Just watched the Boy Boy video on George Bush’s Masterclass, and they made me think about which U.S. President was actually worse.
Bush was worse for the world, Trump was worse for the US.
That remains to be seen. Ukraine is largely Trump’s fault, and flushing all the progress made with Iran will have consequences for decades
How is Putin deciding to invade Ukraine (which he started in 2014 btw) largely Trumps fault?
I’m genuinely curious.
The most likely argument I see is that Trump severely strained diplomatic bonds both between North America and Europe and also within North America and Europe. Additionally, he heralded in a new degree of isolationist policy and created doubt about the resilience of NATO. Furthermore, he tried to blackmail the Ukrainian government.
In summary: Not his fault directly but his politics led to a situation where Russia/Putin saw it as likely that they could invade without facing significant backlash from Europe + North America. That probably would have worked out as well if Ukraine had folded within the first couple of weeks. The argument is essentially that by convincing Russia that they could get Ukraine without significant consequences, his administration contributed to the invasion happening.
Make of that argument what you will. Personally, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say “Trumps fault”, but reasonable to think that another administration might have been able to deter the invasion.
So, Obamas fault?
I think Dubya hands down if we’re reducing to the presidency. To me Trump represents the absurd spectacle American politics has become, but the worst thing about Trump winning was that the Republicans were able to pass legislation. Trump as an individual wasn’t very successful as a politician once he was in power. Trump, Hillary, and Biden are so widely unpopular in general, and Trump barely losing to someone like Biden after one term really drives the point home how meaningless so much of these politics are right now apart from the spectacle they provide. Trump was the spectacle in a pure form, and when the mainstream liberal media was covering him as a frontrunner in early 2016 and reacting to every tweet, that was my first realization this presidency could potentially happen.
Bush and the post-9/11 world I view as the sort of last doubling-down towards the political situation we live in today, and Obama represented the best we can hope for within this system. While Obama was insanely likable as a personality and speaker I never really supported the politics he stood for. Adolph Reed Jr. had the best take on Obama in 1996, now an infamous article since it was really validated post-Obama:
“In Chicago, for instance, we’ve gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices; one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable do-good credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program — the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle-class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics, as in Haiti and wherever else the International Monetary Fund has sway. So far the black activist response hasn’t been up to the challenge. We have to do better.”
The decrepit political landscape today is a perfect fit for Trump but I don’t think he controls it, he’s just a mirror that reflects back on itself, it’s what goes on in his shadow that’s the real danger. I think progressives being so enraptured by Trump’s terribleness is another serious issue because of this. Just being “not Trump” has allowed the Democrats to be lax on anything that would upset their donor base. Biden was always a darling of the Israel lobby for instance (why Obama picked him as VP) and we’re seeing the effects of this right now. Bernie was a real mobilization and hope for the left and the attacks about him being soft on race etc from liberal progressives was basically an indication of where the Democrat party is. They want the “do-good” version of the same economic system the Republican’s want to hand to the barons, and there’s no political alternative to this system being offered, just the form it takes. Now there’s hope in the increasing labor actions and strikes, an encouraging trend as people are pushed further and further being offered nothing by mainstream politicians.
Especially galling was “W” making a “funny” video where he pretended he was looking for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Quite the pos in retrospect.
ETA: Found it, sorry quality is so poor. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T5YgJx8VGRA
Depends on the metric. Direct threat to democracy, increasing violence and dangerr for millions of Americans, harming economic futures for Americans, etc.: probably Trump.
Sheer body count: maybe Bush, but don’t forget about all the people who would still be alive or more healthy if Trump had not actively sabotaged COVID response.
Okay I’m back to Trump.
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Great answer.
We joked about W and Cheney cancelling the election. “Bush 2008 - why should the law stop us now?”
The Idiot was responsible for a failed coup.
The part where an angry mob invaded the capital, held back by precious few law enforcement officials, with the entire federal elected government hiding in one location? That was the lesser part. That was the visible mushroom emerging from the mycellum organism that permeated his turd of an administration. In the year leading up to that violent assault on the American government, he’d openly suggested “delaying” the election, on account of the plague he also insisted was fake. He had the Postal Service destroy the literal machinery of democracy with the explicit intent of vilifying and preventing mail-in voting. He extorted a foreign ally in hopes of committing fraud, and just about ruined the State Department with his narcissistic tantrums about getting caught doing those crimes.
George W. Bush was an intolerable authoritarian moron who openly betrayed the ideals of the nation and his duties to its people. We spent seven years constantly terrorized by our own government’s vague-but-menacing warnings and gleeful overreactions to attacks they failed to detect.We still have people trapped in an offshore torture prison because of that motherfucker. He was the worst domestic threat the United States had faced since the Business Plot. There was no excuse for ever electing anyone so brazenly corrupt and dishonest ever again. And then The Idiot was worse. The Idiot was orders of magnitude worse, on every possible front, without one god-damn iota of ambiguity or disguise. Republicans nominated and installed an incompetent criminal fascist.
They are trying to do it again.
The party is complicit and must be dismantled.
Bush was the worse president, Trump is the worse person.
I can see a lot of potential presidents in 2001 act the same way as Bush did, especially any other Republican. Even Gore would have gone to war in Afghanistan. Unless of course we go down the rabbit hole of could he have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The Iraq war probably would have been avoided under Gore.
But I don’t see any other president doing the same damages that Trump did. While the current status of the Republican Party has many people just as bad as Trump, I don’t think they would have the same traction today without Trump.
And let’s not forget the worst of Trump was prevented. If his coup would have succeeded, he would even be the worse president.
Yeah, the worst of Trump isn’t limited to what political actions he took as President, but also the wider cultural impact he directly spawned, escalated and continues to propogate even outside of office. He contributed so much to this cultural shift that has provided legitimacy to crooks, crackpots, and literal nazis. And worse, he’s pushed the Republican party to coddle those people, capitulate to their whims, promote their voices, and endorse their views and elections. Not that the Republican party had been respectable in a generation, but 20 years ago, they weren’t publically allied with open fascists, far-right militia groups and domestic terrorists. They are now, though.
Disagree. For all his faults and for all the Iraq fiasco I truly believe that George bush respected the office of president. There was a line even he wouldn’t cross. He wouldn’t attack democracy itself. I think he would have resigned if Kerry had won. That alone is massive
Trump has no respect for the office beyond what it can get him personally. He will trample every vestige of the Constitution if it makes him a dollar
Now watch this drive
The respect for the office is worth very little the million Iraqis killed and millions of people suffering under the IS terrorists that raise thanks to Bushs invasion of Iraq.
Also it showed to another generation of people that the US does not uphold international law and order. Instead they commit the most heinous of atrocities if it helps to funnel money to their oligarchy.
Also fiscally Bush turned the US away from reasonable fiscal policy into incurring ever more debt without investing into the future of the country. The current republican party wouldn’t be half as bad if Bush didnt open the floodgatey.
I don’t believe Bush was really running things and deferred most decisions to Cheney who is about as deplorable as one can get.
Public opinion was very much in favor of the war in Afghanistan after 9/11. Maybe not so much Iraq, but it’s hard to blame Bush squarely for those wars when they had bipartisan support.
Bush is done doing damage to our country, and might actually be considered a voice of reason compared to today’s Republicans.
It’s definitely already Trump, and he’s not even done doing damage yet.
Even if Republicans elect someone who is identical to Trump in his words, views, and actions, that person would still be better for the country than Trump. It’s critically important for the justice department to hold him accountable for the insurrection and trying to overthrow our democracy, or it WILL happen again.
You should dig a little further into the run up to the Iraq war. If you like podcasts checkout the first season of “Blowback”. Pretty in depth history. Trump was awfull in other ways but the Bush administration has the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands.
Even if Republicans elect someone who is identical to Trump in his words, views, and actions, that person would still be better for the country than Trump.
You had me up to here, I disagree. Either case would be a disaster. If it walks like a Trump, and quacks like a Trump, it’s a Trump.
I didn’t have a problem going into Afghanistan. I had alarm bells going off in my head before going into Iraq but I didn’t say shit. that’s not going to happen again.
The “good war” is always an alarm bell for me, the real losers are always civilians, and what America did in Afghanistan and Iraq dwarfs what’s going on in Gaza now.
You can’t be serious.
of the two, Trump did more damage while he was president and had the bigger riot when he lost the popular vote, but Bush’s legacy of damage lasted from when he launched his forever wars in 02 all the way into the Biden administration
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. It seems the consensus is Trump.
This is a tough question, because trump did lead an attempted coups to overturn democracy, but I’d say Bush W. The forever wars cost so many lives, far more than were killed as a direct result of trump’s actions. While trump’s failure to lead during Covid cost many lives as well, I think the net death toll is still considerably lower compared to Iraq/Afghanistan. And all for oil at that, also not known to be amenable to healthy living.
Good thing Trump’s coup agaisnt Venezuela failed
lol, oops, forgot about that one. It was truly a clown show of epic proportions. But to be clear I’m referring to Jan 6.
Yeah, just pointing out that it wasn’t Trump’s first time trying that. Just his first attempt of 2021
Clearly trump done the biggest long term damage, what will lead to more serious problems in usa, and not just in usa… putin was encouraged by trump’s direction of making US stop being world police… however trump was just servin his master 😆
Edit: i see tankies are here
Trump, hands down. Bush at least tried to be a president.
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