There are now calls for Trump to be removed from office before his last two weeks are up.
He will go down in history as America’s WORST President…even worse than Nixon!
Do you know how badly you gotta fuck up to do that?!?
Even before Trump there were worse Presidents than Nixon - Harding and Buchanan come to mind. But I suspect that Trump will be a strong candidate for new Worst President Ever in the eventual judgment of objective historians.
At this point, I’m not sure I want Trump removed from office. I don’t want to give Pence the opportunity to pardon him. (Sure, Trump will try to pardon himself before he goes, but that ain’t gonna fly…) As bad as yesterday was, I think we as a country can weather two more weeks.
I think yesterday killed Trump’s dream of a pardon from Pence. It’s possible, but much less likely.
I’ve read that, aside from Watergate, Nixon was actually a pretty solid president. Economic recovery, end of Vietnam War, good legislation, etc.
But - not to derail the thread.
That is an aside the size and scope of the Grand Canyon.
Seems a good opportunity to go with, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln …”
I have often said that The Biggest Beneficiary Of The Trump Presidency has been GWBush.
This post contains sarcasm, if that’s not apparent right away.
All in all, the Trumpkins had a shabby, disorganized insurrection. Sure, they breached the Capitol building, did some low-level vandalism, and managed to break into some congressional offices before the Capital Police politely shooed them out. However, they didn’t make off with any priceless works of art, destroy any statues, hold hostages, or kidnap anybody. Like the old saw about a dog finally catching a car, they didn’t know what to do with it when they got inside. They didn’t change the election results, they didn’t give Trump a second term, and they failed to even make him look good.
Compare that to the massive looting when the Shah was booted out of Tehran, or when Baghdad fell. People were making off with computers, expensive furniture, and expensive artworks. These MAGA Q-boys are pikers.
He thinks he’s the most successful, ever. And a lot of his fans think he’s been doing a terrific job. A lot of people will need a gradual, but deep, cleansing and deprogramming. This is the challenge of the next 4 years.
Not really. There was a major recession during Nixon’s administration. He couldn’t work with Congress so he didn’t get a lot of legislation passed (some of the landmark bills he promised in his campaigns were never enacted). And while he did eventually get America out of Vietnam, he dragged the war on for five more years and got essentially the same terms in 1973 that he could have had in 1968. As for recognizing China, you have to keep in mind that Nixon was one of the leaders of the anti-communist movement that had fought against recognizing the communist regime in China for decades.
Look at the British. They didn’t make a political issue out of it and they recognized the communist government in China in 1950. The United States could have done the same thing.
My guess is that the long term conservative narrative will be that Trump could have done a great job but his administration was undermined by the Covid outbreak - which conservatives will argue was a completely unforeseeable and unmanageable crisis that no President could have succeeded against.
This is not true but it’s a story conservatives can sell. It acknowledges that Trump was a failure without putting any blame for that failure on him or the Republican party.
Few would call his presidency solid. It was at best a mixed bag. Re: Vietnam, his efforts at diplomacy, his promises of peace with honor (leaving the South Vietnamese government in power), Vietnamization–all failures. The tide of public opinion had more to do with ending the war than anything else.
As for the economy, his policies were largely unsuccessful, and some dangerously so. Though the economy improved during his aborted second term, galloping inflation ensued. Anybody else around back then remember Ford’s WIN (“Whip Inflation Now”) campaign?
And then, of course, Watergate.
OTOH, his trip to China, his easing of Cold War tensions through detente, his signing two landmark arms treaties with the USSR, were notable successes. I might be able to think of others with more time.
If the Cabinet and/or the Legislature can’t get it together and remove him by Article 25 or impeachment swiftly, I wonder whether there is a medical alternative?
He’s clearly a danger to himself and others. Can he be involuntarily committed (for his own good, of course) and sedated for two weeks of “observation?” What is the law on this?
Nixon gave us the now-desecrated EPA. He also took us off the gold standard (although opinions continue to vary on how good an idea that was).
And, Nixon used the “Southern Strategy” of courting white Southerners by subtly appealing to their opposition to civil rights for blacks, which had led them to become unhappy with the Democrats for whom they had long voted.
Watergate was hardly an anomaly in the Nixon administration either. The reason Nixon put so much effort into covering up the Watergate break-ins was because he had set up an organization that was committing dozens of similar acts.
To bring this back on topic, I think the Nixon collapse gives a hint at something I expect to see regarding the Trump administration. Nixon as President was able to keep a lid on a lot of the questionable things he and his administration were doing. But it all started to come out after Nixon left office. I anticipate a similar spate of revelations over what’s been going on in the Trump administration. Bad as Trump’s reputation is right now, it’s probably going to sink much lower in the next few years.
The 25th Amendment is the “medical alternative”.
Why do all these Senators and Representatives who helped foment this insurrection still have jobs?
We do not currently have a healthy society.
I am going to disagree. I think there is going to be a massive running away from Trump. They will say they did not know. They will say he was the root of the problem, that they were trying to bring out the best in him, but that his corruption and mendacity ruined him.
Trump is now the loser. The amount of horrible information still to come out will make it more and more plausible to declare Trump the sole culprit, not the symptom of a diseased side of America. 1/26/21 is an escape route from blame and a lot of rats are going to desert the ship using this path.
I relish seeing Trump get his deserved infamy and deep deep fall. But a lot of the enablers are going to try and hide. Let’s not let them.