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@Snowy said in US Politics:
@Siam said in US Politics:
If anyone thinks Biden is the man then lay out the cards and we'll analyse that argument as we have done Trump's
Lesser of two evils seems to have been the voters consensus. Biden will also be analysed, that goes without saying, every president is.
CONSENSUS?!
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@nostrildamus said in US Politics:
-4 years of historical data. Oh, perhaps you are referring to everything his people have been shedding? There are still his tweets-official records.
And zero hours of analysis against historical context. Contemporary historians told the world (and their students) for decades that FDR's New Deal brought the US out of Depression and was his greatest achievement. Now they teach the opposite.
I was taught former in 1970s! What is the current view?
Oh, perhaps you are referring to everything his people have been shedding?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-habit-of-ripping-up-records-trump-could-leave-a-hole-in-us-history/-In the links you can find those historians and decide for yourself. You could also email survey organizers and ask if the names of the historians were made available: "For additional information about the survey visit www.siena.edu/sri/research or contact Don Levy at 518-783-2901, dlevy@siena.edu or Doug Lonnstrom at 518-783-2362."
They aren't historians - they teach Sociology & Business Studies at Siena.
LOL
-Perhaps you could show them how it is done by reading the articles I linked and then going to the historians themselves.
Thanks for the ad hominem, but I don't need to show "them" anything. They are the ones saying Trump is "the worst President ever", not me. I'll reserve my judgement until I know more.
I would be astounded if in 30 years Trump will be seen as the worst President ever. I can conceive of him being considered one of the worst persons ever to have been President, but that is quite a different thing, and a distinction which many of the posters here seem to find difficult to make.
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@pakman said in US Politics:
I was taught former in 1970s! What is the current view?
That it caused the recession in '37, centralisation of power & increased bureaucracy reduced industrial efficiency, it created big divisions in society between poor whites, wealthier Americans & African-Americans and slowed the return to full employment. A lot of the accepted "benefits" of the New Deal - e.g. full employment and increased wealth - are now believed to be actually due to WW2.
Not that it didn't achieve great things like Labour reform and improving financial regulation but it wasn't the wonder-strategy that was almost uncritically taught up to the '80's.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@pakman said in US Politics:
I was taught former in 1970s! What is the current view?
That it caused the recession in '37, centralisation of power & increased bureaucracy reduced industrial efficiency, it created big divisions in society between poor whites, wealthier Americans & African-Americans and slowed the return to full employment. A lot of the accepted "benefits" of the New Deal - e.g. full employment and increased wealth - are now believed to be actually due to WW2.
Not that it didn't achieve great things like Labour reform and improving financial regulation but it wasn't the wonder-strategy that was almost uncritically taught up to the '80's.
All news to me. You seem to have kept up-to-date far better!
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@pakman said in US Politics:
I would be astounded if in 30 years Trump will be seen as the worst President ever. I can conceive of him being considered one of the worst persons ever to have been President, but that is quite a different thing, and a distinction which many of the posters here seem to find difficult to make.
Yep. LBJ would make Trump look like a quiet, respectable choir-boy by all accounts. But, apart from Vietnam, he did some amazing stuff.
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@pakman said in US Politics:
All news to me. You seem to have kept up-to-date far better!
History degree 10 years ago.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@pakman said in US Politics:
All news to me. You seem to have kept up-to-date far better!
History degree 10 years ago.
That would have been pretty interesting. Balanced lecturers?
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@pakman said in US Politics:
I would be astounded if in 30 years Trump will be seen as the worst President ever. I can conceive of him being considered one of the worst persons ever to have been President, but that is quite a different thing, and a distinction which many of the posters here seem to find difficult to make.
Yep. LBJ would make Trump look like a quiet, respectable choir-boy by all accounts. But, apart from Vietnam, he did some amazing stuff.
I posted that historic LBJ speech a month or so ago. Wonderful. But pretty coarse fellow by all accounts.
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@pakman said in US Politics:
That would have been pretty interesting. Balanced lecturers?
OU, loads of on-line resources. Most tutors were v. good - my modern history one was German and had actually interviewed the Baader-Meinhof gang and done her PhD on them. One was very woke and ignorant. Marked me down when I wrote about Apirana Ngata and the 28th Maori battalion being held in such high regard - i was glorifying colonialism apparently.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@pakman said in US Politics:
That would have been pretty interesting. Balanced lecturers?
OU, loads of on-line resources. Most tutors were v. good - my modern history one was German and had actually interviewed the Baader-Meinhof gang and done her PhD on them. One was very woke and ignorant. Marked me down when I wrote about Apirana Ngata and the 28th Maori battalion being held in such high regard - i was glorifying colonialism apparently.
Good on you! Fantastical experience.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@pakman said in US Politics:
That would have been pretty interesting. Balanced lecturers?
OU, loads of on-line resources. Most tutors were v. good - my modern history one was German and had actually interviewed the Baader-Meinhof gang and done her PhD on them. One was very woke and ignorant. Marked me down when I wrote about Apirana Ngata and the 28th Maori battalion being held in such high regard - i was glorifying colonialism apparently.
Mention of Ngata reminds me of nearly 50 years ago learning about highly successful communal Maori agriculture in first half of 20th century. Trouble is I can't remember time periods. What I do recall is that owing to epidemics and splintering of the tribal group the wealth created dissapated pretty dramatically. Ring any bells?
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@Victor-Meldrew Yeah LBJ did enact some historic legislation and seems to be a helluva lot more effective than the Kennedy's gave him credit for despite being a 'dubious" good ol boy.
I'd be astounded if Trump goes down as the worst President. Not when you have guys like Buchanan and van Buren.
He's not even the most morally reprehensible. You don't even have to go back to the slave days. 100 years ago you had Harding.
Even in the modern era there's George W, Ford, Nixon, Carter.
Trump will probably come up in conversation, more for his mishandling of the pandemic than his many human frailties.
edit: Nixon was IMO an effective President who should have laid off the drugs and not tried to cover up Watergate. Trump could easily be seen in a similar favourable light in 50 years time. Who knows what happens next to give him some positive context. Alternatively it could be that we are in a new period of puritanism and he is looked upon as even more reprehensible
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@pakman said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@Siam said in US Politics:
If anyone thinks Biden is the man then lay out the cards and we'll analyse that argument as we have done Trump's
Lesser of two evils seems to have been the voters consensus. Biden will also be analysed, that goes without saying, every president is.
CONSENSUS?!
We were talking about Biden and he won - so amongst his voters. Not the greater group obviously.
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Dubya did some great stuff - despite the clusterfuck of Iraq. Made the US, energy independent and his African AIDS program was, and is, a stunning achievement. Carter did some great stuff in Africa too which has been unreported, but don't know whether that was as President or not. Ford wasn't Nixon, which is a plus.
I genuinely think Obama is the weakest and most ineffective President I have seen. Utterly clueless and weak on foreign policy, made Health Care reform a partisan issue when there was cross-party support and cared more about his image than anything else. Worst of all, he simply lacked the moral courage to do the right thing when needed - his sit-on-his-hands approach to Assad's use of chemical weapons was utterly contemptable.
EDIT: Here's a great story about Jimmy Carter in 2013 fighting for AIDS releif in Africa
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@dogmeat said in US Politics:
He's not even the most morally reprehensible. You don't even have to go back to the slave days. 100 years ago you had Harding.
Or FDR. Jessie Owens points out he was excluded from from being invited to the White House with other athletes. “Hitler didn’t snub me, he gave a friendly little salute—it was our president who snubbed me,” he said months after the Games. “The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”
And then there was his aptitude to Japanese - Americans and his plans to overthrow the Supreme Court by packing it with his yes-men.
Trump's a bit of a wimp really, in the bad-boy stakes
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@Victor-Meldrew yeah as with my edit which took a while coz of this thing called work - the guys I mentioned were just examples. I agree re Obama and also about Carter Bush etc doing some good stuff. Ford pardoned Nixon which was pretty cynical and then had the oil crisis so was always going to struggle.
Hasn't been a really effective President in my lifetime IMO. Which says a lot about the political system.
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@dogmeat said in US Politics:
Hasn't been a really effective President in my lifetime IMO. Which says a lot about the political system.
Not since George H W. I feel. Bit overshadowed by Ronnie, but a fairly safe pair of hands.
Bush had a wicked wit too. During the Iran-Contra scandal, the Democrats were asking what he knew about it by repeatedly asking "Where was George?, Where was George?" When Ted Kennedy joined in, Bush, obviously having had enough, flattened him by replying "At home, sober, with my wife, and with the car in the garage" Ouch.
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@Victor-Meldrew It’s a bit of a stretch to blame Obama for making healthcare partisan isn’t it? It’s been a disaster area since at least Slick Willy‘a time. If I recall he tried to install Hillary to head up a healthcare reform group and the Republicans lost their shit.
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