A million monkeys have just delivered Hamlet.
The thing with Bush II is, people forget that he was nominated as the bland, non-offensive Republican version of the bland, non-offensive Democrat Gore. It was the end of the 90s, we’d won the Cold War, and no one really wanted anything but a bland, care-taker government who just wouldn’t upset the apple cart. There was so little to distinguish them that the election came down to a coin flip in Florida. Then 9/11 blew up in Bush’s face, and he was in over his head.
But, despite his failings caused by being in over his head, he at least tried to do the right things. He failed, but not because he didn’t try.
Trump isn’t even trying to do the right thing. When he isn’t completely indifferent to doing the right thing, he’s actively hostile to it. That’s fundamentally different from who and what Bush was.
As for how Trump will be remembered, well, people are still bad-mouthing a guy who hasn’t even been King for over a thousand years.
The story goes that his candidacy was really started as a negotiating ploy to get a better deal out of NBC. And then he started getting traction in the primaries, and the rest is history. Regarding TrumpTV, he was already ramping that up during his campaign, on the expectation that he wouldn’t win. But then those damn voters, well, you know.
He even f*cks up winning the Presidency.
Remember, Remember, the Russian November
Pumpkinhead Treason and Plot…
Yes, because history is always less passionate than the present. When he’s a name in a history book, he won’t be hated, just discussed.
Unless we continue down this path and American democracy dies sometime within the next few decades, in which case, well, it depends on who’s in charge of the history books.
Let’s please not debase the good name of Lance Henriksen by calling Trump “Pumpkinhead.”
There are entire generations of Americans who will grow up with no firsthand experience of the Trump presidency. Sure, their parents may tell them Trump was bad, but that would be like today’s generation hearing that Nixon was bad. Nowhere near the same impact.
That’s assuming the US government structure survives Trump. With Nixon, the checks and balances mostly worked the way they were supposed to. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief once Nixon was out, and then got back to business as usual.
But with the Republicans refusing to even consider doing even the slightest bit to check or balance Trump, it’s not clear that these structures will remain intact, or effective, after Trump is finally out of office. After 8 years of Trump running roughshod over every norm, even the Democrats might be disinclined to a return to normal. Why would they ever again trust a Republican Congress that let Trump get away with everything?
Nowhere near the same level of “bad.”
I’m still not convinced he’s a fascist. Not that he doesn’t do a bunch of fascist things, but they strike me more as the product of a petulant, entitled and privileged old man who doesn’t like the restrictions put on him by the press, Congress, the Judicial branch, etc… rather than the product of a coherent political philosophy and plan.
I know that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but he seems too scattered and random to be a deliberate fascist.
That is a possibility, I’ll admit. But the difference between being a fascist and doing everything a fascist would do while not actually being one is negligible.
Because politics can’t do long term problems. It just can’t. Take Social Security for example. The last time we dealt with it was when it was just about to go insolvent. That’s how it will be next time we deal with SS. Climate change won’t be dealt with until global temps have already risen 3 degrees or more, and at that point the only solutions will be things like setting off volcanoes.
That’s assuming he lives long enough to be elected out.
No, because I think that even things he manages to get right, wrt history, are going to be seen for what they are…blind squirrels and acorns or stopped clocks. For instance, I think we needed to hammer China on trade in some way…but the way Trump is going about it makes it clear he’s doing it in the wrong way AND for all the wrong reasons. I think we needed to sort out NATO as well, but, again, it’s clear he doesn’t understand (or want to understand) how American power, especially soft power, works, understand what NATO is or our role, and is doing it wrong by the numbers and for the wrong reasons. Just about anything I can think of that he’s done that could be even squinted at as being right is the same. Blind squirrels can eventually find acorns and stopped clocks are right twice a day. And history is going to, rightfully, roast this idiot. He is going to be the actual example of worst president ever.
And this is before we even get into the possibility that the dude gets impeached or has an even worse scandal that comes out before the next election that forces him to resign.
Not a chance. He’ll go down in history as the worst president we ever had. And to think I assumed Nixon would have that honor.
He will go down as a cautionary tale of greed, lies and deception.
And by the way I am no fan of Nixon at all but he didn’t as far as I know go on a media PR rehabilitation tour. Nixon was an intelligent man with severe character flaws - once Watergate became a bit more removed from time he began writing books on foreign policy, some campus talks and even advised in non-formal talks with his successors.
Trump hasn’t got the intellectual capacity or patience to do any of that. His post-presidency will be golf and stirring the pot.
He hasn’t gotten America into a war. His chaotic NY-real-estate-developer style may well be exactly what is needed in international negotiation at present, and doesn’t appear to have done any harm. The present hatred appears to be no worse than what Lincoln or Nixon got.
He’s already loved by many Americans, so the first questions are, will he be hated less by his political opponents? Will he be loved less by his supporters? Of course. But going past that:
Many people will always remember Obama’s administration for the economic pain caused by G W Bush. Many people will always remember Nixon for the war inherited from JFK and LBJ. A lot of people are going to remember Trump for full employment.
Now that some of the emotion has gone out of it, Nixon is being treated more objectively. He really was a crook. There really were communist spies. There really was Democrat cheating in elections. He really did visit China, the war in Vietnam really did end, and he really was elected for a second term.
Trump hasn’t had any of the big failures pinned down to him yet. But he also hasn’t had any big successes. Once the emotion dies down, what will people point to and say “He did that”. At present, his big success is, I think, “make America great”. I don’t think that will last, and I don’t think it’s enough. Still, the future is unknown, and who knows what may happen in his second term :).
Is Trump going to be remembered more fondly decades after he leaves office?
He probably won’t be remembered more OR less fondly by the people who were alive when he was President.
My parents remembered Herbert Hoover less than fondly fifty years after he left office.
The same can be said about FDR by a different group of people.
My wife and I were in college when LBJ and Nixon were President. Our perception of them will always be filtered by Vietnam.
Yea I don’t see fascism as a political philosophy in the same vein as democracy or communism. It’s more descriptive than prescriptive - like a distillation of the principles that Mussolini used to gain absolute control during a global wave of nationalism that others then borrowed/adapted as a recipe for their own success. So while any budding dictator would naturally stumble upon fascist principles on their path to power, it would take a knowledge of history to be a fascist as we define it and we know Trump knows precisely nothing about history. Oh except about Frederick Douglass.