Well, until now, trump allowed the prosperity run that Obama started to continue, with a strong DOW and low unemployment.
The President cant do much to improve the economy, but he can screw it up, and trump didnt screw it up.
So, that’s a success. But not a big one.
I am still not pleased with Barack Obama, though. W put a bunch of really dreadful policies in place, like those bullshit “healthy forests” and “clear skies” scams and of course the horrendous “no child left behind”, and Obama pulled those things back not at all, as far as I can see. He simply did not do enough, even with two years of a fully blue government, to undo the damage of his predecessor.
Yes, I feel the critical decision was made in 1954. That’s when France finally decided to withdraw from Southeast Asia. Our only strategic reason for being involved in Vietnam was because it was a price we paid for French support in Europe. Once France pulled out, we no longer had a good reason to stay.
But the Eisenhower administration decided that we needed to take over the war from France and support Diem’s regime in order to stop the spread of communism. South Vietnam was never able to stand on its own so we needed to send more and more resources - including troops - to prop it up. It was a bottomless pit.
It’s also neither thanks to Trump nor wisdom.
The Republican party okayed every little bit of spending on both sides of the aisle and threw in a few things as well - at complete odds to the President’s suggested budget - to try and pump money into the economy and buy the next election. (Or at least, it’s hard to envision the rationale for their budgets under Trump, when compared to their stated policy goals.)
Trump didn’t veto the budget, to be admitted, but that seems more to be a matter that he didn’t really care about his stated economic policy, and they told him that it was legal vote buying, so he accepted it.
Beyond that, most countries in Europe were experiencing the same low unemployment rates as the US, so the cause seems to be unrelated to politics. Either it was rebound from the previous recession or something different with the modern economy (e.g., the gig economy).
He’s even more “gosh shucks” now that he’s out of office.
E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEvT_Dw9Bpw
I think the Republican leadership is, to some extent, actively targeting idiot stuffing for the White House. They’re aiming for the Japanese model where the primary figure of the government serves principally as a distraction, so that real business can be done off to the side by the people who were lucky enough to get elected into office, despite being smart.
I’d say Trump’s ability to form a one-world government is out of the question. 
This. I think to find someone who reaches Trump’s level, one would have to be really old, even assuming one “remembers” as far back as the day they were born. How far back? March 3rd, 1921, which was Woodrow Wilson’s last day in office. I think that even the likes of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge were better than Trump.
Eh, Woodrow Wilson certainly had his faults, and some of them were quite bad ones. For starters, he was quite racist. But he didn’t put his faults front and center. Racist as he was, he didn’t make his racism his top priority. His top priority, which he spent considerable resources on, was world peace. And even though his efforts in that regard failed horribly, it’s still a worthy goal, and I think he deserves some credit for that.
Does Trump have any priorities at all that are not rooted in greed and/or hatred?
Hersh’s famous exposé suggests that Kennedy thought Vietnam a mistake but wanted to wait until after the 1964 elections to withdraw. :eek: He neglected to inform his Vice President.
Demonstrating the flaws of the American media.
That’s roughly what I remembered. Though the name Hersh doesn’t ring any bells.
:dubious:
“The people dying of COVID-19 today are victims of Trump’s incompetence, laziness, deliberate and persistent lies and general dumbshittery.”
FTFY
Johnson thought Vietnam was a mistake. But it’s one he couldn’t see a way to avoid. I think Kennedy would have run into the same problem.
Vanity.
I’d say he’s got the seven deadly sins covered:
Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.
Wait until you see the worldwide effects of the coming global depression. A strong American economy could have prevented that.
My perspective is a bit different. A democratic Korea would not exist today if we took this attitude towards the Korean war.
It was a reasonable policy stance to try and fight the spread of communism in Vietnam. It didn’t work out as well as we would have hoped but it was not the sort of things we could leave unchecked. We now understand that all the capitalist countries did much better than the communist ones and we could probably have let things just play out on their own if we met too much resistance.
The President is responsible for the policies of their administration and the consequences therefrom. Claiming that Bush wasn’t responsible for getting the US involved in a war in Iraq because he handed his authority to Cheney is actually worse than making the decision himself because he had the power to stop it (as every one of our NATO allies except Great Britain counseled) and did nothing. There seems to be a collective diffusion filter on the George W. Bush presidency because of how legitimately awful Trump is by comparison, but Bush is directly responsible for getting the United States involved in the two longest and most costly wars in US history for no good reason whatsoever.
Imagine what Trump could do if he were competent at anything other than being a TV reality star. I’ve never been so thankful for incompetence in leadership.
“I’m not sure I agree with you 100% on your police work there, Lou.”
Also, don’t forget: Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter."
Aside from his moral failings, Trump actively worked to minimize the warnings of public health authorities, attacked the press for asking legitimate questions and publishing factual information, and spread misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories like a toddler painting the wall in their own shit. He has acted in retribution to governors who displeased him by restricting aid to the states they govern. These actions have lead to a critical delay in informing the public, imposing isolation guidelines to limit the spread, and preparing hospitals to deal with an out-of-control epidemic.
Donald Trump should be held liable for criminal negligence in his utter failure not only to do his job but in preventing other people from doing theirs in this crisis.
Stranger
As much as I disliked GWB… there was never a time, after 9/11 hit, that I envisioned him laying down on his bed, face buried in his pillow, kicking his legs and beating his fists on the bed crying and screaming “WHY DID THIS HAPPEN WHEN I WAS PRESIDENT”.
This is the vision of Trump I have every time I see him talk about the coronavirus situation.
I thought Shrub was stupid, lazy, and had terrible policies but I didn’t think he was sent straight from the underworld to destroy the human race. T. is nightmare you can’t wake up from. That’s not a metaphor.