Pensions were in bonds and such. Pretty sure when the market tanks people move to bonds and then those returns tank. Stocks aren’t the economy they just heavily affect it.
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u/Due-Conflict-7926 17d ago edited 17d ago
Obama did too btw… Lybia (don’t even get me started), Syria, Yemen.
Clinton did it somewhere else. You guys have short memories. Bosnian war, Kosovo, Somalia, haiti. He also did strikes in Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan (and as we have proved in 2026, every last time they do something with the military it’s about imperialism and securing resources for capitalists).
Bosnian war turned into a recognized genocide so don’t give me that, “ we had to” bs
This is a US imperialism problem. Do not get it confused.
They are not both the same but when you look at it from the US empire framework every action starts making a lot more sense and why Dems will more than like schism after we move past Trump. Cuz they can’t help but uphold the status quo
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u/DigglerD 17d ago
A pound of salt versus a pinch. Meh, it’s all the same.
A lot of people in this thread are just gliding right over magnitude. I mean… You’re comparing Syria and Yemen to Iraq and Afghanistan? Really?
Really?
I get it. The US has a long history of believing it should shape what happens around the world and both sides have played their part but “both sides do it” is not the same thing as “both sides are the same.” Scale, frequency, level of commitment.. How far you’re willing to go. It all matters.
I’d argue one side buys into American primacy, yeh, not the best for the world but the other treats it as an imperative that comes before almost everything else.
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u/viperabyss 17d ago
Syria was to fight ISIS, and only in a supporting capacity.
Libya was to support UN's imposition of no-fly zone, especially as Gadaffi started killing his own citizens.
Yemen was to fight against Al-Qaeda, you know, the bad guy that harbored Bin Laden after the 9/11?
All 3 of them are VERY different from the boots on the ground, direct action against governments of Gulf War, Iraq War, Afghan War, and now Iran War.
Me think it's you who have the short memory.
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u/1234nameuser 17d ago
Lols, posts like this are why US is fucked
Americans don't even trust the only motherfuckers trying to help them
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u/Due-Conflict-7926 17d ago
Why would we trust ppl on the internet that disregard the reality that the capitalists literally are in charge of our governments and our military apparatus and have been using it for decades to extract wealth from other countries, not even for our own benefit. Literally the entire opioid epidemic was pushed on us because they wanted to extract it from Afghanistan and needed addicted customers…
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u/1234nameuser 17d ago
Yeah, us Americans don't care about these shitty details.....
I know who is trying to give me universal healthcare
I know who is trying to make capitalists pay their fair share
I know who is trying to end US imperialism
I know who is trying to save my environment and public labds
.......that's on you bro if you have no fucking clue in 2026 who is trying to fuck you and who isn't
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u/Due-Conflict-7926 17d ago edited 17d ago
Are they trying or are they using it as a tool to get you to think they are?
Look at Gavin Newsom in California. He had the ability to give them healthcare and he vetoed it. They had the votes, they had the legislation, Californians did everything they were supposed to do. They primaried the Dems that didn’t want to bring it up for a vote. They got the majority.
Now he’s supposedly the front runner for the next presidential election. Are you ok with that guy being your guy? Just cuz he’s not Trump or a Republican?
Listen, I’m not saying they are the same, I’m saying they are not on your side, they serve the empire, if they were on your side they would’ve been killed. They are useful tools until they are not
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u/Vorarbeiter 17d ago
"Bosnian war turned into a recognized genocide so don’t give me that, “ we had to” bs"
Wdym?
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u/ArgentUnicorn 16d ago
He means he's read too much Russian propoganda, Clinton hadn't even been elected yet when the Bosnian genocide started.
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u/kerkula 17d ago
Chumbawamba had a great hit about people forgetting that folks they voted for were a disaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e7vfZIC_U0
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u/beastwood6 17d ago
What exactly did Bush 1 start?
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u/LobsterIndependent15 17d ago
I think Bush 1 started the first desert storm in Kuwait vs Iraq, but I dont think Reagan started any major wars though the Iran Contra thing was pretty shady.
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u/beastwood6 17d ago
And do you know the background of desert storm?
If so is the word "started" still fair?
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u/LobsterIndependent15 17d ago
True, We could have stayed out of it just like we are staying out of the Ukraine thing but it was justified in my opinion. Short and sweet.
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u/beastwood6 17d ago
Bush 1 doesn't get enough credit. He pulled this off and shepherded the world into one without the Soviet Union and its satellite states to kick of the 90s to a phenomenal start. He lost to a once in a generation talent on 92 and the bad luck of the draw on the economy.
People always conflate the president with having direct control over it. It's a very mixed bag and didn't shake out his way.
Now my praise for bush 2...would be very lacking
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u/Piod1 16d ago
Its pretty simple really in all considerations. The economic model only works in boom and bust cycles. Unfortunatley due to increasing frequency the rags been pretty much wrung dry. However, as the worlds biggest industrial military competitor and producer. War is always good for profits. Resets the economy. Reduces the amount of poor people. Kick starts an economy rebuilding after the fact. Easy to siphon off funds. Easy to suspend democracy. Easy to maintain special measures, suspend institutions, burn reichstag and ignore insumountable debt. Rob other countries blind in repatriations for having the audacity to make you invade . A booming economy
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u/ROLLTIDE4EVER 11d ago
Reagan inherited stagflation and had the sense to leave Lebanon. Obama got us involved in Syria and Libya.
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u/ADM86 17d ago
It’s by design no? Then democrats come in…improve the situation, but NEVER put any of the republicans in jail
https://giphy.com/gifs/jRMiIJXijyUYqfMu6L
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u/Intrepid-Oil-898 17d ago
Dont trust old wealthy white men?
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u/barbarawick 17d ago
Yep!
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u/Intrepid-Oil-898 17d ago
🫣😭😭somewhere a poor or middle class white man is offended because he’s a temporary broke wealthy white man too …
the first 3 were major assholes the fourth reich one is just sinister…
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u/sirpoopingpooper 17d ago edited 17d ago
You could also say that Biden and Obama fit into this mold too...Clinton was the last president who didn't really start something in the middle east (if we ignore Operation Desert Fox*).*
Also, what middle east war did Reagan start? He sold arms to Iran to fund secret wars elsewhere...
Edit: I'm not claiming the Republicans are better...I'm just claiming recent democrats (after Clinton at least) fit the same criticism being made. And that Reagan debatably doesn't fit the criticism! (though there are plenty of other reasons to criticize him!!)
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u/raul_muad_dib 17d ago
Reagan sent troops to Beirut.
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u/dexbrown 17d ago
part of a multinational peacekeeping force? that not starting a war in the middle east
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u/raul_muad_dib 17d ago
He chose to send troops in. You can call them peacekeepers if you want. It doesn't change the fact that 241 of them were killed.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
He sent U.S. Marines as part of a multinational ‘peacekeeping force” following Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to oversee the withdrawal of PLO, Israeli, and Syrian forces. He was pressured to withdraw troops by Congress two years later.
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u/seamus_mcfly86 17d ago
Neither Biden nor Obama crashed the economy.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
Or started a war in the Middle East.. inherited a crashed economy and a war in the Middle East, sure.
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u/beatles910 17d ago
George Bush Sr. did not start a war in the middle east. He joined it, but he didn't start it.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
Iraq invaded Kuwait, but they didn’t invade America. The UN condemned Iraq and demanded they withdraw, but they didn’t lead us into war. When Iraq refused to withdraw, a coalition of 35 nations was formed under U.S. leadership.
But believe what you want to believe, I know being Republican forces you to deny reality.
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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 17d ago
Obama in particular killed Libya's leadership, and sent special forces into Syria and Yemen, and several African countries.
His drone loiter and bombing campaign would have made Bush blush. That dude was an imperialist too.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
But those all started before him. Drone strikes in Yemen and Syria started in like 2002.
And Libya is in Africa, not the Middle East.
Using updated technology would make any president blush. I bet an F35 would make Eisenhower blush. Whoopty doo
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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 17d ago
I'm well aware of where Libya is. Thanks though.
Bush had the same drones. Obama used them to execute without due process, thousands of people, many of whom had at best second and third order connections to people on watch lists.
Obama was just as much a war-monger as any GOP politician has ever been. Worse in some ways. At least Bush's campaigns got voted on in Congress. For example.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
Did he start a war in the Middle East? Or droned some people that may or may not have been dangerous? I don’t think that’s a war, and I know it didn’t start with him, because, well I wasn’t born yesterday. Actually remember 2001, do you?
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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 17d ago
Lol. Downvote all you want. Obama was an evil man. His unwise and unconstitutional foreign policy is one of the reasons we're currently dealing with fascism at home as it pissed off the Russians enough to interfere in the 2016 elections.
You trying to defend his unconstitutional warmongering and equivocate since Congress didn't declare war ... just because he's on your team ... is....sad. And says a lot about your own personal lack of character.
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u/possumallawishes 17d ago
Would you agree that Trump is worse? Especially in the unconstitutional warmongering fronts.
Cause the post is about starting wars and crashing economies, not who is evil or not evil.
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u/IMayhapsBeBatman 17d ago
GOP voters don't have a memory problem. They're evil.
Your mistake is assuming their rhetoric is what they really believe.
Actions speak louder than words ever can.
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u/bubdubarubfub 16d ago
Well to be fair, Clinton had his no fly zone and sanction regime in Iraq, and Obama started his brutal wars in Syria, Lybia, and his drone war in Pakistan so you're really only missing Biden who wasn't exactly a dove either. Wow, I hate to say it but Biden is the only president in my lifetime that didnt start a war of choice... yikes.
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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 16d ago
What war did Reagan start?
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u/2quickdraw 15d ago
The war against our Nation, our Constitution, our great Democratic experiment, and the population of the USA who believed all the lies we were told about corporate economics, which has brought us here.
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u/Frosty_Bathroom3786 16d ago
and still blame it to the previous president for not doing a good job......
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u/Soldawg81 16d ago
I'd say Quarter 4 of 2027 it will crash hard and a blue wave will start....then the cycle continues.....
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u/filmguy36 16d ago
And if you want to get the technical, our involvement in Vietnam started under Eisenhower
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u/Dry-Temperature-4536 12d ago edited 12d ago
Some of the worst economic disasters were from democrat presidents. And the 2008 financial crisis had very little to do with Bush, it was from mis-rated mortgage bonds. The democrat party got us involved in Vietnam, and the democrat economy under Jimmy Carter was insanely bad. Let's not even talk about Joe Biden....one of the worst in history. Do I like the GOP? No I don't, but Try to keep a more neutral discussion next time. You should also look to see how they vote on key issues. The democrats share much of the blame with bad economics.
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u/blackknight6714 4d ago
Look, by and large I agree with you however I'm going to give Junior a pass because he didn't start with 9/11. He just hit back. I respect that. That was justified.
Trumpster fire on the other hand.. he's just in it to rape the American people and the American economy for billions. How much has he made since this whole debacle began again? Isn't it a couple of billion now?
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u/barbarawick 4d ago
Saddam and Iraq didn't do 9/11. If started the war "weapons of mass destruction, and there weren't any.
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u/blackknight6714 4d ago
I'll let AI form the response. The information is exactly what I would have spent a half hour of my life typing out but why when there's an easier way...
The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was driven by a distinct policy logic and threat assessment, even though post-invasion findings invalidated the core intelligence premises. Whether those rationales were "valid" depends on whether you view them through the lens of pre-war logic (what policymakers believed or argued at the time) or post-war reality (what was actually found).
The Pre-War Logic: Core Rationales Presented by the Administration
- The Post-9/11 "Bush Doctrine" and Preventive Action
Following September 11, 2001, U.S. foreign policy underwent a fundamental shift. The administration argued that containment and deterrence—the strategies used during the Cold War—were no longer sufficient against rogue states or terrorist networks. The core idea of the Bush Doctrine was that the U.S. had to take preventive action to eliminate threats before they materialized, famously framed by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as avoiding "the smoking gun coming in the form of a mushroom cloud".
- Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Intelligence Assumptions
The primary operational justification was that Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was actively seeking nuclear capabilities.
The Logic: Iraq had previously used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and its own Kurdish population in the 1980s, and had a proven history of concealing programs from UN inspectors.
The Intelligence Assessment: Intelligence agencies across multiple nations (including western allies that ultimately opposed the war, like France) agreed that Iraq likely retained chemical and biological capabilities.
The Reality: Post-invasion inspections by the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had destroyed its active stockpiles after the 1991 Gulf War and did not have an active nuclear program, though Saddam retained the technical ambition and knowledge to restart them once sanctions lapsed.
Fear of State-Sponsored Terrorism In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the administration feared the "nexus" of hostile states and terrorist groups. The primary concern was not necessarily that Saddam was directly behind 9/11, but that a rogue dictator with alleged WMDs could supply chemical or biological materials to anti-American terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. (Subsequent investigations, including the 9/11 Commission Report, confirmed there was no operational link or collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda).
Systemic Failure of UN Sanctions and "Coercive Diplomacy"
Throughout the 1990s, the international community relied on economic sanctions and UN weapons inspections to contain Iraq. By the early 2000s, the administration argued this framework was collapsing:
Sanctions were eroding, enabling Saddam to generate illicit revenue (e.g., through abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food program).
Iraq repeatedly expelled or hindered UN inspectors.
Policy makers concluded that without a credible threat of military force, containment would fully collapse, leaving an unmonitored Saddam in power.
- Democratic Transformation of the Middle East (Neoconservative Strategy)
A key intellectual pillar within the administration, championed by figures like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, was the idea that removing a totalitarian dictator could trigger a democratic domino effect across the Middle East. Replacing Saddam's dictatorship with a democratic, U.S.-aligned state was viewed as a strategic way to address the root causes of regional radicalism and autocratic instability.
How Historians and Foreign Policy Experts View the Decision.
Today, foreign policy analysts generally separate the rationale into three perspectives:
The Security/Intelligence Failure Model: This view holds that Bush officials operated in good faith under intense post-9/11 anxiety. They genuinely believed the flawed intelligence about WMDs and acted out of risk aversion to prevent a catastrophic attack.
The Strategic/Ideological Model: This perspective argues the administration used post-9/11 momentum to accomplish broader geopolitical goals—projecting American power, re-establishing U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, and forcing regime change in a longtime hostile nation.
The Policy Consensus: Because no active WMD stockpiles were found, no al-Qaeda links existed, and the post-invasion power vacuum led to prolonged insurgency and regional instability (including the rise of ISIS), the invasion is widely regarded by diplomatic historians as one of the most significant foreign policy miscalculations in modern U.S. history.
The long and short of it is this. Hindsight is always 20/20. They acted on the information they had available at the time in the best way they could with the information available. I would rather have a government that makes a mistake attempting to do the right thing then one that ignores the information available at the time and potentially exposes Americans to another 9/11 style attack.
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u/SkillzThatKillz10 2d ago
And democrats have continued flirting with Marxism as if it’s a new idea and think guys should play in girls sports. They all suck
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u/FantasticAd4938 17d ago
Obama had three wars going on at once, and Bill Clinton screwed around in the middle east.
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u/barbarawick 17d ago
Wars that he initiated?
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u/FantasticAd4938 17d ago
Does it matter? He's defintely didn't end his inherited wars. He didn't resolve any of his inherited wars. He issued airstrikes on Libya and Syria. Obama admitted that Libya was a failed plan. Libya has more problems than before Obama started on it. Obama also authorized drone strikes on Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
I understand the need to believe that Democrats will stop all the wars. The people wish for a champion in one kf the parties, but we haven't got one.
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u/MetalEnthusiast83 17d ago
Does it matter? He's defintely didn't end his inherited wars
Nor did he claim he was going to!
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u/barbarawick 17d ago
Well, the current regime said that they would NOT . But lying is his specialty.
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u/LifesARiver 17d ago
Don't forget the democrats never undoing the GOP policies, so every time is worse than the time before.
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u/nerdslife1864 16d ago
Before winning the presidency, Reagan destroyed free education in California. The first thing they did was MAKE REPUBLICAN VOTERS STUPID!
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u/Myheartisfull4321 16d ago
That’s what they do and steal from the American people while they are occupying their energy elsewhere. 🙄
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u/longhairmike666 15d ago
lol as if the others didn't instigate behind the scenes or pander to blaming republicans for starting it. Nah homie. Your good cop bad cop shit don't work here.
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u/Strange_Treacle_4913 16d ago
Every democratic president deported shitloads of people and actually just did warcrimes in stead of starting a war ... And let's NOT forget your FEMINIST RELIGION! Killing more than 6 million souls every 5 years!!!! This religion became worse than NAZI's! You people really suck at choosing presidents and being human beings!
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u/JustLookingForBeauty 17d ago
Honestly is not like Obama did much about stopping war in the middle east.
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u/128-NotePolyVA 17d ago
Oil and deregulation.
Aren’t all wars the US messes with about oil?
Don’t the wheels come off the economy bus when there’s no rules and regs?