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Nov 2023 Mod notice:


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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#263676: Dec 5th 2018 at 3:44:02 PM

Hillary would have improved things, but I can understand the idea that she wouldn’t have improved things enough.

She herself tried to tie her plans to Bill’s legacy, which if you consider Bill’s legacy to include the deregulation that helped bring about 2008 and the general shrinking of the size of government, one can legitimately dislike.

That’s before one gets to the issue of gender issues (where Hillary doesn’t have the best track record due to her standing by Bill when he abused his position of power to exploit female White House staff members) and international politics.

As for my comment about people implying Trump apologia, I found the question aimed at Charles about who he was competing Hillary to too be a leading one that seemed aimed at the Trump comparison.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#263677: Dec 5th 2018 at 3:44:24 PM

So, what is this thread's opinion on Bush Sr? He seems like he did a lot of good - but goddamn, I can't overlook his opposition to Martin Luther King.

He doesn't have quite as much of the LGBT community's blood on his hands as Reagan, which makes him pass for some kind of sane, moderate conservative in this current political climate. And hey, he only helmed one teeny tiny little imperialist war in Central America, but really, what's an invasion of a sovereign nation without a U.N mandate between friends?

So I guess he's the posthumous winner of the Erwin Rommel Award for 'Not As Shit As You Could Have Been.'

Edited by math792d on Dec 5th 2018 at 12:45:54 PM

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#263678: Dec 5th 2018 at 3:46:24 PM

[up][up] If you mean mine, then I can at least confirm it wasn't intended as such. Just an off-the-cuff response in the sense of "Okay, this isn't doing enough, but what else is there?"

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#263679: Dec 5th 2018 at 3:48:44 PM

Also as VP he said “I will never apologise for America” after the US military shot down a civilian airliner while invading another country’s territorial waters.

Which feels like the kind of case where one should apologise.

The people who blame him for Saddam invading Iraq are stupid tankies however and Bush should be praised for helping Kuwait.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#263680: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:02:51 PM

Okay, I am not an expert in recent US history, so correct me if I got this wrong, but wasn't Reagan the one who deregulated the finance market, and not Clinton? And isn't Hillary quite unpopular with Wall Street for actually pushing for more regulations?

Regarding Bush: He was a Republican. But he wasn't the worst Republican ever. That's a low hurdle to jump, though, in a line-up which includes Trump, Nixon, Reagan and his own son. Has there been any decent Republican since the time of Lincoln?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#263681: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:07:00 PM

Teddy Roosevelt more or less created environmentalism as we know it.

Admittedly, that was because he a Great White Hunter.

He's still the reason national parks exist in opposition to corporate interests. The Republican Party might have been a very different beast if he'd not made the stupid promise to not run for a second term and had just done it.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 5th 2018 at 4:09:28 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#263682: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:12:03 PM

[up][up] Reagan may have started the deregulation trend but it’s not unfair to say that Clinton had a hand in it. Glass-Steagall was done away with under his watch, after all.

Edited by archonspeaks on Dec 5th 2018 at 4:12:22 AM

They should have sent a poet.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#263683: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:12:08 PM

Eisenhower wasn't perfect, but he did more good than bad.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#263684: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:24:58 PM

The Republican descent into evil pretty much began with Nixon in my view and even then, they started with an actual devotion to their jobs as well as the responsibility thereof.

With Nixon you can say, "horrible shit he did, he did many good things."

And it gets less and less and less each iteration.

(Mc Carthy belies that as an origin point but he wasn't President)

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 5th 2018 at 4:25:36 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#263685: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:26:47 PM

Depends on what you consider 'decent' in a President. Teddy Roosevelt completed William Mc Kinley's dream of an American colony in Asia, effectively starting the US on the path to true Great Power status, paving the road with the corpses of thousands of Filipinos.

Eisenhower had a democratically elected leader overthrown and replaced with an autocrat who would later be overthrown by radical religious fanatics.

But then, if you had to disqualify Presidents with imperialist ambitions, you wouldn't find very many good Presidents.

Edited by math792d on Dec 5th 2018 at 1:27:51 PM

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#263686: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:30:13 PM

[up] Multiple democratic leaders. There was Guatemala as well, for instance...

Edited by AzurePaladin on Dec 5th 2018 at 7:30:26 AM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#263687: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:32:59 PM

There's also the persistent but never proven rumor that Teddy told Japan they could annex Korea and it would be supported by the United States.

But THAT obviously couldn't lead to anything major.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 5th 2018 at 4:33:20 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#263688: Dec 5th 2018 at 4:36:32 PM

Didn't he win the nobel price for peace? Or am I misremembering?

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#263689: Dec 5th 2018 at 5:17:17 PM

For the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. One of Imperial Japan's major achievements.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 5th 2018 at 8:20:49 AM

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#263690: Dec 5th 2018 at 5:46:47 PM

"Has there been any decent Republican since the time of Lincoln?"

Grant crushed the original KKK underfoot. Chester A. Arthur ended the spoils system, cleaning up the civil service of a lot of the corruption endemic in the Gilded Age. McKinley was generally a steady pair of hands after the Panic of 1893. Teddy Roosevelt instituted food safety regulations, environmental protection, and trust-busting, as well as made the US a Great Power. It's only with Warren G. Harding that you see a Republican president that was objectively bad.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#263691: Dec 5th 2018 at 5:58:59 PM

Basically, the Republican party didn't start to go batshit insane until Nixon and the Great Southern Strategy or whatever it's called.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#263692: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:10:50 PM

The Southern Strategy was when they became transparently racist, but the callous "muh bootstraps" right-wing of the party always existed. Like, Calvin Coolidge wasn't exactly a top shelf president.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#263693: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:13:40 PM

The Republican party was always the party of big business even before it ending up swaping with the Democratic party.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#263694: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:17:05 PM

Oh yeah, Coolidge was definitely a corporatist shill of a President. Look up the 1920's political cartoon “What a friend we have in Coolidge!”

Edited by M84 on Dec 5th 2018 at 10:18:22 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#263695: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:19:37 PM

What I usually hear is that the genesis of the modern GOP was around the time of Goldwater vs LBJ; the latter won but a lot of Goldwater's platform became the cornerstone of GOP policy for years after.

Ironically Goldwater himself, despite many of his odious politics, looks vaguely reasonable in comparison to a lot of the GOP today; he viewed the religious right with contempt and didn't want them in the party, and he was also pro-choice. He also thought Nixon was a crook from day one, apparently.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 5th 2018 at 10:27:54 AM

AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#263696: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:43:28 PM

I say that at least Mc Kinley shouldn't be treated as good, considering the Spanish-American War and the ensuing conquest of the Philippines. Moreover, Hayes also ended Reconstruction.

I'm sure there's other things I could find about the others, but suffice it to say that something had gone wrong in the GOP before Harding.

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#263697: Dec 5th 2018 at 6:56:16 PM

There's a large argument the United States as a whole was not a very cuddly creature until WW 1 as a Heel–Face Turn.

And that's pushing it.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 5th 2018 at 7:47:58 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#263698: Dec 5th 2018 at 7:09:13 PM

I Like Ike. Eisenhower is an example of conservatism I can get behind: pro-business, interventionist, kicked McCarthy in the ass, expanded the Interstate and science education, and warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. (He also signed off on Bay of Pigs. Nobody's perfect.)

I like people who understand that what's good for the country is good for business, while the reverse is not true.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love

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