That is a good point, albeit, Trump is not particularly competent either, and it’s not clear to me whether all the things he does are evil or stupid.
My husband has often said, and well before Trump was ever on any ballot, that evil happens when selfish meets stupid. Trump has become DH’s exhibit 1.
Dubya may not have a heart full of charity and compassion, but he is not a narcissist. Somehow, he simply had more opportunities to screw up in a very big way. Trump has not had to handle a 9/11-- albeit, he was stupendously incompetent in handling the pandemic.
I think the main reason Trump has not had a war like Dubya’s Iraq is that Trump does not have a long enough attention span to instigated a war. I am not making a joke. Trump can’t finish a sentence because he has started another one. You can do an SNL sketch about Trump by producing one of his speeches verbatim. Again, not a joke. The only way to tell Trump from a comic imitating him is that the comic can stop.
I think George W. Bush vs. Trump would be a great discussion in a separate thread. I know both are bad. I obviously think Trump is much worse, but can also see points for how Bush was worse in terms of actual impact.
Agreed. See the article in this post in the thread about the US regaining trust internationally (started when Dubya was prez, but now considering Trump; plus ça change …)
Trump isn’t really doing the job of the president in the normal way. Every previous president of my lifetime, I could assume that when it comes down to it, they would get serious and do the job.
I mean, I think Trump fully, and in all ways, just lets that far-right group of advisers do everything. I can’t see him in any real strategy or response meeting.
I guess if 9/11 happened now, he’d have to do some of the job?
I think Trump just doesn’t see presidenting as something you have to do. It’s more about image and self-gain.
Even in that respect alone while Trump comes out on top (i.e. bottom) as he completely and irredeemably destroyed American reputation, Dubya is in the same ball park. After 9/11 America had the most incredible out pouring of sympathy, even from traditional enemies, America had never had as positive reputation worldwide even after WW2. Dubya took that and wiped his ass with it by invading Iraq, so Americas reputation reached its nadir (pre Trump) during the Iraq invasion and occupation.
True, But the removal could have been done without the tragedies caused by Van Burens incompetence, corruption and bigotry.
Read the decision-
No. In an opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Court held that the Georgia act, under which Worcester was prosecuted, violated the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. Noting that the “treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union,” Chief Justice Marshall argued, “The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.”
In other word, they ruled what is the situation today- the tribes are like sovereign STATES, not nations, and the tribes are beholden to the federal Government only.
Mind you, yes, Jackson was a racist by todays measure, sure, but same with more or less every president until Lincoln, and even he isnt very “woke” by todays standard.
The difference is that Bush Jr. is like someone who was maybe horse playing with the icepick and then accidentally poked you, while Trump is like someone who did it on purpose because he doesn’t like you, and is liable to keep doing it to various other body parts as well.
Since w got a colleague of mine beheaded and dumped in front of our office, I don’t see the distinction some of you do. He is A mass murderer and a war criminal.
For an insider’s admittedly biased perspective, Teddy Roosevelt said “In time Wilson will be the most damned man in America since the days of Buchanan and Andrew Johnson.”
Two things still stand out in my mind about W. Prepfar that has saved an enormous number of lives and one I just read about yesterday: an initiative to fight malaria. Both have of course been ended by Trump. A surprising number of countries went along with the war against Iraq. Many didn’t of course (remember “freedom fries”), but many did. I just cannot put W, no matter how much I disdain him, in the same class as people who set out to do evil (the two Andrews) and the people who do so through incompetence.
I’m surprised you omit Franklin Pierce. The Kansa-Nebraska act was the event which set the US on the road to civil war. Buchanan didn’t help, but the damage was already done by the time he was elected.
I wouldn’t include Jackson. If it’s his treatment iof the Indians that bothers you, my guess is that this would have happened whoever had been POTUS. The white population was spreading west, so wanted them out of the way. Any attempt to change this would meet the same result that King Canute did.
Thats not true. The Indian removal act, that directly caused the trail of tears, was Andrew Jacksons doing and it was very controversial at the time, only passing with a slim majority. It would not have passed without Jackson, who championed the policy, ran on it in the general election and used his not inconsiderable political skills to get it passed.
But did the act really do anything except make the removal slightly more organised?
The Indians would have been hounded out anyway. Even f the Federal Gov’t seriously wanted to protect them, could it have done so any more effectively than it was able to protect freed Blacks during Reconstruction?
Of course Indian removal would have happened. Population pressure would have forced it. We know this because it happened in every other corner of the country before and after the Trail of Tears for the entirety of the 19th century and for exactly that reason. The entirety of the white population supported it – except for those who believed that the Indians should be systemically eliminated.
Yep. It wasnt Jackson. It was basically White America. However the Native Americans didnt help, as they turned a blind eye to young braves doing what they always used to do.
Neither society understood the other.
The actual Trail of Tears was a fuck up due to the Van Buren administrations corruption and incompetence. Not to mention some racism added in. It could have been done competently. Still, hardly a happy moment in American History, but it could have been done without the significant loss of life.
But the Trail of Tears was not just a natural result of population pressure. It was an explicit atrocity carried out by the US government and enacted as the Indian Removal act. And it stands out even in comparison with the other violence perpetuated against native Americans by the US government and people. Jackson was personally responsible for it, so he is uniquely reprehensible among US presidents and gets in the top five.
The arguments here are not that Jackson was a good person. Rather we’re all saying that atrocities against the natives called Indians were perpetrated by presidents before and after Jackson, all for two intertwined reasons.
The first and foremost saw Americans moving from the east, south, and west into what they considered unclaimed territory, a problem that existed during the 17th century and became a national issue because of the Revolution and persisted no matter what any official body said. Manifest Destiny didn’t emerge from Jackson; it postdated him. Yet it was far more than a slogan. White settlers believed it was their god-given right to put to use the land occupied by savages. That was the second reason. Read any talk about natives in the 19th century and the vileness of the contempt about their intelligence, manners, society, and status as humans outdoes even the worst public rhetoric against any group today.
Jackson was an example, and not even its peak. I’d rate the post-Civil War period of deliberate attempted genocide as a series of worse atrocities than forced resettlement. People seriously wanted every single native dead and the U.S. Army set out to oblige.
No good way exists to separate or balance those atrocities (or those committed against the black population slave and free) against the undeniable gains of the vast white majority. Both must be mentioned together because they historically existed together. Excluding either side distorts history.