Who did more long-term damage to the United States and World? (user search)
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  Who did more long-term damage to the United States and World? (search mode)
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Poll
Question: ?
#1
Trump
 
#2
Reagan
 
#3
Bush Jr.
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 79

Author Topic: Who did more long-term damage to the United States and World?  (Read 1026 times)
Alcibiades
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« on: April 08, 2021, 07:45:00 AM »

Either Reagan or Trump, definitely not Bush. It’s obviously not really possible to judge yet what the long-term effects of Trump’s presidency were, but they seem likely to include further erosion of respect for democracy and the rule of law, and greater craziness/polarisation/political dysfunction being driven by the Republican Party.
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Alcibiades
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Posts: 3,851
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Political Matrix
E: -4.39, S: -6.96

P P
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2021, 05:27:25 PM »
« Edited: April 08, 2021, 05:34:41 PM by Alcibiades »

Reagan generally left our alliance network intact and by the end of his presidency the US was close to becoming the unchallenged global superpower. Trump hasn't been out of office long enough for us to assess his impact, but because so much of what he did was related to personality rather than policy, I think scrubbing his damage will prove easier than it did with Bush.

George W Bush, however, was an infantile war criminal who-- in eight short years-- squandered international goodwill towards America, replacing it with two brutal wars, economic malaise, and the emboldening of Islamic terrorists. China managed to make leaps in power under his watch, as the US was far too distracted by the Mideast to give Asia the attention it demanded. The Patriot Act will go down in history among the worst American legislation ever passed, up there with the Alien and Sedition Acts. There can be no rehabilitation for this trigger-happy maniac. He should be in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

I do not take anyone who answers anything other than Bush seriously.

I get why answering Bush is the natural choice for a libertarian, but surely you can see why at least some of the rest of us might think Reagan was worse?

Reagan was clearly much better on foreign policy than Bush, but I tend to place domestic policy as a higher priority when evaluating presidents, and in my mind Reagan unquestionably did far more damage in that area than Bush.

Obviously you might not consider his rollback of the welfare state and resulting growth in inequality as dourly as I do (although supply-side is still objectively a ridiculous doctrine with no basis in fact)*, but I think we should be able to agree that Reagan had a far more insidious impact on American political culture. A lot of Bush-era Republican discourse seems rather quaint today, not least because it has fallen completely out of favour within the contemporary GOP. By contrast, America is still feeling the effects of Reaganism today. To quote a section from a lengthy post I made on the topic (the thread is now locked) in response to RINO Tom praising Reagan:

Quote
I’m surprised that you think so highly of Reagan, considering how you’ve spelt out your vision of a Republican Party which is a sensible check on the more outlandish currents within the Democratic Party (a vision which I have a lot of sympathy for, even if I think it is a bit optimistic given the party’s current state). It was Reagan after all, who destroyed any hope for this kind of GOP; while the Rockefeller faction had passed its sell-by date at that point, it was by no means inevitable that the GOP had to end up as a coalition of the various particularly toxic elements Reagan worked to bring together, including the Religious Right (whom, remember, Goldwater hated with a passion) and the white resentment/ex-segregationist Southern crowd; there was of course frequent overlap between the two. Not to mention, of course, Reagan being the first to pursue (again, very successfully) the kind of fact-free, responsibility-free rhetoric which has come to define the modern GOP, to again reference MT Treasurer. I think it is a stretch to say that Trump is Reagan’s spiritual successor, but by no means inaccurate to say that, without Reagan, the kind of GOP which gave rise to Trump would not have been possible.

Bush was an awful president, no doubt. But in large part because he came to be so widely despised, he has simply had nowhere near as much of a long-term impact on the US. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Newt Gingrich (and Tom DeLay and Dick Armey and the rest of that gang) and Mitch McConnell have done more long-term damage.

*On the matter of their economic legacies, it seems a bit of a stretch to blame the Great Recession on Bush; he hardly did much to help things, but the crash was mostly caused by actors within the financial markets.
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Alcibiades
YaBB God
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Posts: 3,851
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.39, S: -6.96

P P
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2021, 05:37:03 PM »

Reagan generally left our alliance network intact and by the end of his presidency the US was close to becoming the unchallenged global superpower. Trump hasn't been out of office long enough for us to assess his impact, but because so much of what he did was related to personality rather than policy, I think scrubbing his damage will prove easier than it did with Bush.

George W Bush, however, was an infantile war criminal who-- in eight short years-- squandered international goodwill towards America, replacing it with two brutal wars, economic malaise, and the emboldening of Islamic terrorists. China managed to make leaps in power under his watch, as the US was far too distracted by the Mideast to give Asia the attention it demanded. The Patriot Act will go down in history among the worst American legislation ever passed, up there with the Alien and Sedition Acts. There can be no rehabilitation for this trigger-happy maniac. He should be in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

I do not take anyone who answers anything other than Bush seriously.

I get why answering Bush is the natural choice for a libertarian, but surely you can see why at least some of the rest of us might think Reagan was worse?

Reagan was clearly much better on foreign policy than Bush, but I tend to place domestic policy as a higher priority when evaluating presidents, and in my mind Reagan unquestionably did far more damage in that area than Bush.

Obviously you might not consider his rollback of the welfare state and resulting growth in inequality as dourly as I do (although supply-side is still objectively a ridiculous doctrine with no basis in fact)*, but I think we should be able to agree that Reagan had a far more insidious impact on American political culture. A lot of Bush-era Republican discourse seems rather quaint today, not least because it has fallen completely out of favour within the contemporary GOP. By contrast, America is still feeling the effects of Reaganism today. To quote a section from a lengthy post I made on the topic (the thread is now locked) in response to RINO Tom praising Reagan:

Quote
I’m surprised that you think so highly of Reagan, considering how you’ve spelt out your vision of a Republican Party which is a sensible check on the more outlandish currents within the Democratic Party (a vision which I have a lot of sympathy for, even if I think it is a bit optimistic given the party’s current state). It was Reagan after all, who destroyed any hope for this kind of GOP; while the Rockefeller faction had passed its sell-by date at that point, it was by no means inevitable that the GOP had to end up as a coalition of the various particularly toxic elements Reagan worked to bring together, including the Religious Right (whom, remember, Goldwater hated with a passion) and the white resentment/ex-segregationist Southern crowd; there was of course frequent overlap between the two. Not to mention, of course, Reagan being the first to pursue (again, very successfully) the kind of fact-free, responsibility-free rhetoric which has come to define the modern GOP, to again reference MT Treasurer. I think it is a stretch to say that Trump is Reagan’s spiritual successor, but by no means inaccurate to say that, without Reagan, the kind of GOP which gave rise to Trump would not have been possible.

*On the matter of their economic legacies, it seems a bit of a stretch to blame the Great Recession on Bush; he hardly did much to help things, but the crash was mostly caused by actors within the financial markets.


           I think you have a rather poor understanding of the actions of Ronald Reagan while president, and their impacts on the United States. This is because between the presidencies of Bush Sr. and Bush Jr, the Republican Party, despite not holding the presidency, underwent rapid change due to the leadership of Gingrich. A lot of the decisions that Gingrich made are rather blamed on Reagan, even though that’s not historically accurate.

I actually edited my post to mention Gingrich just before I saw your response. Anyway, I think Gingrich would absolutely not have been possible without Reagan, and the 1994 ‘Gingrich Revolution’ was in many ways just the 1980 ‘Reagan Revolution’ being brought to bear at the Congressional level.
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Alcibiades
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,851
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.39, S: -6.96

P P
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2021, 06:03:34 PM »

I actually edited my post to mention Gingrich just before I saw your response. Anyway, I think Gingrich would absolutely not have been possible without Reagan, and the 1994 ‘Gingrich Revolution’ was in many ways just the 1980 ‘Reagan Revolution’ being brought to bear at the Congressional level.

That’s... not true, as Reagan and Gingrich had VERY different governing styles, and even policy wise, were quite different when it actually came to ideology. Unless you’re talking about a super general sense in that they both ended previously powerful Democratic Coalitions. 


The main difference was that Reagan employed less abrasive rhetoric than Gingrich, but beyond that they were both hardcore supply-siders who veered the Republican Party to the right. Gingrich certainly took a more confrontational stance towards Democrats, but in this respect Reagan walked so that Gingrich could run.
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