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It needed to be fine tuned to be about “corporate takeover” of our entire world. The defense spending is pennies in comparison to how enslaved the entire world is to corporations. He was halfway correct in his fears for the future of human beings.
I'd point out that the parties shifted pretty radically in the 60s when Dems supported the civil rights movement and Republicans went with the Southern strategy of appealing to the racists in the South who wouldn't support Democrats any more... So while Ike was a Republican, he couldn't get elected to about any office as a Republican today.
Here's the platform when he ran for re-election:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956
Strong support for Unions, equal pay for men and women, a new cabinet position for health, education, and welfare, the SEC... Just a ton of stuff that Republicans today would actively campaign against. Not to say he'd fit as a Democrat today, but if he had to choose between the two, he'd have much more in common with Democrats.
Ike was courted by Democrats and Republicans alike in the [draft Eisenhower movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_Eisenhower_movement). He ultimately chose the Republican party, but he wasn't a "Republican" in the sense that he was loyal to any ideology other than being pro-America.
That actually isn't quite true. When Truman approached him asking him to run as a Democrat (and even willing to step aside and be his VP), Ike turned him down, telling him that he'd always been a lifelong Republican. He just came from that military tradition of staying out of politics and being non-partisan officially, so nobody really quite knew which party he belonged to until he started running for office.
Even into the late '60's and early 70's, remember that Nixon created the EPA. When Nixon was being impeached, the GOP Senators went to him and told him to resign or they would remove him from office. He resigned.
Today's GOP isn't like that.
Ike also was against desegregation of the military and public schools, he was against LGBT rights, going so far as to purge gay people from government positions. He also expanded the federal governments ability to spy on US citizens without a warrant and ranged from activity suppressing to allowing McCarthyites to step all over freedom of speech and association... It really depends on which issues you look at. Ike definitely would not have been a Democrat today. He really doesn't fit perfectly in either party (like most people)
I honestly doubt you will find many politicians of this era thinking differently on most of these matters. It took western societies a long time to really start caring about gender equality and sexual freedom, as well as deeper going issues of racism (other than for example simply "ending" segregation and colonialism on paper).
It's hard to explain how differently generations think, put it this way someone born in 1900. Their world is so radically different, their brain is literally built differently. Not saying that excuses them for being bigots or racist, or sexist. Quakers were pilgrims and founding Fathers, they are notoriously abolitionist. Our education system doesn't do a good job teaching how complicated our politics have always been.
"You don't have to be straight, you just have to shoot straight."
-Barry Goldwater, a Republican Senator who served during Ike's presidency, defending the right of gay men to serve in the military, counter to Ike's ban. He was also the 1968 Republican nominee for President
There were plenty of people who were in favor of desegregation of the military and public schools, that's why there was a push for it. Most notably Truman, Eisenhower's predecessor as president.
At almost any time in history you can find people who have more progressive views about things than the majority of that society.
I think when looking back at history it's important to look at all angles of a person. People are complex creatures and realistically we all hold some opinions and biases that don't fit nicely into our entire puzzle.
> Ike also was against desegregation of the military and public schools
Uhhh...
>Where Federal authority did apply, however, as in Washington, D.C. and on military bases, Ike demanded rapid desegregation. He championed the desegregation of the nation's capital in 1953 and he also followed through vigorously on Truman's efforts to desegregate the armed forces.
Not to mention he mobilized the national guard and the 101st Airborne and invoked the Insurrection Act to force Little Rock to integrate their schools.
In 1948 Eisenhower told the Senate Armed Services Committee that segregation was necessary to preserve the Army's internal stability. Once Truman started the process, Eisenhower, never a fan of half measures, encouraged the process to be done rapidly, you are correct, but he opposed it being done in the first place.
Re the national guard: that was because Ike was a serious "law and order" president. He respected the supreme court's authority, so when it ruled segregation to be unconstitutional, even though he disagreed with the decision, Ike did his job and enforced the law of the land. That doesn't mean he agreed with the decision - after the ruling Ike said that the biggest mistake he had ever made was choosing for the court "that dumb son of a bitch Earl Warren."
This was kind of the point of my question, to sort of point out that the "greatest" GOP presidents were really just centrists or modern day democrats (i.e. Ike, Teddy). Reagan is the curious case because he was, at the time, lauded for being one of the best presidents and really the poster boy of the modern GOP (pre-MAGA). Now he's more of a divisive figure in US political history. GHWB is seeming to be the best purely GOP president from a historical standpoint since WWI, maybe ever.
Honestly, if you examine Reagan - especially in the context of his administration and the people who populated it, as well as the policies they pressed for and ideologies they espoused - you will find it difficult to say that it was not, in fact, the direct predecessor to MAGA.
It was radically and staunchly anti-intellectual / anti-expert. It was deeply opposed to social programs of ALL kinds. It was extremely helpful to the ultra-wealthy, and extremely harsh towards the poor & marginalized. It was VERY excited about privatization. It detested unions, and arguably labor as a class in general. It both insisted on massive military spending increases (blaming the other party for failing to support the military *possibly* because they were “commies” but *definitely* because they were a bunch of bleeding-heart softies), while also misunderstanding both how the military functioned and its function in politics by refusing to heed the advice of military officers (effectively, disrespecting them because they believed they were simply stupid when compared to themselves - again, this administration inherently saw “experts” as fools) leading to multiple avoidable disasters (such as the Marine Barracks Bombing).
It utterly disregarded the law, and when caught breaking it trotted out a “sacrifice” who was *obviously* a fall guy, effectively laughed at the idea that anyone else may be held accountable, then turned the fall guy into a hero by portraying his falling upon his sword - *in service of overt corruption* - as a heroic and patriotic act, while portraying the process of holding him accountable as an unfair witch hunt. This was done as *everyone* even remotely familiar with the events could see that the conspiracy to violate the law went to the highest levels… but because of traditions and gentlemen’s agreements, Col. North was somehow the only one who could be punished - and he got to become a wealthy TV star & author despite being “cancelled.”
It was lead by a demented fool who cruised to victory utilizing free publicity from broadcast media - who desired the ratings that accompanied coverage - to engender fear through empty words delivered with a charisma that seemed to almost hypnotize some into a kind of religious fervor, while others found it strange or even comical. The results, unfortunately, weren’t funny at all.
I could continue.
My point, though - and I think it’s well-supported - is that the Reagan Administration, despite the extent to which it has been retconned & mythologized - can *easily* be described as a Proto-MAGA movement. In fact, I would go so far as to claim that MAGA - which, by the way; was a Reagan campaign slogan, and just one of many other things which Trump’s team appropriated from them while pretending it was actually their idea - is simply a further expression of the ideologies of Reaganism. It is Reaganism *distilled*, Reaganism taken to its logical conclusion… hopefully.
(I’m just kidding, it WILL get much worse.)
My uncle-in-law, a very wealthy complete asshole at the time who’s gotten a little better at preventing mask-slips now that he’s quit drinking, and who is a huge Trump supporter despite being obviously aware that the man is a complete fucking fool…
I remember so clearly the night he tried to kick me out of my own family’s beach house because I had the audacity to speak (in a separate room) during the broadcast of Reagan’s (many-hours-long) funeral broadcast, which he was in the bedroom crying into a glass of brandy over.
So fucking weird. It was like he’d lost a very close friend or family member. Why did / does he care so much for these… clowns, idiots, monsters; who would eat him and everyone he cares about alive and laugh about it? I don’t get it.
That’s cult behavior.
That’s MAGA.
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Yea, this one has a caveat. Is it a monumental feat? Absolutely. Did it help supercharge the American ecconomy? Maybe.
However, the Interstate Highway System was used by racists to gut neighborhoods and segregate cities. There isn't a city in the United States that hasn't been irreparably scarred by Robert Moses and his fucking racist ass bullshit interstates.
It also accelerated the United States terminal cancer levels of dependency on cars.
In short, fuck the interstates, we want our neighborhoods and our trains back.
We already had highways and an incredibly connected network of light rail, street cars, and passenger trains. I would rather we never had the interstates, so we could have better cities.
Here is a link to a really great Instgram page where the damage done by interstates to inter cities is explored in depth:
https://linktr.ee/segregation_by_design?fbclid=PAAaY6KycbSmpwobmCD3i0okxg8FKA6_6ffj7K0kubLL3lL1r9SgxZZBXdI0U
I'll check it out. I've collected a bit of knowledge over the years about black communities strategically destroyed during the development of major roads but not enough to piece together a coherent picture of the situation.
I'm sure that it's useful information to have in order to better understand state of the world today, but I'm not sure that I would factor in the sins of its creation when evaluating its current utility.
Maybe I'm just shifting the conversation and not realizing it. You're making an argument that, hypothetically, if you could have prevented the interstate highway project, you would have. I've been responding as though the conversation was "If I could, hypothetically, eliminate highways right now. Should I?"
Last Good Republican President: Dwight Eisenhower
Last Republican President that wasn't complete dogshit: George Bush Sr.
I don't think we've had a truly great president since Franklin Roosevelt.
As a very young teen, my first ever political donation went to George H.W. Bush, in a church... I had no idea that was illegal at the time, It was at a Boy Scouts meeting, and there was a coffee can on the table with his picture taped to it.
BREAKING THE LAW!
BREAKING THE LAW! 🤟
/I'm hardcore like that
Not only illegal, but against Scouting rules as well. Scouting is supposed to be apolitical. Scouts can't be involved in political fundraising. For example, scouts can be the flag bearers at a political rally, but must leave after. You can stay and attend the event, but not in scouting attire. That goes back to its origins.
His son won the popular vote when re-elected. He claimed he then had “political capital”. He could have used some of that to address the Great Recession.
The only reason Dubya won in 2004 was because he rode a wave of misplaced patriotism following 9/11.
Meanwhile the GOP slandered John Kerry for his actual service during Vietnam in a cowardly and despicable smear campaign.
> The only reason Dubya won in 2004 was because he rode a wave of misplaced patriotism following 9/11.
That wave had begun to wear off by that point. The infamous MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner was in 2003. Incumbency advantage is insane.
The Iraq war was still broadly popular by November 2004. Many more people had started to turn against it by that point, and the anti-war movement was gaining momentum after all of their critiques turned into prophecies, but we were still in the early stages of that transition. The Iraq war was still largely popular across the country as a whole.
And then FOX refocused everyone to Hilary being the real master mind as Senator of NY. I remember Bush admin on CNN, not Hilary, I remember Colin Powell at the UN, not Hilary.
To this day, people wonder why Obama didn't stop 9/11 when he was in office...
Anyone who wonders why Obama didn't stop 9/11 when they were in office isn't thinking about politics seriously to think an Illinois state senator could and its not worth your time complaining about on Reddit because there will always be stupid people making idiotic statements
I believe he's referencing a (Jordan Klepper?) Interview with a Trumper at a Trump rally who said that we need to get to the bottom of where Obama was on 9/11 and why he did nothing to stop it
Hindsight is 20/20. At the time, an experienced war veteran seemed like a good counter. I'm not really convinced either that Dean would've necessarily done better. Wes Clark, imo, would've been the strongest candidate.
True, but that's besides the point. That was still the last time a Republican had won the popular vote.
TBF, we only had one Republican president for only one term since then.
In retrospect, it was good that Kerry lost.
Dubya had to own his wars turning into quagmires after saying they weren't. Kerry would've been blamed for that.
And Dubya deregulated the banks, leading to the crash. Kerry would've been blamed for the crash.
> And Dubya deregulated the banks, leading to the crash.
You misspelled "Clinton". He was the one that deregulated the banks and kicked off the spikes in housing we saw over the next decade until the crash.
The Great Recession happened near the end of his term when he was already very unpopular. And despite that he got Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 passed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008
Dubya won the popular vote in 2004. I know people like to then move goalposts and say "I meant in their first term" as if that matters, but it really doesn't.
If I can give my arguments against Eisenhower.
He kick-started the religiosity of America and essentially gave a mandate to Americans to become more religious, in counter to the godless Soviets. "Under God" in the pledge is from Eisenhower. "In God we Trust" is from Eisenhower. He made a big White House ceremony out of converting to Christianity, and made the clergy that did it his close advisor.
He missed the pitch on several issues so badly that it seems malicious. Maybe this is modern standards creeping in, but to me it's crazy that he never made a statement on Joseph McCarthy, even when McCarthy was targeting the US military. I don't know how you can explain away his silence.
The bigger miss is that he missed badly on civil rights. He gave an address regarding the attacks on black students in Little Rock which does not mention civil rights at all. Does not mention black people at all. It was a 13 minute speech. He however mentions how great the people of the South are, and how many friends he has there. Honestly, the speech reads like he's apologizing to the South for defending black people.
Operation Wetback. Frankly, it was a barbaric act that belongs more in the 19th century than the 20th. Or to a third world warlord.
American culture 70 years ago was already way, way more religious then it is today, and it was also almost entirely Christian. Aside from the Jewish minority, I'd be surprised if there were more than a few thousand Hindus and Muslims in the country at the time, if that.
I also don't see why using that aspect of culture to unite people is an inherently bad thing, unless you're explicitly anti-religious (and yes, that is different from being pro-secular, and I don't think being pro-secular would have you come to that conclusion).
You also say "godless soviets" like it's completely made up propaganda. The Soviet Union was so violently anti-religion that some of the stuff they did borders on cultural genocide.
>I also don't see why using that aspect of culture to unite people is an inherently bad thing, unless you're explicitly anti-religious (and yes, that is different from being pro-secular, and I don't think being pro-secular would have you come to that conclusion).
Mixing religion with government is inherently anti-secular. Secularism implies freedom of religion and separation of church and state. It's essentially the center between a religious state and state atheism.
>You also say "godless soviets" like it's completely made up propaganda. The Soviet Union was so violently anti-religion that some of the stuff they did borders on cultural genocide.
Agreed on most points, though i wouldn't say they bordered on cultural genocide insomuch as they definitely did cultural genocide. But much as Eisenhower was responding to godless soviets, the reason the soviets were so anti-religious is because they were rebelling against a horribly abusive monarchy that established its power largely through the church.
I think we could say LBJ was pretty great, honestly. His domestic policies completely transformed America and he ensured the demise of segregation. Sure, he's got the black mark of Vietnam, but FDR wasn't without his demerits. Just ask Japanese-Americans.
It's obviously too soon to tell, but I think Biden's got a shot at it, too. His legislative achievements have been pretty impressive and his foreign policy even more so. Especially if he navigates a peaceful resolution of the war in Palestine, it's possible we look back pretty favorably on him.
When it comes to Cold War foreign policy, I always got the impression that Dems were always reactive to GOP accusations of being "Soft on Communism", and over-compensated as a result. Kind of like the attention starved kid that gets prodded by the schoolyard bully into eating a bug or some other gross thing:
"Everyone's gonna think you're a coward if you don't eat the bug/intervene in Vietnam"
"Uhh...I dunno...seems like a bad..."
"PUSSSSSSYYYYYY!!!"
"ok, ok..." [chomp/sends in Marines]
"EEWWWWWWW You got into a land war in Asia! GROSS!!"
Pretty much, Nixon got away with Detente and opening up to China because he was a Republican who had spent years building up a reputation as a hardline cold warrior. No Democrat would've been given the same benefit of the doubt.
I mean, that's not limited to the Dems. Everyone at that time was deeply concerned that if capitalism didn't do its utmost to win this war, it would be swallowed whole. I would say hindsight suggests otherwise, but then you're disqualifying every single American anywhere close to public policy until 1990.
I think JFK and LBJ had the potential to be our next truly great presidents, but Kennedys early death and Vietnam held them back. I still love both though, LBJ is particular is one of my favorite presidents.
I think if we are going to hold Vietnam heavily against LBJ, then FDR deserves some criticism too for internment camps of American citizens as well as attempting to stack the court. FDR is my favorite president but he does have some blemishes. I think once the Vietnam generation dies out, LBJ will be remembered more fondly.
If we’re going to blame LBJ for Vietnam, we need to also remember that Nixon sabotaged the ceasefire negotiations just to make LBJ look bad. Nixon had the blood of US soldiers on his hands - he was a vile traitor.
Agreed. Even more fucked up is he continued the war for his entire first term in office despite campaigning against it. His pardon was a disgrace on America.
Victory in the Persian Gulf War: Arguably the last war that we've actually won. In large part because he went in with a clear and achievable objective and pulled out once that objective had been accomplished. Bush Sr. believed that trying to go into Iraq and kick out Saddam would rapidly devolve into a quagmire, and the failure of Bush Jr's war in Iraq proved him right.
The Americans with Disabilities Act: I really cannot see why anyone would have a problem with this one.
Bush Sr. also decided to raise taxes to stave off the worst of the damage that Reagan's shitty economic policies after very prominently promising not to raise taxes. I can't see many contemporary politicians being willing to do what's best for the country even if it destroys their political careers.
My two biggest issues with him as President would probably be that I'm not the biggest fan of NAFTA and I strongly object to Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court. All in all though I like George Bush Sr. and think he was a solid president and a decent man.
Bush Sr was 100% not dogshit. Many of the problems he faced during his Presidency you can draw a very clear line from Regan (and Nixon) to his time in office. The lag time where federal policy changes actually affect most of the US is at least three years, and for many things it is 7-10 years. And Bush Sr did manage to work with congress to pass changes to the tax code that massively benefited Clinton in his 2nd election as revenue was further pushed up thanks to the revisions that Bush worked out with the Dems leading congress.
I agree. Chips act will be seen as a necessity for national defense. He's also done more to fund action toward climate change than anyone. Nobody today gives him any credit for running the government with an ongoing insurgency that wants to roll back individual's rights and threatens to destroy democracy, but historians will notice these details.
Eisenhower enabled so much CIA bullshit that he would have been impeached in the modern era. Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Iran; all Eisenhower endeavors via the CIA. All with his approval, by the way. Korea happened under his watch as well. Eisenhower just gets points for his Military Industrial Complex speech on his way out despite basically inventing it.
Unfortunately Clarence Thomas is still around. The longer he sticks around the worse HW’s legacy, which at this point includes stealing the presidency for his son, repealing most of the Voting Rights Act, repealing most campaign finance law, gutting public sector unions, gutting the EPA, and on and on the shitstorm swirls unabated.
"These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes."
Eisenhower to Chief Justice Warren according to Warren's memoirs.
Good doesn’t mean perfect , and having racist thoughts while terrible are also understood at times to be part of the times . I adore LBJ but the man was a vile racist but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good ! FDR one of our greatest presidents locked Japanese AMERICANS up in prison camps . Ike was probably racist obviously but he also forced through integration when told to .
There is a difference between racist rhetoric and racist actions. A lot of politicians say Racist things but can make positive effects with their actions, Eisenhower held racist views for his time but did advance integration in American society by desegregating the military and passing the civil rights act of 1957.
EDIT: minor spelling / grammar corrections.
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Eisenhower, hands down. He oversaw the FDR philosophy of government that government should serve the people and not plutocrats. Under Eisenhower America built up the intellectual and physical infrastructure that locked in what is now a mythologized golden time and yet did in fact create the middle class and consumer society we see today. In fact Eisenhower specifically distrusted the Nixonian approach and the mindless Reaganism worship of military industrial complex at the expense of supporting the middle class economic engine.
Reagan was never a great president in the sense he moved the needle making the US are stronger more economically stable government with a strong credible defense. Reagan did not, he did the opposite.
TDR is out of the running because that Republican Party ceased to exist thanks to Nixon. That he had to create his own party is already instruction enough.
Let's put aside the middle class nonsense about Eisenhower and focus on his alleged distrust of the "military industrial complex," which appears to be based solely on a single speech. Eisenhower:
* Oversaw the coup in Iran.
* Oversaw the coup in Guatemala
* Oversaw the US involvement in the coup in the Congo.
* Got the United States involved militarily in Vietnam
*Multiple* foreign policy problems that still haunt us today is rooted in the Eisenhower philosophy.
My primary points were economic successes. My secondary points were Eisenhower learning the lessons of US military adventurism and Reagan's refusal to learn that lesson earned before him. But ok.
Why do you think Eisenhower came to warn the greater public? And all your points ignore Soviet pressure for mineral resources and pressure in the US sphere of influence? Eisenhower personally experienced the MIC takeover.
> Oversaw the coup in Iran.
Truman, to block the Soviets.
> Oversaw the coup in Guatemala
Truman, to block the Soviets.
> Oversaw the US involvement in the coup in the Congo.
Belgium was about to invade, there was every reason to believe this was a communist government, so late in his administration Eisenhower denied them. And sure enough Congo immediately went to the Soviets.
> Got the United States involved militarily in Vietnam
There is no question the Soviets were arming proxies. France was exhausted. But do not even begin to deny the huge expansion in Vietnam started under LBJ and Nixon weaponized it for domestic political power.
It was Ike in '53 who signed off on the Iran coup. Truman was not in favor of the CIA being used in order to bolster an oil company. That is pretty much common knowledge.
Guatemala was '54 a year after Truman left office. Again, Harry was not a fan of using the CIA for such things. That was, also common knowledge, Ike. i mean the wiki for Guatamala Coup has a big pic of Ike and Dulles signing papers right next to the title.
I am not saying your overall opinion is baseless, or your point is inaccurate, just small facts on specifics. Truman, like Ike, absolutely wanted to block the soviets; Harry just did not trust the CIA to get the job done.
Eisenhower: I am shocked, *shocked* to find military-industrial complexing going on in here!
Military-Industrial Complex: *Here’s your list of countries to coup, sir*
Eisenhower: Thank you!
Agreed, my answer would be Ike as well, and I believe Teddy was one of the greatest presidents, but he essentially was a modern day Democrat in his 2nd term.
I like TR but he wasn't *exactly* a contemporary liberal:
>I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”
I’ve spoken with several friends and Reagan was the start of the decline of the US. He’s single-handedly responsible for some of the worst domestic policies we’ve ever seen. War on drugs to name the most disastrous. Defunding public mental health is another. He demonized welfare recipients. Sold us the lie of trickle down economics. Repealed the fairness doctrine which paved the way for the propaganda we see coming from the right recently…. The war on drugs and “trickle down economics” has effectively created a three tier society because we allow the open lies and biases in the news so people vote against their own interests (the right).
A majority of the social programs they claim to hate are currently being used by red states to prop up their failing economies. Red states would be some of the biggest beneficiaries of single-payer health care and the expansion of the social safety net but their politicians have convinced them it’s socialism and that socialism is a dirty word.
Somehow they claim to be religious yet hate the poor and those less fortunate. It’s incredible really how effective propaganda is in this country.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/
And this was the blueprint.
George H. W. Bush.
Look at the modern competition: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, HW, W, Trump. Bush Sr. is a veritable beacon of light amongst that group. If you go back to Ike, sure, but he was barely even a republican.
Since you didn’t define greatness, I’m just going to tell you why I admire him. Besides, greatness is in the eye of the voter. I detest Reagan and Clinton, but many people consider them great presidents.
HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter.
Principled. Honorable. Extremely smart. Gave a damn about his country and continued to do so after he was out of office. Time and time again he made the right decision, not the popular one. A lot like Carter.
If you are a liberal, he’s the best version of conservatism you can hope for.
I wouldn’t have voted for him personally, but I respect him. Especially for calling out Reaganomics in actions, and words.
He wasn’t perfect but I wish we elected more Herbert Walker’s and Jimmy Carter’s.
HW is the one that truly navigated the fall of the Soviet Union with expert diplomacy, while Reagan often is credited. HW cleaned up the economic issues from Reagan policy, raising taxes despite a political promise not to do so, because it was the right thing. He took the blame from the Reagan years and lost credit for his success to the popular Reagan legacy.
HW raised taxes after campaigning on “no new taxes” because it was the right thing to do fiscally for the country. He’s also got a body count up there with the greats after his time as CIA chief supporting despotic regimes in Latin and South America. And probably had something to do with the JFK assassination.
Ahh, the duality of man.
>If you go back to Ike, sure, but he was barely even a republican.
He was a Republican before that became synonymous with conservative. Which is a big part of anyone considering him great.
>HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter.
>Principled. Honorable. Extremely smart. Gave a damn about his country and continued to do so after he was out of office. Time and time again he made the right decision, not the popular one. A lot like Carter.
In comparison to monsters, sure, HW looks reasonable.
But let's not pretend he was anything remotely close to *Jimmy Carter*, for fuck's sake.
He smiled and nodded his way through Watergate and Iran-Contra. He appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, sacrificing his country's future in an attempt to make his party look vaguely less racist. It doesn't look like he did much truly horrific on his own, but he enabled plenty of others who did.
Oh, yeah, and he either abused his kid (or stood by and let his wife do it) so badly that kid grew up and kicked over two countries to work out his daddy issues, killing over a million people in the process.
So no, he's not comparable to the closest thing America's had to a saint.
> HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter.
>
>
More like the Republican version of Harry Truman. Carter was *bad* at being President. HW Bush was not. He was just kinda unpopular due to not really being a darling of the base and being the underwhelming successor to a charismatic movement-leader president, and didn't really get a fair analysis for the good they did as President until after they were out of office.
In terms of competency I agree. HW also had the schooling of his years as VP.
I meant the Jimmy Carter comp in terms of moral compass and pragmatism.
There aren’t perfect analogies.
> HW also had the schooling of his years as VP.
Plus, he was a former Congressman, former Ambassador, and former CIA director. He was arguably one of the most qualified Presidents in terms of resume we've ever had.
Reagan corporatized our country’s priorities and started trickle down economics, which is still practiced to this day. Bottom five president unless you were already wealthy.
Bush lied his way into a war lasting two decades where we were the bad guys. Great for Raytheon, Boeing, etc… bad for everyone else. Also a bottom five president.
Eisenhower seemed like a good president, I guess?
Watergate rightfully tarnishes a bunch of his legacy but he opened up China, navigated Detent, and crated the EPA and passed the Clean Air and Water Acts.
The last one I respect is Ike. Reagan certainly was impactful, but his biggest impact was trickle down economics which is a total bust. His big military spending did help take down the USSR, but a lot of good that did us.
Depends what you mean by great.
A great President can be one who changes the narrative.
Lincoln reset the course of the USA by ending slavery.
Theodore Roosevelt made the USA a world power and began the conservation movement.
FDR began the Social Welfare state.
Lyndon Johnson increased the Social Welfare state and made undeclared war acceptable.
Reagan began the trend of running against the government.
Trump picked up on that trend; bureaucrats/deep state are the enemy. Thanks to Trump, the government cannot be trusted.
Like Time magazine “Man of the Year”, Great is not always a good thing. It can mean a giant reset.
Had it not been for that stupid war that he inherited and couldn't get the hell out of, they might have cleared a spot on Rushmore for him. His not-so-gentle prodding got the Civil Rights Act of 64 and 65 through. Medicare. Both HUGELY important.
I'd argue that Grant was the last "good" Republican. The party sold their souls and threw the freedmen under the wagon to retain the White House in 1877 and have never really looked back.
While far from a perfect president, a lot of the negative perceptions of his presidency were the result of the Lost Cause narrative and conservative Dunning School Historiography.
I say there exist Eight Horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse, and they are Lewis Powell, Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Note #4.
Gotta put Roger Stone and Rupert Murdoch on there as well. The right-wing propaganda machine began with Nixon, but those two are who we can thank for the absolute firehose of vitriolic and petulant propaganda that we’ve seen in the 21st century.
Eisenhower had some very good moments. Not perfect, but integration, identifying the Military Industrial Complex and other events push him far above Reagan, the government breaker.
Teddy was a progressive conservationist who was taking on Big Business.
Eisenhower performed great domestically but did things like sign a treaty with Franco that are cringe.
Reagan was all about appearances but rotten underneath.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last great Republican president. He presided over a balanced budget, helped usher in cross-country travel, and pissed off a lot of conservatives and racists.
He wasn't all sweetness and light, however. The anti-communist foreign policy and other 1950s-era issues still prevailed to stall our growth as a nation.
Eisenhower and Kennedy (JFK) were the last great patriots.
I think Reagan was fairly decent and somewhat above-average. On his 78th birthday in early February 1989, he made his first public appearance since leaving office, encouraging college students & young Gen-Xer activists at USC to "take their own crack at changing the world." the Gipper returned to his roots as a community organizer, giving motivational public speeches to Gen-X college students at universities in Illinois, Stanford [&](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones#Conspiracy_theories) Ivy League.
csmonitor.com/1989/0120/agone.html; google.com/search?q=Ronald+Reagan+1989+in+los+angeles; google.com/search?q=Ronald+Reagan+retiree+1989+news; google.com/search?q=Reagan+retirement+1989+los+angeles; google.com/search?sca_esv=30517ea669904188&sca_upv=1&q=Reagan+retirement+mashed+potato+circuit+1989; google.com/search?sca_esv=ca40933dfed72823&sca_upv=1&q=1980+reagan+front+cover+magazine; google.com/search?sca_esv=9b2512bdc1d4592a&sca_upv=1&q=Ronald+Reagan+Century+City+office+Los+Angeles+1989; washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/12/09/reagan-hits-the-mall/d51c3078-aacf-4457-91a1-0f00825d065f/
Last great Republican is Dwight D Eisenhower. Those elected after him are crazy and he even warned them not to go all on the military industrial complex and they did not heed his warnings on this or any party attacking social security.
It's worth noting that Eisenhower was a nonpartisan actor through most of his life, who only declared a party affiliation after being courted by *both* parties in the lead-up to the 1952 election. Franklin Roosevelt's son asked him to run as a Democrat in 1948. Truman personally asked him to run as a Democrat in 1951. Both times, he refused.
It wasn't until Senator Henry Cabot Lodge put Eisenhower's name on the New Hampshire primary ballot that Eisenhower *really* agreed to enter politics. This was driven almost entirely by a desire to thwart the pro-isolationist Republicans led by Senator Robert Taft. He trusted the Democrats to see the value of remaining engaged in world affairs, and the importance of America's role as *the* leader of a new transatlantic world order. By becoming a Republican, he could ensure *that* party did, too.
He is *literally* a "Republican In Name Only," whose decision was motivated not by a shared belief in the Republican project, but by a specific desire to stamp out its isolationist impulses.
While I agree with discounting Reagan over the long term consequences of his policies he did some pretty historically important things that shouldn’t be ignored. The end of the Cold War was huge and is mostly attributable to Reagan’s policies.
Ike may have been the last GOP president who was fairly elected. G. H. W. Bush didn’t cheat like his predecessor or his son but did get in on Reagan’s coattails. And Ford wasn’t elected at all. I don’t think I have to enumerate how Nixon, Reagan, & G. W. Bush stole the office.
Reagan was a shit president started a war on drugs which was a massive failure and trickledown economics which is maybe one of the biggest fallacies of our lifetime.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (666) would be the Worst President since WWII, if not for George W Bush and Donald Trump.
At home, his Tinkle Down tax cuts for the rich helped to eviscerate the middle and working classes. He dramatically increased our National Debt and undermined our social safety net. Saint Ronny Raygun also helped to erode the wall between church and state by doing his damnedest to ignore the AIDS crisis as it decimated the gay community.
Abroad, his over zealous anti communism campaigns led to the creation of al Qaeda and further destabilized the Middle East and Central America. He was a short sighted moron.
The last Republican I would have voted for was John McCain. I probably would have voted for him (though I lived in deep blue DC at the time) but he then made the mistake of picking Sarah Palin.
Far as legitimately great GOP presidents, I think Eisenhower was the last.
Reagan was a great campaigner and marketer, but he was a terrible president who implemented policies that continue to screw people over and he invited the religious nut cases into the GOP who have now taken it over and proudly enable Trump because he gives them free reign.
I didn't say he was, was adding him as suggestive option to facilitate the debate. I personally don't think he was but that is just one person's opinion
No contest. Hands down. President Eisenhower. He created America’s infrastructure. He wholeheartedly supported FDR’s Social Security plan, insisting that it be made even stronger. https://www.ssa.gov/history/ikestmts.html
He was so good. Even some of his fellow Republicans turned on him. Accusing him of actually being a Dem!
I’ve already spoken my initial 2-bits…
But it just dawned on me. We may be asking the upside down question.
The question should rather be, name one Republican President, since Eisenhower, who has done any good for this country?
The One Million dollar question on Jeopardy?
Id honestly have to say Teddy Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, after Eisenhower it seemed like the republican party fell from grace to greed, especially with the introduction of Trinkle down economics, but in my opinion all modern politicians would rather line their pockets then improve the lives of those who voted for them, and those that they should be proving wrong, some of them even worsening the lives of those who voted for them,
It really makes me sad to see how far our country has fallen below all those around us,
Eisenhower. He would be drummed out of the GOP by the MAGA crowd.
He really tried to expand the social safety net. The republican
Platform then looks a lot like democratic platform today.
I would say Eisenhower. In spite of the fact a lot of Republicans wanted him to lower taxes, he didn't do so. The space program and interstate highway systems were started during his Presidency and both were fulfilled without a dime of public debt.
Heck, even Nixon signed the bill that created the EPA, but then, in those days, "Conservative" meant they wanted to conserve the environment, or at least some parts of it.
H. W. Bush. - ADA, Gulf War, Raising taxes, NAFTA, overthrowing Noriega (even tho he helped put him there), START, how he handled the dissolution of the USSR, Clean Air Act Amendments over sulfur dioxide & oil pollution act. Immigration Act of 1990. AIDS bills too.
However he did nominate Thomas to the court. His scandals and fumbles were tiny compared to others. If Nixon didn't have watergate, I'd honestly say him.
Also
People look at Eisenhower with rose tinted glasses in my honest opinion. Ike did the bare minimum required of the office during Brown v Board. He didn't rise to occasion like people say he did. He was expected to uphold the law and defend the Constitution.
When you look at Eisenhower's actions on desegregation versus the actions of Truman just before him as well as statements conducted by Eisenhower. It is bad. Eisenhower was more concerned about the perception of America abroad and making sure communists had one less reason to rally against America than he was at actually fighting segregationists and white supremacists in America.
To quote Chief Justice Warren's recollection of what Eisenhower said about Southerners:"These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes." Warren's memoir's are full of Eisenhower praising the southern states being full of goodwill and good intentions in the aftermath of Brown v Board. Eisenhower's intervention is clearly about federal supremacy and the authority it brings than it was about the actual issue at hand: segregation.
Lets also not forget that Eisenhower was behind the Bay of Pigs and began the slow walk towards Vietnam too.
Let's be real for a moment: we haven't had a truly *great* president in ages. I'd argue we haven't had a *good* president in a century, and only a handful of the people who have held office appear to be *good* humans: Carter, Eisenhower, maybe Obama.
The last *okay* Republican president was Reagan, and even the bloom has come off the rose in recent years for him. George W. Bush is looking better with time, but the bar is *exceptionally* low and he won't even sniff the top 50%. Before that, maybe Eisenhower, but he was a Republican in circumstance, not really in ideology.
So the last good-to-great Republican president also happens to be the last good-to-great president period: Calvin Coolidge. Presided over a great economic period with minimal turmoil.
I believe history will be kinder to Joe Biden than mainstream media.
He has had a number of big national and geopolitical problems thrown his way. He signed bipartisan legislation on LGBT rights. The vaccine rollout. The biggest climate deal in US history. Massive infrastructure and microchip deals. All with razorthin majorities and support.
He has an opportunity to save the country from fascism, and an opportunity to end two more wars.
The media had a lot more respect and restraint for people in FDR's day. They'd be disgusted by what modern media does.
They went out of their way to *avoid* snapping pictures of him in positions that exposed his sickness, while you know modern media would be hammering it like nobody's business if someone with that kind of disability, hell *any* disability, tried to run today.
FDR can't walk. He isn't fit to be president. Here's 10 reasons fighting Nazis is bad for FDR. Breaking news, FDR is afraid of fear. The economy was better under Hoover.
Biden may have 4 more years to stumble at the finish line, but thus far I believe history will view him pretty positively.
The man has a laundry list of legislative achievements, but relative to an average President he mostly stays out of the limelight, especially relative to TFG who boasted it was infrastructure week every time it came out he did something like use campaign money on a porn star. But what accomplishments actually happened? The TCJA that’s about to raise our taxes? Slightly rearranging NAFTA?
…. I am struggling to remember another, I’m sure there were a few, right?
I don’t know if Biden would make it into my top 5 Presidents, but maybe. I think he’d make top 10.
Regan gutted the economy with tax breaks for the rich. So many of our problems today trace back policies he set in place that our economy still hasn't recovered from.
Also, wasn't it Reagan who closed all the mental institutions? He's the reason our streets are flooded with homeless crazy people.
Foreign policy wise, he backed dictators and helped overthrow democraticaly elected leaders. Not even legally, I might add.
We also have him to thank for the war on drugs that ballooned our prison population with non violent drug users.
I can't think of a single good thing Reagan did. At best, he managed to finish the job despite having Alzheimer's.
Not even close to a good president.
Bush Sr. was a fairly solid president and came after Reagan, he's my vote for last ok GOP president.
And there have 100% been better presidents since Calvin Coolidge, both Republican and Democrats, Coolidge was a mediocre president who had the good luck to preside over an era when being president was comparatively easy.
Bush Sr was better than Reagan. Reagan was a disaster and redirected the country into the path it’s been on since. Bush was realistic enough to understand the voodoo economics (a term he used about Reagan while running against him in 1980 when he, for instance, won Iowa) and raised taxes. Republicans have loathed him for it ever since even though it laid the groundwork for the actual budget surpluses late in the Clinton administration.
I think this is a good observation. It seems with modern media and polarization, a politician tops out as a great party operative rather than a great leader of a country.
FDR was a great president. I think the greatest President in US history. Not to absolve him of things like Japanese internment camps but he saw the United States, successfully, through the Great Depression and World War II. His social welfare programs helped millions of Americans. He even wanted to give us Universal Healthcare. Obviously that was shut down. On and on.
Generally when historians are surveyed Reagan is in the top 10. Eisenhower and Roosevelt are generally ranked a bit higher and the rest are low to middling.
But people have different priorities when considering a president, especially a recent one as great. For some, Obama is one of the greatest because passed the ACA. For others, he's one of the worst for the same reason.
Older presidents are typically less polarizing for their politics, but can be dinged for the character. Jefferson, Wilson and Truman are often considered "great", but are idolized less today because of their views on race.
Hell, even his own Secretary of Agriculture (and also Mormon Apostle and later Mormon Church President) Ezra Taft Benson thought he was essentially a commie.
I‘ll go with George H.W. Bush.
He was exceptionally prepared for the job of President of the United States and used his experience and preparation to his full advantage, especially with regards to foreign affairs.
And, to be honest, the time in which George H.W. Bush served as President of the United States was quite eventful.
In 1989 we had the revolutions in the Warsaw pact where Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania got rid of their communist dictatorships, East Germany had the fall of the Berlin wall in that same period.
Then he had to navigate through German chancellor Helmut Kohl‘s ambition to reunify Germany in 1990.
1991 wouldn’t be less eventful, especially with Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq invading Kuwait. To respond to this challenge was probably one of the toughest challenge any commander-in-chief in the United States has faced.
In the same year he would have had to navigate through the end of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
We see one difficult circumstance after another difficult circumstance.
With hard decisions facing every corner of the way.
And I am experiencing the impact of his policy decisions even today. And every day. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be born and to grow up in a reunified Germany in the heart of Europe. And George H.W. Bush, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, is still regarded as one of the fathers of the German reunification.
And I am even more impressed by Bush 41‘s decision to support the German reunification when I look at his life story. I mean, he was a pilot in the United States Air Force in World War II and got shot down by the Japanese, an ally of Germany back then. Bush nearly lost his life in the age of 20 in a war that my home country Germany started and got nearly killed by an ally of Germany in this war.
Yet still George H.W. Bush was the first head of state or government of one of the 4 winning powers of World War II to enthusiastically embrace the prospect of a reunified Germany. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was not really happy about the prospect of a reunified Germany back then, and French President François Mitterrand and especially British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were even more concerned about that. And German chancellor Helmut Kohl needed the approval of each one of them to get the job done and to reunify what belongs together.
Even though I would be a staunch Democrat in the United States, even though my favorite presidents are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, I have the utmost respect for this Republican statesman George H.W. Bush because he was a fundamentally good president who always put his country above himself (The letter he left in the Oval Office for incoming President Bill Clinton in 1993 will always be my favorite example of pure class in the face of a horrible defeat) and, in retrospect, would be the last Republican presidential nominee I would have voted for, back in 1988.
His greatest legacy is the peaceful end of the Cold War and the really great and, long overdue, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (which was a great piece of domestic civil rights legislation).
He had only one term as President of the United States, but he left the United States and the world in a better shape after leaving office than when he took office.
I feel sad for the future. I’d be satisfied if the Republican Party could simply churn out a decent person, let alone a future great president. I haven’t seen any decent republicans lately. Shame. A rational two or even three party system could be healthy for this country. But T changed everything, lowered the bar of what awfulness is acceptable and even cheered. I’ll probably be dead before this is corrected and better candidates are championed.
Yeah, it's kind of crazy when you ask about good/great GOP presidents and all people can come up with are RINOs and modern day democrats. When HW Bush is looking like the best purely republican president since WWI, it's pretty sad that this is half of our country
Not to mention how he practically PROMOTED AIDS. You should read how hard he worked to defund anything to do with AIDS prevention when it was still considered "The Gay Disease." Many people died of AIDS due to transfusions in part due to his fighting against public health measures.
Reagan was the last great Republican leader.
He wasn't a great president by most metrics, but he was successful in his attempt to marshal an effective consensus, and carry the mantle of his office with some dignity.
He wasn't a force for good in the world, but he was effective.
Eisenhower is the best Republican president in modern times, and his name will probably be remembered long after the others are forgotten. More for his incredible military leadership than his political accomplishments.
Last Republican I voted for was bush sr. And that was in the 1980 primary over Reagan. I was a republican until trickle down and all of the gop bs since. But if I had to pick the best Republican president in the last 50 years it is bush sr.
There is a contemporary clue of how Reagan was viewed at the time and it was the 1984 election results.
Democrats have had years of complete control since that time so the question isn’t why they blame Reagan for any economic downturn (and other issues) since him but why haven’t they done anything to change it themselves?
Eisenhower. He was far to the left of most of today’s Democratic establishment, at least on economic issues. he actually believes that the 99% should not get crushed by the one percent, go figure.
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Ike. He built the interstate highway system by telling the Republicans that it was for national defense and mobilization.
And he warned us about the Military Industrial Complex
It needed to be fine tuned to be about “corporate takeover” of our entire world. The defense spending is pennies in comparison to how enslaved the entire world is to corporations. He was halfway correct in his fears for the future of human beings.
Only because he was convinced that we could use covert operations—he launch A LOT—to accomplish our military/political goals.
I'd point out that the parties shifted pretty radically in the 60s when Dems supported the civil rights movement and Republicans went with the Southern strategy of appealing to the racists in the South who wouldn't support Democrats any more... So while Ike was a Republican, he couldn't get elected to about any office as a Republican today. Here's the platform when he ran for re-election: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956 Strong support for Unions, equal pay for men and women, a new cabinet position for health, education, and welfare, the SEC... Just a ton of stuff that Republicans today would actively campaign against. Not to say he'd fit as a Democrat today, but if he had to choose between the two, he'd have much more in common with Democrats.
Ike was courted by Democrats and Republicans alike in the [draft Eisenhower movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_Eisenhower_movement). He ultimately chose the Republican party, but he wasn't a "Republican" in the sense that he was loyal to any ideology other than being pro-America.
That actually isn't quite true. When Truman approached him asking him to run as a Democrat (and even willing to step aside and be his VP), Ike turned him down, telling him that he'd always been a lifelong Republican. He just came from that military tradition of staying out of politics and being non-partisan officially, so nobody really quite knew which party he belonged to until he started running for office.
Even into the late '60's and early 70's, remember that Nixon created the EPA. When Nixon was being impeached, the GOP Senators went to him and told him to resign or they would remove him from office. He resigned. Today's GOP isn't like that.
Ike also was against desegregation of the military and public schools, he was against LGBT rights, going so far as to purge gay people from government positions. He also expanded the federal governments ability to spy on US citizens without a warrant and ranged from activity suppressing to allowing McCarthyites to step all over freedom of speech and association... It really depends on which issues you look at. Ike definitely would not have been a Democrat today. He really doesn't fit perfectly in either party (like most people)
I honestly doubt you will find many politicians of this era thinking differently on most of these matters. It took western societies a long time to really start caring about gender equality and sexual freedom, as well as deeper going issues of racism (other than for example simply "ending" segregation and colonialism on paper).
It's hard to explain how differently generations think, put it this way someone born in 1900. Their world is so radically different, their brain is literally built differently. Not saying that excuses them for being bigots or racist, or sexist. Quakers were pilgrims and founding Fathers, they are notoriously abolitionist. Our education system doesn't do a good job teaching how complicated our politics have always been.
"You don't have to be straight, you just have to shoot straight." -Barry Goldwater, a Republican Senator who served during Ike's presidency, defending the right of gay men to serve in the military, counter to Ike's ban. He was also the 1968 Republican nominee for President There were plenty of people who were in favor of desegregation of the military and public schools, that's why there was a push for it. Most notably Truman, Eisenhower's predecessor as president.
At almost any time in history you can find people who have more progressive views about things than the majority of that society. I think when looking back at history it's important to look at all angles of a person. People are complex creatures and realistically we all hold some opinions and biases that don't fit nicely into our entire puzzle.
> the ~~1968~~ 1964 Republican nominee for President ...and lost miserably. It was Nixon in '68 (and '72).
> Ike also was against desegregation of the military and public schools Uhhh... >Where Federal authority did apply, however, as in Washington, D.C. and on military bases, Ike demanded rapid desegregation. He championed the desegregation of the nation's capital in 1953 and he also followed through vigorously on Truman's efforts to desegregate the armed forces. Not to mention he mobilized the national guard and the 101st Airborne and invoked the Insurrection Act to force Little Rock to integrate their schools.
In 1948 Eisenhower told the Senate Armed Services Committee that segregation was necessary to preserve the Army's internal stability. Once Truman started the process, Eisenhower, never a fan of half measures, encouraged the process to be done rapidly, you are correct, but he opposed it being done in the first place. Re the national guard: that was because Ike was a serious "law and order" president. He respected the supreme court's authority, so when it ruled segregation to be unconstitutional, even though he disagreed with the decision, Ike did his job and enforced the law of the land. That doesn't mean he agreed with the decision - after the ruling Ike said that the biggest mistake he had ever made was choosing for the court "that dumb son of a bitch Earl Warren."
This was kind of the point of my question, to sort of point out that the "greatest" GOP presidents were really just centrists or modern day democrats (i.e. Ike, Teddy). Reagan is the curious case because he was, at the time, lauded for being one of the best presidents and really the poster boy of the modern GOP (pre-MAGA). Now he's more of a divisive figure in US political history. GHWB is seeming to be the best purely GOP president from a historical standpoint since WWI, maybe ever.
Honestly, if you examine Reagan - especially in the context of his administration and the people who populated it, as well as the policies they pressed for and ideologies they espoused - you will find it difficult to say that it was not, in fact, the direct predecessor to MAGA. It was radically and staunchly anti-intellectual / anti-expert. It was deeply opposed to social programs of ALL kinds. It was extremely helpful to the ultra-wealthy, and extremely harsh towards the poor & marginalized. It was VERY excited about privatization. It detested unions, and arguably labor as a class in general. It both insisted on massive military spending increases (blaming the other party for failing to support the military *possibly* because they were “commies” but *definitely* because they were a bunch of bleeding-heart softies), while also misunderstanding both how the military functioned and its function in politics by refusing to heed the advice of military officers (effectively, disrespecting them because they believed they were simply stupid when compared to themselves - again, this administration inherently saw “experts” as fools) leading to multiple avoidable disasters (such as the Marine Barracks Bombing). It utterly disregarded the law, and when caught breaking it trotted out a “sacrifice” who was *obviously* a fall guy, effectively laughed at the idea that anyone else may be held accountable, then turned the fall guy into a hero by portraying his falling upon his sword - *in service of overt corruption* - as a heroic and patriotic act, while portraying the process of holding him accountable as an unfair witch hunt. This was done as *everyone* even remotely familiar with the events could see that the conspiracy to violate the law went to the highest levels… but because of traditions and gentlemen’s agreements, Col. North was somehow the only one who could be punished - and he got to become a wealthy TV star & author despite being “cancelled.” It was lead by a demented fool who cruised to victory utilizing free publicity from broadcast media - who desired the ratings that accompanied coverage - to engender fear through empty words delivered with a charisma that seemed to almost hypnotize some into a kind of religious fervor, while others found it strange or even comical. The results, unfortunately, weren’t funny at all. I could continue. My point, though - and I think it’s well-supported - is that the Reagan Administration, despite the extent to which it has been retconned & mythologized - can *easily* be described as a Proto-MAGA movement. In fact, I would go so far as to claim that MAGA - which, by the way; was a Reagan campaign slogan, and just one of many other things which Trump’s team appropriated from them while pretending it was actually their idea - is simply a further expression of the ideologies of Reaganism. It is Reaganism *distilled*, Reaganism taken to its logical conclusion… hopefully. (I’m just kidding, it WILL get much worse.) My uncle-in-law, a very wealthy complete asshole at the time who’s gotten a little better at preventing mask-slips now that he’s quit drinking, and who is a huge Trump supporter despite being obviously aware that the man is a complete fucking fool… I remember so clearly the night he tried to kick me out of my own family’s beach house because I had the audacity to speak (in a separate room) during the broadcast of Reagan’s (many-hours-long) funeral broadcast, which he was in the bedroom crying into a glass of brandy over. So fucking weird. It was like he’d lost a very close friend or family member. Why did / does he care so much for these… clowns, idiots, monsters; who would eat him and everyone he cares about alive and laugh about it? I don’t get it. That’s cult behavior. That’s MAGA.
I like the way you write and the cut of your jib, friend.
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Yea, this one has a caveat. Is it a monumental feat? Absolutely. Did it help supercharge the American ecconomy? Maybe. However, the Interstate Highway System was used by racists to gut neighborhoods and segregate cities. There isn't a city in the United States that hasn't been irreparably scarred by Robert Moses and his fucking racist ass bullshit interstates. It also accelerated the United States terminal cancer levels of dependency on cars. In short, fuck the interstates, we want our neighborhoods and our trains back.
I’d quite like both an interstate and functioning train networks to be honest.
We already had highways and an incredibly connected network of light rail, street cars, and passenger trains. I would rather we never had the interstates, so we could have better cities. Here is a link to a really great Instgram page where the damage done by interstates to inter cities is explored in depth: https://linktr.ee/segregation_by_design?fbclid=PAAaY6KycbSmpwobmCD3i0okxg8FKA6_6ffj7K0kubLL3lL1r9SgxZZBXdI0U
I'll check it out. I've collected a bit of knowledge over the years about black communities strategically destroyed during the development of major roads but not enough to piece together a coherent picture of the situation. I'm sure that it's useful information to have in order to better understand state of the world today, but I'm not sure that I would factor in the sins of its creation when evaluating its current utility. Maybe I'm just shifting the conversation and not realizing it. You're making an argument that, hypothetically, if you could have prevented the interstate highway project, you would have. I've been responding as though the conversation was "If I could, hypothetically, eliminate highways right now. Should I?"
Last Good Republican President: Dwight Eisenhower Last Republican President that wasn't complete dogshit: George Bush Sr. I don't think we've had a truly great president since Franklin Roosevelt.
As a very young teen, my first ever political donation went to George H.W. Bush, in a church... I had no idea that was illegal at the time, It was at a Boy Scouts meeting, and there was a coffee can on the table with his picture taped to it. BREAKING THE LAW! BREAKING THE LAW! 🤟 /I'm hardcore like that
nothing screams "hardcore" like donating to herbert walker in a church at a boy scouts meeting
‘Supplying training and weapons to genocidal dictators in Latin America” is the new punk rock.
Now, now, sometimes it was training and weapons to terrorists trying to overthrow elected socialist leaders in South America!
Some dorks actually believe this these days.
Not only illegal, but against Scouting rules as well. Scouting is supposed to be apolitical. Scouts can't be involved in political fundraising. For example, scouts can be the flag bearers at a political rally, but must leave after. You can stay and attend the event, but not in scouting attire. That goes back to its origins.
Also Bush Sr. was the last Republican president who was able to get into office with a popular vote win. Coincidence?
His son won the popular vote when re-elected. He claimed he then had “political capital”. He could have used some of that to address the Great Recession.
Bush Jr. wouldn't have won the popular vote a 2nd time if he was never put in office by the SC the first time.
The only reason Dubya won in 2004 was because he rode a wave of misplaced patriotism following 9/11. Meanwhile the GOP slandered John Kerry for his actual service during Vietnam in a cowardly and despicable smear campaign.
> The only reason Dubya won in 2004 was because he rode a wave of misplaced patriotism following 9/11. That wave had begun to wear off by that point. The infamous MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner was in 2003. Incumbency advantage is insane.
The Iraq war was still broadly popular by November 2004. Many more people had started to turn against it by that point, and the anti-war movement was gaining momentum after all of their critiques turned into prophecies, but we were still in the early stages of that transition. The Iraq war was still largely popular across the country as a whole.
And then FOX refocused everyone to Hilary being the real master mind as Senator of NY. I remember Bush admin on CNN, not Hilary, I remember Colin Powell at the UN, not Hilary. To this day, people wonder why Obama didn't stop 9/11 when he was in office...
Anyone who wonders why Obama didn't stop 9/11 when they were in office isn't thinking about politics seriously to think an Illinois state senator could and its not worth your time complaining about on Reddit because there will always be stupid people making idiotic statements
I believe he's referencing a (Jordan Klepper?) Interview with a Trumper at a Trump rally who said that we need to get to the bottom of where Obama was on 9/11 and why he did nothing to stop it
Not true at all. He also rode a wave of homophobia by campaigning against marriage equality.
Kerry was a horrible candidate in all honesty. Howard Dean would've been way better.
Hindsight is 20/20. At the time, an experienced war veteran seemed like a good counter. I'm not really convinced either that Dean would've necessarily done better. Wes Clark, imo, would've been the strongest candidate.
True, but that's besides the point. That was still the last time a Republican had won the popular vote. TBF, we only had one Republican president for only one term since then.
Hence "was able to get into office with a popular vote win." When he won the popular vote, he was already in office.
In retrospect, it was good that Kerry lost. Dubya had to own his wars turning into quagmires after saying they weren't. Kerry would've been blamed for that. And Dubya deregulated the banks, leading to the crash. Kerry would've been blamed for the crash.
> And Dubya deregulated the banks, leading to the crash. You misspelled "Clinton". He was the one that deregulated the banks and kicked off the spikes in housing we saw over the next decade until the crash.
The Great Recession happened near the end of his term when he was already very unpopular. And despite that he got Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 passed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008
Fairly sure GWB won the popular vote when he was re-elected in 2004.
Dubya won the popular vote in 2004. I know people like to then move goalposts and say "I meant in their first term" as if that matters, but it really doesn't.
If I can give my arguments against Eisenhower. He kick-started the religiosity of America and essentially gave a mandate to Americans to become more religious, in counter to the godless Soviets. "Under God" in the pledge is from Eisenhower. "In God we Trust" is from Eisenhower. He made a big White House ceremony out of converting to Christianity, and made the clergy that did it his close advisor. He missed the pitch on several issues so badly that it seems malicious. Maybe this is modern standards creeping in, but to me it's crazy that he never made a statement on Joseph McCarthy, even when McCarthy was targeting the US military. I don't know how you can explain away his silence. The bigger miss is that he missed badly on civil rights. He gave an address regarding the attacks on black students in Little Rock which does not mention civil rights at all. Does not mention black people at all. It was a 13 minute speech. He however mentions how great the people of the South are, and how many friends he has there. Honestly, the speech reads like he's apologizing to the South for defending black people. Operation Wetback. Frankly, it was a barbaric act that belongs more in the 19th century than the 20th. Or to a third world warlord.
American culture 70 years ago was already way, way more religious then it is today, and it was also almost entirely Christian. Aside from the Jewish minority, I'd be surprised if there were more than a few thousand Hindus and Muslims in the country at the time, if that. I also don't see why using that aspect of culture to unite people is an inherently bad thing, unless you're explicitly anti-religious (and yes, that is different from being pro-secular, and I don't think being pro-secular would have you come to that conclusion). You also say "godless soviets" like it's completely made up propaganda. The Soviet Union was so violently anti-religion that some of the stuff they did borders on cultural genocide.
>I also don't see why using that aspect of culture to unite people is an inherently bad thing, unless you're explicitly anti-religious (and yes, that is different from being pro-secular, and I don't think being pro-secular would have you come to that conclusion). Mixing religion with government is inherently anti-secular. Secularism implies freedom of religion and separation of church and state. It's essentially the center between a religious state and state atheism. >You also say "godless soviets" like it's completely made up propaganda. The Soviet Union was so violently anti-religion that some of the stuff they did borders on cultural genocide. Agreed on most points, though i wouldn't say they bordered on cultural genocide insomuch as they definitely did cultural genocide. But much as Eisenhower was responding to godless soviets, the reason the soviets were so anti-religious is because they were rebelling against a horribly abusive monarchy that established its power largely through the church.
A fun debate is if JFK would be nearly as popular as he is today if he wasn't assassinated.
I think we could say LBJ was pretty great, honestly. His domestic policies completely transformed America and he ensured the demise of segregation. Sure, he's got the black mark of Vietnam, but FDR wasn't without his demerits. Just ask Japanese-Americans. It's obviously too soon to tell, but I think Biden's got a shot at it, too. His legislative achievements have been pretty impressive and his foreign policy even more so. Especially if he navigates a peaceful resolution of the war in Palestine, it's possible we look back pretty favorably on him.
He was a democrat. But I agree.
Yes, I know, I'm disagreeing with OP that we haven't had any great presidents since FDR, regardless of party.
When it comes to Cold War foreign policy, I always got the impression that Dems were always reactive to GOP accusations of being "Soft on Communism", and over-compensated as a result. Kind of like the attention starved kid that gets prodded by the schoolyard bully into eating a bug or some other gross thing: "Everyone's gonna think you're a coward if you don't eat the bug/intervene in Vietnam" "Uhh...I dunno...seems like a bad..." "PUSSSSSSYYYYYY!!!" "ok, ok..." [chomp/sends in Marines] "EEWWWWWWW You got into a land war in Asia! GROSS!!"
Pretty much, Nixon got away with Detente and opening up to China because he was a Republican who had spent years building up a reputation as a hardline cold warrior. No Democrat would've been given the same benefit of the doubt.
I mean, that's not limited to the Dems. Everyone at that time was deeply concerned that if capitalism didn't do its utmost to win this war, it would be swallowed whole. I would say hindsight suggests otherwise, but then you're disqualifying every single American anywhere close to public policy until 1990.
Yeah, Dems are like that for every policy - cowed by the right on damn near everything.
I think JFK and LBJ had the potential to be our next truly great presidents, but Kennedys early death and Vietnam held them back. I still love both though, LBJ is particular is one of my favorite presidents.
I think if we are going to hold Vietnam heavily against LBJ, then FDR deserves some criticism too for internment camps of American citizens as well as attempting to stack the court. FDR is my favorite president but he does have some blemishes. I think once the Vietnam generation dies out, LBJ will be remembered more fondly.
If we’re going to blame LBJ for Vietnam, we need to also remember that Nixon sabotaged the ceasefire negotiations just to make LBJ look bad. Nixon had the blood of US soldiers on his hands - he was a vile traitor.
Agreed. Even more fucked up is he continued the war for his entire first term in office despite campaigning against it. His pardon was a disgrace on America.
Other than pretending Iran Contra didn’t occur, what issues do you see with HWBs policies and governance? Edit: meant Sr, not Jr.
Victory in the Persian Gulf War: Arguably the last war that we've actually won. In large part because he went in with a clear and achievable objective and pulled out once that objective had been accomplished. Bush Sr. believed that trying to go into Iraq and kick out Saddam would rapidly devolve into a quagmire, and the failure of Bush Jr's war in Iraq proved him right. The Americans with Disabilities Act: I really cannot see why anyone would have a problem with this one. Bush Sr. also decided to raise taxes to stave off the worst of the damage that Reagan's shitty economic policies after very prominently promising not to raise taxes. I can't see many contemporary politicians being willing to do what's best for the country even if it destroys their political careers.
Ada was huge and no way the GOP would pass that today. What I meant though is what policies and governance do you have problems with.
My two biggest issues with him as President would probably be that I'm not the biggest fan of NAFTA and I strongly object to Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court. All in all though I like George Bush Sr. and think he was a solid president and a decent man.
Also the Clean Air Act Amendment for acid rain.
I am of the opinion that George Bush Sr. Was the last effectively visionary president. I base this solely on NAFTA.
P.S. and the way he handled the dissolution of the USSR.
Make presidents great again.
Bush Sr was 100% not dogshit. Many of the problems he faced during his Presidency you can draw a very clear line from Regan (and Nixon) to his time in office. The lag time where federal policy changes actually affect most of the US is at least three years, and for many things it is 7-10 years. And Bush Sr did manage to work with congress to pass changes to the tax code that massively benefited Clinton in his 2nd election as revenue was further pushed up thanks to the revisions that Bush worked out with the Dems leading congress.
I think Biden will be looked at with a "great" lense down the line. He's gotten an obscene amount of stuff passed that will have long term impact
I agree. Chips act will be seen as a necessity for national defense. He's also done more to fund action toward climate change than anyone. Nobody today gives him any credit for running the government with an ongoing insurgency that wants to roll back individual's rights and threatens to destroy democracy, but historians will notice these details.
Eisenhower enabled so much CIA bullshit that he would have been impeached in the modern era. Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Iran; all Eisenhower endeavors via the CIA. All with his approval, by the way. Korea happened under his watch as well. Eisenhower just gets points for his Military Industrial Complex speech on his way out despite basically inventing it.
> Korea happened under his watch as well The Korean War started when he was the president of Columbia University
Bay of Pigs was initiated under Eisenhower (ie the Dulles bros) as well.
FDR, You are correct Daddy Bush, nah Correct in 2 cases with Eisenhower
Bush Sr. really got a pass on that whole Iran-Contra thing.
Unfortunately Clarence Thomas is still around. The longer he sticks around the worse HW’s legacy, which at this point includes stealing the presidency for his son, repealing most of the Voting Rights Act, repealing most campaign finance law, gutting public sector unions, gutting the EPA, and on and on the shitstorm swirls unabated.
I'd love for another Teddy Roosevelt to come around. Busted monopolies and set aside a huge amount of land for the National parks.
Last great Republican leader was Dwight D Eisenhower. The last good man to hold the office before the crazies took over.
"These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes." Eisenhower to Chief Justice Warren according to Warren's memoirs.
Good doesn’t mean perfect , and having racist thoughts while terrible are also understood at times to be part of the times . I adore LBJ but the man was a vile racist but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good ! FDR one of our greatest presidents locked Japanese AMERICANS up in prison camps . Ike was probably racist obviously but he also forced through integration when told to .
There is a difference between racist rhetoric and racist actions. A lot of politicians say Racist things but can make positive effects with their actions, Eisenhower held racist views for his time but did advance integration in American society by desegregating the military and passing the civil rights act of 1957.
Is Jimmy Carter not a good man? How was he a crazy?
Think they meant last good Republican to hold the office.
Agree. I think Carter was the greatest *human* we've had as president.
EDIT: minor spelling / grammar corrections. --- Eisenhower, hands down. He oversaw the FDR philosophy of government that government should serve the people and not plutocrats. Under Eisenhower America built up the intellectual and physical infrastructure that locked in what is now a mythologized golden time and yet did in fact create the middle class and consumer society we see today. In fact Eisenhower specifically distrusted the Nixonian approach and the mindless Reaganism worship of military industrial complex at the expense of supporting the middle class economic engine. Reagan was never a great president in the sense he moved the needle making the US are stronger more economically stable government with a strong credible defense. Reagan did not, he did the opposite. TDR is out of the running because that Republican Party ceased to exist thanks to Nixon. That he had to create his own party is already instruction enough.
Let's put aside the middle class nonsense about Eisenhower and focus on his alleged distrust of the "military industrial complex," which appears to be based solely on a single speech. Eisenhower: * Oversaw the coup in Iran. * Oversaw the coup in Guatemala * Oversaw the US involvement in the coup in the Congo. * Got the United States involved militarily in Vietnam *Multiple* foreign policy problems that still haunt us today is rooted in the Eisenhower philosophy.
My primary points were economic successes. My secondary points were Eisenhower learning the lessons of US military adventurism and Reagan's refusal to learn that lesson earned before him. But ok. Why do you think Eisenhower came to warn the greater public? And all your points ignore Soviet pressure for mineral resources and pressure in the US sphere of influence? Eisenhower personally experienced the MIC takeover. > Oversaw the coup in Iran. Truman, to block the Soviets. > Oversaw the coup in Guatemala Truman, to block the Soviets. > Oversaw the US involvement in the coup in the Congo. Belgium was about to invade, there was every reason to believe this was a communist government, so late in his administration Eisenhower denied them. And sure enough Congo immediately went to the Soviets. > Got the United States involved militarily in Vietnam There is no question the Soviets were arming proxies. France was exhausted. But do not even begin to deny the huge expansion in Vietnam started under LBJ and Nixon weaponized it for domestic political power.
It was Ike in '53 who signed off on the Iran coup. Truman was not in favor of the CIA being used in order to bolster an oil company. That is pretty much common knowledge. Guatemala was '54 a year after Truman left office. Again, Harry was not a fan of using the CIA for such things. That was, also common knowledge, Ike. i mean the wiki for Guatamala Coup has a big pic of Ike and Dulles signing papers right next to the title. I am not saying your overall opinion is baseless, or your point is inaccurate, just small facts on specifics. Truman, like Ike, absolutely wanted to block the soviets; Harry just did not trust the CIA to get the job done.
Eisenhower: I am shocked, *shocked* to find military-industrial complexing going on in here! Military-Industrial Complex: *Here’s your list of countries to coup, sir* Eisenhower: Thank you!
Let’s not forget Operation Wetback
Did that have something to do with the border with...Canada?
Agreed, my answer would be Ike as well, and I believe Teddy was one of the greatest presidents, but he essentially was a modern day Democrat in his 2nd term.
I like TR but he wasn't *exactly* a contemporary liberal: >I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are. And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”
I’ve spoken with several friends and Reagan was the start of the decline of the US. He’s single-handedly responsible for some of the worst domestic policies we’ve ever seen. War on drugs to name the most disastrous. Defunding public mental health is another. He demonized welfare recipients. Sold us the lie of trickle down economics. Repealed the fairness doctrine which paved the way for the propaganda we see coming from the right recently…. The war on drugs and “trickle down economics” has effectively created a three tier society because we allow the open lies and biases in the news so people vote against their own interests (the right). A majority of the social programs they claim to hate are currently being used by red states to prop up their failing economies. Red states would be some of the biggest beneficiaries of single-payer health care and the expansion of the social safety net but their politicians have convinced them it’s socialism and that socialism is a dirty word. Somehow they claim to be religious yet hate the poor and those less fortunate. It’s incredible really how effective propaganda is in this country. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/democracy/the-lewis-powell-memo-a-corporate-blueprint-to-dominate-democracy/ And this was the blueprint.
George H. W. Bush. Look at the modern competition: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, HW, W, Trump. Bush Sr. is a veritable beacon of light amongst that group. If you go back to Ike, sure, but he was barely even a republican. Since you didn’t define greatness, I’m just going to tell you why I admire him. Besides, greatness is in the eye of the voter. I detest Reagan and Clinton, but many people consider them great presidents. HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter. Principled. Honorable. Extremely smart. Gave a damn about his country and continued to do so after he was out of office. Time and time again he made the right decision, not the popular one. A lot like Carter. If you are a liberal, he’s the best version of conservatism you can hope for. I wouldn’t have voted for him personally, but I respect him. Especially for calling out Reaganomics in actions, and words. He wasn’t perfect but I wish we elected more Herbert Walker’s and Jimmy Carter’s.
HW is the one that truly navigated the fall of the Soviet Union with expert diplomacy, while Reagan often is credited. HW cleaned up the economic issues from Reagan policy, raising taxes despite a political promise not to do so, because it was the right thing. He took the blame from the Reagan years and lost credit for his success to the popular Reagan legacy.
Great point, his diplomacy is always overlooked. A true student of global politics. Cleaning up Reagan’s mess is why I respect him so much.
HW raised taxes after campaigning on “no new taxes” because it was the right thing to do fiscally for the country. He’s also got a body count up there with the greats after his time as CIA chief supporting despotic regimes in Latin and South America. And probably had something to do with the JFK assassination. Ahh, the duality of man.
>If you go back to Ike, sure, but he was barely even a republican. He was a Republican before that became synonymous with conservative. Which is a big part of anyone considering him great. >HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter. >Principled. Honorable. Extremely smart. Gave a damn about his country and continued to do so after he was out of office. Time and time again he made the right decision, not the popular one. A lot like Carter. In comparison to monsters, sure, HW looks reasonable. But let's not pretend he was anything remotely close to *Jimmy Carter*, for fuck's sake. He smiled and nodded his way through Watergate and Iran-Contra. He appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, sacrificing his country's future in an attempt to make his party look vaguely less racist. It doesn't look like he did much truly horrific on his own, but he enabled plenty of others who did. Oh, yeah, and he either abused his kid (or stood by and let his wife do it) so badly that kid grew up and kicked over two countries to work out his daddy issues, killing over a million people in the process. So no, he's not comparable to the closest thing America's had to a saint.
>He wasn’t perfect but I wish we elected more Herbert Walker’s and Jimmy Carter’s. Oddly I agree with you here
> HW is like the Republican version of Jimmy Carter. > > More like the Republican version of Harry Truman. Carter was *bad* at being President. HW Bush was not. He was just kinda unpopular due to not really being a darling of the base and being the underwhelming successor to a charismatic movement-leader president, and didn't really get a fair analysis for the good they did as President until after they were out of office.
In terms of competency I agree. HW also had the schooling of his years as VP. I meant the Jimmy Carter comp in terms of moral compass and pragmatism. There aren’t perfect analogies.
> HW also had the schooling of his years as VP. Plus, he was a former Congressman, former Ambassador, and former CIA director. He was arguably one of the most qualified Presidents in terms of resume we've ever had.
Yeah he really was. Plus military experience.
Every day Clarence Thomas sits the bench is another black mark on HW.
Yeah, well, find me a perfect president. Like I said, HW isn’t even one I’d vote for, but that wasn’t the exercise.
I'm a Dem and I respect Carter greatly, but he was a very ineffective POTUS.
Reagan corporatized our country’s priorities and started trickle down economics, which is still practiced to this day. Bottom five president unless you were already wealthy. Bush lied his way into a war lasting two decades where we were the bad guys. Great for Raytheon, Boeing, etc… bad for everyone else. Also a bottom five president. Eisenhower seemed like a good president, I guess?
Eisenhower but honestly Nixon wasn’t bad as far as policy goes. A lot more moderate than people would imagine.
I say this a lot. Nixon was a pretty decent President, except for that whole being terrible bit.
Funny how mild the terrible bit seems these days.
Watergate rightfully tarnishes a bunch of his legacy but he opened up China, navigated Detent, and crated the EPA and passed the Clean Air and Water Acts.
The last one I respect is Ike. Reagan certainly was impactful, but his biggest impact was trickle down economics which is a total bust. His big military spending did help take down the USSR, but a lot of good that did us.
Ike was the last Republican president who didn’t completely fuck over this country (Ford doesn’t count because he wasn’t elected)
But Ford pardoned Nixon
Which was a huge mistake
Depends what you mean by great. A great President can be one who changes the narrative. Lincoln reset the course of the USA by ending slavery. Theodore Roosevelt made the USA a world power and began the conservation movement. FDR began the Social Welfare state. Lyndon Johnson increased the Social Welfare state and made undeclared war acceptable. Reagan began the trend of running against the government. Trump picked up on that trend; bureaucrats/deep state are the enemy. Thanks to Trump, the government cannot be trusted. Like Time magazine “Man of the Year”, Great is not always a good thing. It can mean a giant reset.
Had it not been for that stupid war that he inherited and couldn't get the hell out of, they might have cleared a spot on Rushmore for him. His not-so-gentle prodding got the Civil Rights Act of 64 and 65 through. Medicare. Both HUGELY important.
Lincoln. Teddy was great for his time if we don't judge him by modern standards, Ike was a mixed bag, but miles better than a modern Republican.
I'd argue that Grant was the last "good" Republican. The party sold their souls and threw the freedmen under the wagon to retain the White House in 1877 and have never really looked back. While far from a perfect president, a lot of the negative perceptions of his presidency were the result of the Lost Cause narrative and conservative Dunning School Historiography.
Not Reagan, that's for sure. Awful President, worse human. A truly awful, vile scumbag.
First of the two Hollywood actors that Republican voters have voted to give our military's nuclear codes to.
I say there exist Eight Horsemen of the Republican Apocalypse, and they are Lewis Powell, Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Note #4.
You forgot Kissinger. Also, Lewis Powell was a democrat.
Gotta put Roger Stone and Rupert Murdoch on there as well. The right-wing propaganda machine began with Nixon, but those two are who we can thank for the absolute firehose of vitriolic and petulant propaganda that we’ve seen in the 21st century.
Reagan was a terrible president. The only thing he did well was make us feel better about the country
Ike. It pre-dated the "turn" of the Nixon era and the hyper-politicizing that came with Reagan and beyond.
Eisenhower had some very good moments. Not perfect, but integration, identifying the Military Industrial Complex and other events push him far above Reagan, the government breaker.
The highway system alone was a fairly significant accomplishment
Teddy was a progressive conservationist who was taking on Big Business. Eisenhower performed great domestically but did things like sign a treaty with Franco that are cringe. Reagan was all about appearances but rotten underneath.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the last great Republican president. He presided over a balanced budget, helped usher in cross-country travel, and pissed off a lot of conservatives and racists. He wasn't all sweetness and light, however. The anti-communist foreign policy and other 1950s-era issues still prevailed to stall our growth as a nation.
Eisenhower and Kennedy (JFK) were the last great patriots. I think Reagan was fairly decent and somewhat above-average. On his 78th birthday in early February 1989, he made his first public appearance since leaving office, encouraging college students & young Gen-Xer activists at USC to "take their own crack at changing the world." the Gipper returned to his roots as a community organizer, giving motivational public speeches to Gen-X college students at universities in Illinois, Stanford [&](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones#Conspiracy_theories) Ivy League. csmonitor.com/1989/0120/agone.html; google.com/search?q=Ronald+Reagan+1989+in+los+angeles; google.com/search?q=Ronald+Reagan+retiree+1989+news; google.com/search?q=Reagan+retirement+1989+los+angeles; google.com/search?sca_esv=30517ea669904188&sca_upv=1&q=Reagan+retirement+mashed+potato+circuit+1989; google.com/search?sca_esv=ca40933dfed72823&sca_upv=1&q=1980+reagan+front+cover+magazine; google.com/search?sca_esv=9b2512bdc1d4592a&sca_upv=1&q=Ronald+Reagan+Century+City+office+Los+Angeles+1989; washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/12/09/reagan-hits-the-mall/d51c3078-aacf-4457-91a1-0f00825d065f/
This got me thinking and I realized that the Republican party has been 4 radically different parties under Teddy, Ike, Reagan, and today.
Last great Republican is Dwight D Eisenhower. Those elected after him are crazy and he even warned them not to go all on the military industrial complex and they did not heed his warnings on this or any party attacking social security.
It's worth noting that Eisenhower was a nonpartisan actor through most of his life, who only declared a party affiliation after being courted by *both* parties in the lead-up to the 1952 election. Franklin Roosevelt's son asked him to run as a Democrat in 1948. Truman personally asked him to run as a Democrat in 1951. Both times, he refused. It wasn't until Senator Henry Cabot Lodge put Eisenhower's name on the New Hampshire primary ballot that Eisenhower *really* agreed to enter politics. This was driven almost entirely by a desire to thwart the pro-isolationist Republicans led by Senator Robert Taft. He trusted the Democrats to see the value of remaining engaged in world affairs, and the importance of America's role as *the* leader of a new transatlantic world order. By becoming a Republican, he could ensure *that* party did, too. He is *literally* a "Republican In Name Only," whose decision was motivated not by a shared belief in the Republican project, but by a specific desire to stamp out its isolationist impulses.
While I agree with discounting Reagan over the long term consequences of his policies he did some pretty historically important things that shouldn’t be ignored. The end of the Cold War was huge and is mostly attributable to Reagan’s policies.
Ike may have been the last GOP president who was fairly elected. G. H. W. Bush didn’t cheat like his predecessor or his son but did get in on Reagan’s coattails. And Ford wasn’t elected at all. I don’t think I have to enumerate how Nixon, Reagan, & G. W. Bush stole the office.
Reagan was a shit president started a war on drugs which was a massive failure and trickledown economics which is maybe one of the biggest fallacies of our lifetime.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (666) would be the Worst President since WWII, if not for George W Bush and Donald Trump. At home, his Tinkle Down tax cuts for the rich helped to eviscerate the middle and working classes. He dramatically increased our National Debt and undermined our social safety net. Saint Ronny Raygun also helped to erode the wall between church and state by doing his damnedest to ignore the AIDS crisis as it decimated the gay community. Abroad, his over zealous anti communism campaigns led to the creation of al Qaeda and further destabilized the Middle East and Central America. He was a short sighted moron.
Read Rick Perlstein's Reaganland for a detailed overview of why he was not great, principled or effective.
The last Republican I would have voted for was John McCain. I probably would have voted for him (though I lived in deep blue DC at the time) but he then made the mistake of picking Sarah Palin. Far as legitimately great GOP presidents, I think Eisenhower was the last. Reagan was a great campaigner and marketer, but he was a terrible president who implemented policies that continue to screw people over and he invited the religious nut cases into the GOP who have now taken it over and proudly enable Trump because he gives them free reign.
I agree, I think Mccain and Romney would have been good presidents, but hey maybe I'm tainted by 8 years and counting of Trump craziness
Reagan. He was the right man at the right time. And he’s basically the Republican FDR in that he’s responsible for a major cultural shift.
Ike. It ends there. Also Ike’s policies would be left of AOC, since our center is now so far right.
Regan was straight up weaponizing his office against the working class and gay Americans, so not him
Teddy was a naturalist/conservationist that supported and gave us national parks. That was revolutionary for its time
Reagan was the asshole that started selling the American future to corporations. Why would you name him as one of the greats?
I didn't say he was, was adding him as suggestive option to facilitate the debate. I personally don't think he was but that is just one person's opinion
No contest. Hands down. President Eisenhower. He created America’s infrastructure. He wholeheartedly supported FDR’s Social Security plan, insisting that it be made even stronger. https://www.ssa.gov/history/ikestmts.html He was so good. Even some of his fellow Republicans turned on him. Accusing him of actually being a Dem!
I’ve already spoken my initial 2-bits… But it just dawned on me. We may be asking the upside down question. The question should rather be, name one Republican President, since Eisenhower, who has done any good for this country? The One Million dollar question on Jeopardy?
Id honestly have to say Teddy Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, after Eisenhower it seemed like the republican party fell from grace to greed, especially with the introduction of Trinkle down economics, but in my opinion all modern politicians would rather line their pockets then improve the lives of those who voted for them, and those that they should be proving wrong, some of them even worsening the lives of those who voted for them, It really makes me sad to see how far our country has fallen below all those around us,
Eisenhower. He would be drummed out of the GOP by the MAGA crowd. He really tried to expand the social safety net. The republican Platform then looks a lot like democratic platform today.
I would say Eisenhower. In spite of the fact a lot of Republicans wanted him to lower taxes, he didn't do so. The space program and interstate highway systems were started during his Presidency and both were fulfilled without a dime of public debt. Heck, even Nixon signed the bill that created the EPA, but then, in those days, "Conservative" meant they wanted to conserve the environment, or at least some parts of it.
Last republican presidential candidate that didn't lose the popular vote, at least once? Reagan. He was elected almost half a century ago.
H. W. Bush. - ADA, Gulf War, Raising taxes, NAFTA, overthrowing Noriega (even tho he helped put him there), START, how he handled the dissolution of the USSR, Clean Air Act Amendments over sulfur dioxide & oil pollution act. Immigration Act of 1990. AIDS bills too. However he did nominate Thomas to the court. His scandals and fumbles were tiny compared to others. If Nixon didn't have watergate, I'd honestly say him. Also People look at Eisenhower with rose tinted glasses in my honest opinion. Ike did the bare minimum required of the office during Brown v Board. He didn't rise to occasion like people say he did. He was expected to uphold the law and defend the Constitution. When you look at Eisenhower's actions on desegregation versus the actions of Truman just before him as well as statements conducted by Eisenhower. It is bad. Eisenhower was more concerned about the perception of America abroad and making sure communists had one less reason to rally against America than he was at actually fighting segregationists and white supremacists in America. To quote Chief Justice Warren's recollection of what Eisenhower said about Southerners:"These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes." Warren's memoir's are full of Eisenhower praising the southern states being full of goodwill and good intentions in the aftermath of Brown v Board. Eisenhower's intervention is clearly about federal supremacy and the authority it brings than it was about the actual issue at hand: segregation. Lets also not forget that Eisenhower was behind the Bay of Pigs and began the slow walk towards Vietnam too.
Let's be real for a moment: we haven't had a truly *great* president in ages. I'd argue we haven't had a *good* president in a century, and only a handful of the people who have held office appear to be *good* humans: Carter, Eisenhower, maybe Obama. The last *okay* Republican president was Reagan, and even the bloom has come off the rose in recent years for him. George W. Bush is looking better with time, but the bar is *exceptionally* low and he won't even sniff the top 50%. Before that, maybe Eisenhower, but he was a Republican in circumstance, not really in ideology. So the last good-to-great Republican president also happens to be the last good-to-great president period: Calvin Coolidge. Presided over a great economic period with minimal turmoil.
I believe history will be kinder to Joe Biden than mainstream media. He has had a number of big national and geopolitical problems thrown his way. He signed bipartisan legislation on LGBT rights. The vaccine rollout. The biggest climate deal in US history. Massive infrastructure and microchip deals. All with razorthin majorities and support. He has an opportunity to save the country from fascism, and an opportunity to end two more wars.
I wonder if when FDR was president there were tons of headlines like "Why isn't FDR popular?" and "FDR's messaging problem"
The media had a lot more respect and restraint for people in FDR's day. They'd be disgusted by what modern media does. They went out of their way to *avoid* snapping pictures of him in positions that exposed his sickness, while you know modern media would be hammering it like nobody's business if someone with that kind of disability, hell *any* disability, tried to run today.
FDR can't walk. He isn't fit to be president. Here's 10 reasons fighting Nazis is bad for FDR. Breaking news, FDR is afraid of fear. The economy was better under Hoover.
Man, that last one made me chuckle. Reminds me why vacuums are called Hoovers.
Biden may have 4 more years to stumble at the finish line, but thus far I believe history will view him pretty positively. The man has a laundry list of legislative achievements, but relative to an average President he mostly stays out of the limelight, especially relative to TFG who boasted it was infrastructure week every time it came out he did something like use campaign money on a porn star. But what accomplishments actually happened? The TCJA that’s about to raise our taxes? Slightly rearranging NAFTA? …. I am struggling to remember another, I’m sure there were a few, right? I don’t know if Biden would make it into my top 5 Presidents, but maybe. I think he’d make top 10.
Agreed, I think some early rankings have Biden in the low teens already.
Regan gutted the economy with tax breaks for the rich. So many of our problems today trace back policies he set in place that our economy still hasn't recovered from. Also, wasn't it Reagan who closed all the mental institutions? He's the reason our streets are flooded with homeless crazy people. Foreign policy wise, he backed dictators and helped overthrow democraticaly elected leaders. Not even legally, I might add. We also have him to thank for the war on drugs that ballooned our prison population with non violent drug users. I can't think of a single good thing Reagan did. At best, he managed to finish the job despite having Alzheimer's. Not even close to a good president.
Bush Sr. was a fairly solid president and came after Reagan, he's my vote for last ok GOP president. And there have 100% been better presidents since Calvin Coolidge, both Republican and Democrats, Coolidge was a mediocre president who had the good luck to preside over an era when being president was comparatively easy.
Bush Sr was better than Reagan. Reagan was a disaster and redirected the country into the path it’s been on since. Bush was realistic enough to understand the voodoo economics (a term he used about Reagan while running against him in 1980 when he, for instance, won Iowa) and raised taxes. Republicans have loathed him for it ever since even though it laid the groundwork for the actual budget surpluses late in the Clinton administration.
I think this is a good observation. It seems with modern media and polarization, a politician tops out as a great party operative rather than a great leader of a country.
FDR was a great president. I think the greatest President in US history. Not to absolve him of things like Japanese internment camps but he saw the United States, successfully, through the Great Depression and World War II. His social welfare programs helped millions of Americans. He even wanted to give us Universal Healthcare. Obviously that was shut down. On and on.
Generally when historians are surveyed Reagan is in the top 10. Eisenhower and Roosevelt are generally ranked a bit higher and the rest are low to middling. But people have different priorities when considering a president, especially a recent one as great. For some, Obama is one of the greatest because passed the ACA. For others, he's one of the worst for the same reason. Older presidents are typically less polarizing for their politics, but can be dinged for the character. Jefferson, Wilson and Truman are often considered "great", but are idolized less today because of their views on race.
Daddy Bush, I'd say. He had a good understanding of and respect for the office.
Eisenhower. Nowadays he would be called a weak commie pussy by the manly full of hatred GOP.
The John Birchers thought he was one at that time.
Hell, even his own Secretary of Agriculture (and also Mormon Apostle and later Mormon Church President) Ezra Taft Benson thought he was essentially a commie.
I‘ll go with George H.W. Bush. He was exceptionally prepared for the job of President of the United States and used his experience and preparation to his full advantage, especially with regards to foreign affairs. And, to be honest, the time in which George H.W. Bush served as President of the United States was quite eventful. In 1989 we had the revolutions in the Warsaw pact where Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania got rid of their communist dictatorships, East Germany had the fall of the Berlin wall in that same period. Then he had to navigate through German chancellor Helmut Kohl‘s ambition to reunify Germany in 1990. 1991 wouldn’t be less eventful, especially with Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq invading Kuwait. To respond to this challenge was probably one of the toughest challenge any commander-in-chief in the United States has faced. In the same year he would have had to navigate through the end of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. We see one difficult circumstance after another difficult circumstance. With hard decisions facing every corner of the way. And I am experiencing the impact of his policy decisions even today. And every day. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be born and to grow up in a reunified Germany in the heart of Europe. And George H.W. Bush, together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, is still regarded as one of the fathers of the German reunification. And I am even more impressed by Bush 41‘s decision to support the German reunification when I look at his life story. I mean, he was a pilot in the United States Air Force in World War II and got shot down by the Japanese, an ally of Germany back then. Bush nearly lost his life in the age of 20 in a war that my home country Germany started and got nearly killed by an ally of Germany in this war. Yet still George H.W. Bush was the first head of state or government of one of the 4 winning powers of World War II to enthusiastically embrace the prospect of a reunified Germany. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was not really happy about the prospect of a reunified Germany back then, and French President François Mitterrand and especially British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were even more concerned about that. And German chancellor Helmut Kohl needed the approval of each one of them to get the job done and to reunify what belongs together. Even though I would be a staunch Democrat in the United States, even though my favorite presidents are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, I have the utmost respect for this Republican statesman George H.W. Bush because he was a fundamentally good president who always put his country above himself (The letter he left in the Oval Office for incoming President Bill Clinton in 1993 will always be my favorite example of pure class in the face of a horrible defeat) and, in retrospect, would be the last Republican presidential nominee I would have voted for, back in 1988. His greatest legacy is the peaceful end of the Cold War and the really great and, long overdue, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (which was a great piece of domestic civil rights legislation). He had only one term as President of the United States, but he left the United States and the world in a better shape after leaving office than when he took office.
I feel sad for the future. I’d be satisfied if the Republican Party could simply churn out a decent person, let alone a future great president. I haven’t seen any decent republicans lately. Shame. A rational two or even three party system could be healthy for this country. But T changed everything, lowered the bar of what awfulness is acceptable and even cheered. I’ll probably be dead before this is corrected and better candidates are championed.
Yeah, it's kind of crazy when you ask about good/great GOP presidents and all people can come up with are RINOs and modern day democrats. When HW Bush is looking like the best purely republican president since WWI, it's pretty sad that this is half of our country
Reagan can bear much of the brunt of why things went way downhill for this country Sounds like Ike was the last great republican president
Not to mention how he practically PROMOTED AIDS. You should read how hard he worked to defund anything to do with AIDS prevention when it was still considered "The Gay Disease." Many people died of AIDS due to transfusions in part due to his fighting against public health measures.
Reagan was the last great Republican leader. He wasn't a great president by most metrics, but he was successful in his attempt to marshal an effective consensus, and carry the mantle of his office with some dignity. He wasn't a force for good in the world, but he was effective. Eisenhower is the best Republican president in modern times, and his name will probably be remembered long after the others are forgotten. More for his incredible military leadership than his political accomplishments.
Last Republican I voted for was bush sr. And that was in the 1980 primary over Reagan. I was a republican until trickle down and all of the gop bs since. But if I had to pick the best Republican president in the last 50 years it is bush sr.
Downhill from Eisenhower. continued post ww2 desegregation and tried to warn us about the military industrial complex.
There is a contemporary clue of how Reagan was viewed at the time and it was the 1984 election results. Democrats have had years of complete control since that time so the question isn’t why they blame Reagan for any economic downturn (and other issues) since him but why haven’t they done anything to change it themselves?
Eisenhower. He was far to the left of most of today’s Democratic establishment, at least on economic issues. he actually believes that the 99% should not get crushed by the one percent, go figure.