I remember a lot of laughter about George W. Bush, and unlike Trump, there wasn’t quite the same kind of undercurrent of fear and outrage. The laughter directed at Bush was a little more light hearted. (People definitely loathed Cheney and some of the other members of Bush’s cabinet.) But W himself, perpetually stumbling over his words and making goofy facial expressions, was more of a source of comedy than of outright loathing as is the case with Trump. In some ways that would make him a more comedic leader than Trump, because Trump’s ‘comedy’ is kind of outweighed by straight up outrage.
Nixon was scum and yet overall he was a very good President and quite moderate overall. He hurt and embarrassed the country but I think overall Trump is a bigger buffoon and probably is doing as much damage. He’s just doing it one tweet at a time as opposed to the big bomb known as Watergate.
That is a excellent point, W. mostly seemed like a buffoonish puppet for Cheney & his evil cronies. Even W’s crony appointments were more unqualified buffoons than sinister. Right Brownie?
Brezhnev was the butt of many jokes in the Soviet Union. Alas, most of these jokes are essentially untranslatable since they rely on wordplay related to Brezhnev’s muffled pronunciation.
Gerald Ford was often thought of as clumsy (falling down the steps of Air Force One, etc.) and something of a buffoon.
Not as lurid as Trump-mania revelations and I have to admit I was unaware of the Trudeau stuff until looking it up (it’s Canada, after all).
Belarus and Spain have both lost prime ministers recently as a result of corruption scandals. And while not a PM, former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe had a fair bit of sleazy/comical history.