I use the term qualified very loosely here (Let’s be honest Trump is not qualified) so maybe the term “realistic” is more appropriate. But from a list of even fringe GOP candidates, is there a single one that would/could potentially be worse for our country?
Romney? Newt? Quayle!!??
Nope…
OK maybe David Duke, but damn you have to get to the bottom of the barrel to find someone this polarizing.
Cruz and/or Walker would be worse.
Yep. Cruz would be both evil and (somewhat) competent. At least with ol’ squinty, his ineptitude would shield us, somewhat, from the consequences of his evil.
I’d include most elected Republicans but the above two along with Rubio and Fiorina essentially form a Quadrangle of Evil.
I have to agree: Ted Cruz is the Sanders of the Right, in that he’s a True Believer who utterly refuses to compromise, even in the face of Armageddon.
And Armageddon tired of people like that.
The problem with Trump (other than his basic nature and inherent personal characteristics) is that he’d let his advisors and hangers-on run things and, judging by his Twitter feed, his advisors and hangers-on are either Neo-Nazis themselves or are open to the idea of getting in real good with Neo-Nazis if that’s what it takes. We could see a purge of those lower-class, politically impotent elements if Trump actually wins but Trump hasn’t been willing to take advice before.
Another vote for Cruz. He’s scary.
Among other Reps who have participated in Presidential primaries in the last couple elections, Ben Carson, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann come to mind.
I’ll put it this way: I was relieved that Donald Trump defeated Ted Cruz. And Cruz’s running mate was probably just as wicked.
I would have viewed a Cruz (crazed bloodthirsty idealogue) or Rubio (callow and unprincipled) Presidency with far more trepidation than a Trump Presidency. There were other horrid men on the clown stage, e.g. Carson, Huckabee, Walker, who might have been worse than Trump.
I disapprove of Trump’s bombastic populist stances, but there are more important issues a President would face. I think he’d be more centrist than most of the GOP on fiscal and regulatory issues. With the GOP giving him only lukewarm endorsement, I don’t think he’d feel beholden to the GOP enough to pack the courts and cabinet with right-wingers.
The big question is foreign crises. What happens when the man with the football says “Mr. President, it’s time for you to decide whether to push the button”? Yet, despite his zaniness, Trump is a successful practical man and would probably make better decisions than a lunatic idealogue like Cruz or the callow Rubio, or even perhaps GWB who referred decisions to his evil advisors.
Although I definitely think Trump would make a better President than Cruz or Rubio, I’d still judge GWB to be a lesser risk than Trump. Since GWB was definitely the worst ever of our first 44 Presidents, this shows what a pathetic bargain-basement the GOP stable has become.
The fact that Cruz, Carson, Rubio, Fiorina, Huckabee, or Walker would actually be worse presidents than Trump doesn’t change the fact that Trump would be a disaster of a president. Rather, that fact just reminds us of what a disaster of a party the republicans have become.
“Deep bench” lol
Not really. Let’s stop perpetuating the myth that Donald Trump is in some way qualified for the role of the presidency because of his business acumen. The greatest fiduciary talent Trump has is convincing people to continue to lend him money on property investments with negative cash flow.
G. W. Bush was certainly a pretty awful chief executive but calling him “definitely the worst” is a stretch. Many of the problems that occurred during his tenure, such as Islamic terrorism, were inherited from previous administrations, and while he didn’t deal very effectively with those problems and created more for his successor (who has had his own foibles), the historical assessment generaly has presidenst like Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, and Herber Hoover at the bottom, where G.W. Bush tends to fall somewhere in the lower part of the middle third. He was an absurd, obtuse, undereducated, and often absent buffoon, but then that also aptly represents the population of the United States in the aggregate. With democracy, you typically don’t get the best; you just get the best the democratic process can offer, which is generally mediocre and often disappointing.
Stranger
Cruz. Also, perhaps Graham or any of the other neo-cons… I’m not sure if anything Trump or Cruz would do would be as bad as starting another stupid ground war in the Middle East.
Damn. I believe that Trump might start a nuclear war to protect his fragile ego, but Cruz is even scarier. Palin and Bachman are profoundly ignorant, with Bachman sharing some of Cruz’s Witch Trial mentality. There’s no telling what evil their controllers might bring.
Hillary Clinton is callow and unprincipled and would be one kajillion times a better President than Donald Trump.
Callow and unprincipled is bad, but you can still be competent. It sure beats evil (Ted Cruz) insane (Ben Carson) or a religious nut (Mike Huckabee.)
I don’t think GWB is anywhere near the worst President - there is a special circle of hell for Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan - and for all his miserable failures, he did do at least one great thing; his AIDS efforts in Africa might well have saved over a million lives, a fact for which he gets almost no credit (and most people are quite unaware of it at all.) Donald Trump would never, ever, ever expend an ounce of political capital on saving African people from AIDS, and if he knew it would get him little to no attention at home he’s positively laugh at the idea. There’s no money in it for him.
Who the hell knows what Trump would do, but I’m fairly confident Cruz would have few qualms about starting a war in the Middle East. Which country did he say should be turned into a sheet of glass? He also did a lot of saber-rattling toward Iran. He is a scary, scary man. At least with Trump, even if he were president no one would take him seriously.
Maybe Deadeye Dick Cheney. The man is evil in the flesh. We’d be at war with somebody by the time the Inaugural Parade was over.
Just don’t go quail hunting with him.
He needs to be head of the NRA.
I’d agree to call GWB a merely mediocre President if it weren’t for one specific blunder.
Attacking Iraq, which was in a stable box, and then following with extremely bad decisions in the aftermath, was one of the worst single mistakes any President ever made. It cost trillions of dollars, millions of lives, degraded America’s goodwill and directly provoked the ongoing bloodshot in the Middle East.
The motives for this tragedy make it all the more despicable. While Bush himself may have been a dupe with little imagination, the war effort was run as a playground to profiteer, to run ideological experiments, and to practice warfare. And it was all started with treasonous perjuries.
The Siena College Research Institute survey ranks GWB as follows
[ul]
[li]42 out of 43 — Cleveland is ranked only once — for communication ability[/li][li]42 out of 43 for handling of economy,[/li][li]42 out of 43 for ability to compromise,[/li][li]42 out of 43 for foreign policy accomplishments,[/li][li]42 out of 43 for intelligence[/li][li]41 out of 43 for court appointments,[/li][li]41 out of 43 for quality of executive appointments,[/li][li]40 out of 43 for overall ability,[/li][li]40 out of 43 for imagination,[/li][li]39 out of 43 in expert’s view[/li][li]39 out of 43 for integrity[/li][li]39 out of 43 for executive ability[/li][li]39 out of 43 for party leadership[/li][li]38 out of 43 for domestic accomplishments[/li][li]38 out of 43 for leadership ability[/li][li]38 out of 43 for avoiding crucial mistakes[/li][/ul]
Yes, Pierce, Harding, Buchanan and A. Johnson manage to rank even lower than GWB, but GWB did far more damage.
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On the question, “is Trump a successful practical man?” — I don’t claim he’s admirable, or competent to be President. But he is skilled at what he does, the charismatic demagogic diction, the flim-flam and frauds. His thuggish behavior is showmanship. I’d certainly be more fearful of Cruz — he’d probably not decide God wants him to bomb Mecca, but his fervor might paint him into a bad corner.
I agree that his AIDS initiative was a great thing and he should have gotten more credit for it. However, his warmongering and his irresponsible tax cuts have bankrupted the nation, both morally and financially.
And just how long do you think it would be before he’s in a Trump cabinet - he and all the other evil counselors who would fill the gap between the reality of running a major nation and the vacuous pomposity that is Trump. That’s who Trump voters would really be electing - an entire back-room government worse than Reagan’s or even Dubya’s, because we’d be endlessly distracted by President Buffoon while the Cheneys run absolutely without control.
Either Cheney himself or someone as bad or worse. Trump would be like the substitute teacher reading her novel while the students torch the school.