Honestly? I’m kinda glad it’s Trump (in an election year, no less). Americans need to be reminded of what happens when they make poor choices at the polls.
My choice would be FDR; second best would probably Obama.
That’s an… interesting… way to describe the post WW2 era. In what way did the soviets “stab us in the back” after the war? Certainly our alliance with them broke apart as soon as we defeated the nazis but that was mutual – claiming the soviets backstabbed us is pretty rich.
Did they consider it? I’m sure they did – we had drawn up Operation Unthinkable with the British, which was specifically a plan to backstab the Russians. I’m sure that like us the soviets considered invading West as soon as they finished off Germany. And like us, practical considerations made this a bad idea.
Obama, and it isn’t even a contest in my mind. Obama is very much a people person and, over eight years, he showed that he sincerely wanted to serve ALL the people.
Pierce. Or Buchanan.
Just to remind everyone that things could always be worse. :eek:
Eisenhower. Previous skills in leading large and varied groups, very popular even with the opposition, not afraid to make the hard decisions (see Little Rock integration or D-Day), projected the aura that he was someone you could trust.
William Howard Taft.
He was worth two of any other President, literally.
I like Ike.
My top four would be Lincoln, Eisenhower, George HW Bush, and Obama. All four seem to have had the combination of seriousness, intelligence, decisiveness and ability to calm and unite that would be excellent to have in a crisis like this.
I think FDR would be fifth, with George W. Bush being sixth. Say what you will about the rest of his presidency, he handled 9/11 pretty well.
Anybody else. The only solace we can take in it happening this year is that maybe, just maybe, it will make more people what a terrible choice they made in 2016.
Thank you.
Um…I made that choice already when I voted in 2016. Hillary Clinton.
FDR, Ike, or Bush Sr.
I’d call this questionable. It’s hard to say what Roosevelt was really thinking because he was definitely a “don’t let the left hand what the right hand is doing” type. But he made remarks in private conversations about how his agreements with Stalin were just a wartime convenience; he wanted the Soviets to fight Germany and Japan and was prepared to make a lot of promises in that effort. He indicated that once the war was over, America would no longer need the Soviets and his policy would radically change and he would review the promises he had made.
This. It’s unfortunate that he probably would not have sought a third term, even if the Constitution would have permitted it.
That’s a little optimistic. It’d be in the five figures at least, plus he’d have to deal with all the right-wing contrarians who would be out in even greater force than they are now. But the states would have had the required supplies without having to fight the federal government for them, action would have been taken much earlier, we’d likely be further along on a vaccine, and he wouldn’t have been making a series of idiotic statements about “treatments” that don’t work. The curve would have been a lot flatter.
Apart from Obama, possibly Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower or maybe Teddy Roosevelt, although I’m not sure Teddy would have handled the public unrest well.
I’d agree that Lincoln had all of the same attributes for crisis management that I listed for Roosevelt. But he was somebody who was born in 1809. I wonder if he could adapt from the 19th century to the 21st. You’d have somebody who might not know what germs are trying to manage a global pandemic. His response to the crisis might have been an order to build up the national stockpile of mercury and leeches. (To answer any objections, I did consider this same factor when I chose Roosevelt. In my opinion, his era was close enough to our own that I feel he could have adapted.)
With the caveat that we are assuming the knowledge and understanding of science and medicine necessary for handling the COVID-19 crisis, I think Taft is a really good call on the pandemic, but I’m not sure about his handling of the civil rights crisis. Would a Taft projected into 2020 have changed his views enough to wrap them around modern ideas of civil rights? Quite possibly, but I’m not betting the rent.
I don’t think anybody earlier than Kennedy could have handled the civil rights crisis.
I think Carter actually would have been a good president for the civil rights crisis, but I’m not sure how he would have handled the pandemic. His “wait and see” with regard to some other things (like Iran) was disastrous.
I think Obama would have been great for both. I also think Clinton would have as well. I think Clinton had two good qualities-- 1) he read his briefings, always, and 2) he knew when to delegate, and when not to. I don’t think anyone in the 21st century has done that as well as Clinton.
So my first choice is a toss-up between Clinton and Obama. I agree with the people who think Bush, pere, would have done well, in spite of the fact that I didn’t vote for him. In a pinch, I’d go with the Carter/Taft hybrid.
The two criteria are that you want someone who’s going to listen to the experts, and who the public will listen to. I think that the best combination you’re probably going to get of both is Eisenhower.
Why would Republicans listen to that RINO?
I’m guessing FDR.
I agree that Obama is smart and competent. However I don’t know if he would have the stomach to do what needed to be done to deal with this issue.
Obama generally didn’t like executive orders, and he caved to political pressure fairly easily. When his administration released a report showing white nationalists were a major terror threat, his admin buried the report due to pushback, and its obvious that was a mistake with what we’re seeing now. Because of things like that I don’t really think I’d trust Obama to use the powers of the president to do what needed to be done to fix this issue (take over industries, pass executive orders, pass strict regulations on businesses, require mask wearing in public, etc).
FDR on the other hand was competent but he also was willing to make enemies to do what needed to be done. So I think he would’ve handled this better.
if you think the armed protests against the virus in Michigan were bad under Trump, imagine what they would’ve been like with a black democrat as president. I don’t know if Obama would’ve held firm in doing what needed to be done. I don’t think Bill Clinton would’ve either.