My thing with Trump is that he'd done plenty of deeply onerous things - all of the subjects of the thread have. The best case for labeling him worst is that he combines so many bad traits in one lump of flesh.
And while he may be the worst person in human history to be stuck in an escape room with that you wouldn't have to worry about trying to kill you, I think that generates the most hate isnt something about him.
Trump's win and subsequent loss both are a dark mirror of our country.
Every feeling of progress or hope of a better tomorrow from the last 20 years feels irrevocably stained by his election. It's the same feeling that the people who marched for civil and voting rights felt in 1968.
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I still think George W Bush was a worse president than Trump. I'm not gonna try to dissect what was specifically him vs the people around him but
straight up fabricating evidence for a war
beating the war drum when they was no imminent threat
misleading the public and playing off their emotional crosstalk with 9/11
conducting said war
friends of his admin nakedly profiting from the war
scarcely a fig-leaf "oopsie" when their deception came to light, no remorse
bonus: total mismanagement of an economic collapse
bonus: total mismanagement of an ecological disaster
bonus: the department of homeland security, the patriot act
He didn't conduct a genocide like Jackson, he didn't start a civil war, I actually don't even think he was super racist, so he's not a worst of all time. But he outclasses Trump, who merely disgraced our nation for 4 years, alienated all our friends, and was a big old child-deporting white supremacist piece of garbage.
I guess I'd entertain Trump creeping closer to GWB on the grounds of damaging the machinery of our government and all the people who have died of covid.
He did conduct an armed insurrection against the Government of the United States in a failed autogolpe, though. Buchanan and Jackson are the only other Presidents in that kind of class.
He was also the primary source of disinformation about a plague, causing a significant percentage of the country to believe it was a hoax, which along with causing a lack of federal support has resulted in 421,000 dead americans and counting.
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I believe he'd not start off with absurd denialism, wear a mask, and not try to silence scientists. He'd also order a billion doses of vaccine from Halliburton, and then claim that everything is handled and the doses are totally are going to show up.
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
Didn't he create a bunch of infrastructure to help other countries during the SARS epidemic? Not as much as Obama did for ebola et al, but he actually did decent work there?
I still think George W Bush was a worse president than Trump. I'm not gonna try to dissect what was specifically him vs the people around him but
straight up fabricating evidence for a war
beating the war drum when they was no imminent threat
misleading the public and playing off their emotional crosstalk with 9/11
conducting said war
friends of his admin nakedly profiting from the war
scarcely a fig-leaf "oopsie" when their deception came to light, no remorse
bonus: total mismanagement of an economic collapse
bonus: total mismanagement of an ecological disaster
bonus: the department of homeland security, the patriot act
He didn't conduct a genocide like Jackson, he didn't start a civil war, I actually don't even think he was super racist, so he's not a worst of all time. But he outclasses Trump, who merely disgraced our nation for 4 years, alienated all our friends, and was a big old child-deporting white supremacist piece of garbage.
I guess I'd entertain Trump creeping closer to GWB on the grounds of damaging the machinery of our government and all the people who have died of covid.
He did conduct an armed insurrection against the Government of the United States in a failed autogolpe, though. Buchanan and Jackson are the only other Presidents in that kind of class.
He was also the primary source of disinformation about a plague, causing a significant percentage of the country to believe it was a hoax, which along with causing a lack of federal support has resulted in 421,000 dead americans and counting.
Also non-americans. The study in question said he was the primary source of disinformation about COVID for the entire world.
That's the key point for the case for Trump. It's not just that shit went down on his watch, it's that he actively made things worse through his presence in the big chair, in spite of having relatively recent examples for how to respond to disasters to draw from. But since being a good president doesn't make you more money or hook you up with more porn stars, he slagged off on just about everything that wasn't fluff to watch Fox, rage-tweet, and golf while letting everything around him get more and more fucked up.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
I guess I don’t know too much about climate change politics before 2000. But I think we can give Bush credit for sticking for sticking in the first big knife against any possible solutions to climate change in this century, when he unceremoniously dropped Kyoto.
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
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I don't think any modern president would have done as bad of a job as Trump with Covid. Regan didn't give a shit about AIDS because Reagan didn't give a shit about the gay community, but I think even he would have raised the bar above injecting bleach and disinfectants into the body, censoring doctors and scientists, deliberately spreading misinformation, and sabotaging the following administration out of spite in regards to a pandemic.
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
He'd be fine with science right up until it started interfering with businesses or paying the unemployed. So yes to masks and standing 10 feet apart, no to economic relief or actually closing anything. Which is still better than the current low bar I guess.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
Yeah and though he didn't side with science with regard to stem-cell research, from what I remember he did take it very seriously and did a lot of homework to educate his decisions. I don't think W would have brought masks into the culture war because he isn't chauvinistic and maladjusted like Trump but the Katrina response indicates incompetent and unqualified people in crucial roles would have been a problem just like they were with the Trump administration.
So I think GWB would have killed a lot less people but that's a low bar.
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
He'd be fine with science right up until it started interfering with businesses or paying the unemployed. So yes to masks and standing 10 feet apart, no to economic relief or actually closing anything. Which is still better than the current low bar I guess.
probably other things like yes to production act use... the earlier joke about Halliburton getting rich off making PPE and vaccine supplies is accurate, but still significantly better than what we dealt with. And you could make an argument that stuff like the small business assistance loans would have had way more support and broader use from the executive under bush, since it basically translated into a form of tax cut if you did it right.
Lockdowns would still have been avoided as much as humanly possible by him, sure... but even just the stuff above would have been a big leg up.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
Yeah and though he didn't side with science with regard to stem-cell research, from what I remember he did take it very seriously and did a lot of homework to educate his decisions. I don't think W would have brought masks into the culture war because he isn't chauvinistic and maladjusted like Trump but the Katrina response indicates incompetent and unqualified people in crucial roles would have been a problem just like they were with the Trump administration.
So I think GWB would have killed a lot less people but that's a low bar.
See, the problem isn't that Trump had incompetent people in the core key roles (see: Fauci, Birx, etc) its that he kneecapped them for the sake of his own ego and grandstanding. Bush was literally the exact opposite. "This shit looks hard, you guys figure it out" - and Fauci was there during Bush's admin. It would have unquestionably gone better due to the nature of Bush's hands-off style.
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Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
Yeah and though he didn't side with science with regard to stem-cell research, from what I remember he did take it very seriously and did a lot of homework to educate his decisions. I don't think W would have brought masks into the culture war because he isn't chauvinistic and maladjusted like Trump but the Katrina response indicates incompetent and unqualified people in crucial roles would have been a problem just like they were with the Trump administration.
So I think GWB would have killed a lot less people but that's a low bar.
See, the problem isn't that Trump had incompetent people in the core key roles (see: Fauci, Birx, etc) its that he kneecapped them for the sake of his own ego and grandstanding. Bush was literally the exact opposite. "This shit looks hard, you guys figure it out" - and Fauci was there during Bush's admin. It would have unquestionably gone better due to the nature of Bush's hands-off style.
Trump put Mike Pence in charge of the federal response. The same Mike Pence that actively accelerated an HIV epidemic in his home state of Indiana when he was governor. He also seemed to defer to his economic team on almost everything which is comprised of grifters, billionaires with conflicts of interest, and a Hollywood producer. Lets also not forget Jared who it was later revealed to mastermind the executive branch discouraging coordination between and among state governments.
The experts would have been there for Bush but the liaison roles that come with his administration need to be staffed competently too and who knows what horse league experience was brought to said positions.
I simply can't imagine any American president having a worse response to COVID than Trump. It's unbelievable to say, but we are lucky he is so lazy and quickly bored because if it wasn't for his disinterest in anything having to do with the pandemic he would have kept having those disasters that somehow managed to make things worse each time he tried to get involved.
Bush or Reagan I can see using COVID as a prime opportunity to loot the nation and of course minority communities would be getting the short end of the stick when it came to resources and other assistance. Lots of Americans would die unnecessarily - if it were 12 years ago we would probably be talking about how terrible it is 50,000 Americans died on Bush's watch before Obama could come in and take over.
But Bush and Reagan also didn't have the current crop of batshit crazies in Congress who buy into the whole 'small enough to drown in a bathtub' government line of thinking. The crazies in their era still knew that outrage over government spending was an act for political points, and were fine with government spending that lined their own pockets (and occasionally tossed some scraps to the masses).
Of course with COVID, we had the one-two punch of McConnell and the Senate being as terrible as they are. Trump or not, had the Senate simply extended the original stimulus package from May though the election (in a naked attempt to buy votes) not only would they probably have won in November, they also would have avoided a lot of the pain during the pandemic that pushed mask wearing and social distancing to the partisan signalers it somehow became.
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ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
But Bush and Reagan also didn't have the current crop of batshit crazies in Congress who buy into the whole 'small enough to drown in a bathtub' government line of thinking. The crazies in their era still knew that outrage over government spending was an act for political points, and were fine with government spending that lined their own pockets (and occasionally tossed some scraps to the masses).
this is and has always been the case outside of a handful of true believer House Reps that have no effect on policy
Allegedly a voice of reason.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
edited January 2021
I mean, I still think W is top 4 worst, do not get me wrong, but there was a real pandemic event during his administration he globally partnered with and responded to in a way that was credited with saving millions of lives, and he put competent people in the positions needed to oversee it. The things that made W a terrible president did not affect his ability to support and spearhead global health initiatives.
Also, in March of 2020, W made a very vocal plea to end pandemic partisanship and adopt logical health standards, inclusive of wearing masks, supporting the medical community with what they need and finding creative ways to provide support and outreach to each other when normal human contact is so high risk.
Trump is uniquely fucking bad when it came to how he dealt with Covid.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Just for the purposes of this debate we should ask this: do we think GWB would have done better or worse with covid? The answer to that question should determine who you think was worse.
I think he would have done better. Trump lacked follow through. In everything. Bush did not. Also Bush's people, while terrible were quite competent. If W had said I'm going to use the Defense Production Act, he would have had that signed and working in place. W and more importantly his people, knew what they were doing.
I mean, I still think W is top 4 worst, do not get me wrong, but there was a real pandemic event during his administration he globally partnered with and responded to in a way that was credited with saving millions of lives, and he put competent people in the positions needed to oversee it. The things that made W a terrible president did not affect his ability to support and spearhead global health initiatives.
Also, in March of 2020, W made a very vocal plea to end pandemic partisanship and adopt logical health standards, inclusive of wearing masks, supporting the medical community with what they need and finding creative ways to provide support and outreach to each other when normal human contact is so high risk.
Trump is uniquely fucking bad when it came to how he dealt with Covid.
Agreed, whereas other areas of scientific funding were lackluster, W spared no expense in biodefense.
I simply have no doubt Bush would have done better.
Trump managed to be bad in all the standard terrible ways we've seen the pandemic mismanaged elsewhere. Denying that it's happening or as serious as it is, misappropriating resources, not locking things down or instituting basic public health measures certainly aren't unique to Trump. He might have been a global leader in mismanagement, but it's going on at large and small scales all over the country and all over the world.
It's not because he mismanaged government so poorly prior to the pandemic that it was unprepared both materially and in international cooperation needed to fight the pandemic. Any President could be incompetent like that.
It's that Trump has been uniquely and singularly terrible in ways that defy logic. It's not too much of a stretch to say that if 18 months ago you had published a book that factually recounted what Trump has done and said over the past year, it would be rejected even as absurdist dark humor fiction. Having the President sideline the man who was leading the pandemic response and was arguably the nation's most trusted figure at the time because he was getting too much positive press, then stand up in a press conference and suggest people inject / ingest bleach or sunlight was on nobody's bingo card.
The Tulsa super-spreader event, the ACB 'Masque of Red Death' ceremony / party, the entire first debate performance and everything around that...any one of those would be a signature ridiculous moment of any other presidency and I bet most people reading this had forgotten at least one or two of those things happened. To say nothing of the behind the scenes incompetence of Jared taking some time away from Peace in the Middle East to try to handle a pandemic.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Andrew Johnson
Yeah W was not a penny pincher. He was a deregulator and supply-side theory supporter but he wouldn't have let idiot deficit hawks stand in the way especially not in an election year like Trump did.
Yeah W was not a penny pincher. He was a deregulator and supply-side theory supporter but he wouldn't have let idiot deficit hawks stand in the way especially not in an election year like Trump did.
At the very least GWB and Cheney were smart enough to realize that if they opened up the stimulus hose for people they'd most likely cruise to re-election.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Yeah W was not a penny pincher. He was a deregulator and supply-side theory supporter but he wouldn't have let idiot deficit hawks stand in the way especially not in an election year like Trump did.
At the very least GWB and Cheney were smart enough to realize that if they opened up the stimulus hose for people they'd most likely cruise to re-election.
I still am shocked Trump and his people haven't openly blamed their loss on McConnell. I guess that would involve admitting they actually lost but I can't fucking believe they didn't see abandoning additional stimulus as a political liability. The Supreme Court vs. stimulus was a false choice the GOP created as an excuse to not spend money.
The only explanation I can really think of is that his transactional thought tendencies made him want to get paid (re-elected) before he paid out (stimulus), he certainly didn't seem to feel like he could push McConnell around like he did other random GOP figures.
I mean, I still think W is top 4 worst, do not get me wrong, but there was a real pandemic event during his administration he globally partnered with and responded to in a way that was credited with saving millions of lives, and he put competent people in the positions needed to oversee it. The things that made W a terrible president did not affect his ability to support and spearhead global health initiatives.
Also, in March of 2020, W made a very vocal plea to end pandemic partisanship and adopt logical health standards, inclusive of wearing masks, supporting the medical community with what they need and finding creative ways to provide support and outreach to each other when normal human contact is so high risk.
Trump is uniquely fucking bad when it came to how he dealt with Covid.
You just made me think about Wilson as a darkhorse candidate:
1 - Fucked up the spanish flu pandemic
2 - Fucked up Treaty of Paris / League of Nations
3 - Setup the wild speculative economics of the 20s that lead to the depression
4 - HUGE racist, like Lovecraft's cat level racist
...and a bunch others that I'm probably forgetting
I mean, I still think W is top 4 worst, do not get me wrong, but there was a real pandemic event during his administration he globally partnered with and responded to in a way that was credited with saving millions of lives, and he put competent people in the positions needed to oversee it. The things that made W a terrible president did not affect his ability to support and spearhead global health initiatives.
Also, in March of 2020, W made a very vocal plea to end pandemic partisanship and adopt logical health standards, inclusive of wearing masks, supporting the medical community with what they need and finding creative ways to provide support and outreach to each other when normal human contact is so high risk.
Trump is uniquely fucking bad when it came to how he dealt with Covid.
You just made me think about Wilson as a darkhorse candidate:
1 - Fucked up the spanish flu pandemic
2 - Fucked up Treaty of Paris / League of Nations
3 - Setup the wild speculative economics of the 20s that lead to the depression
4 - HUGE racist, like Lovecraft's cat level racist
...and a bunch others that I'm probably forgetting
This is a good video on why Wilson was such a disaster as President:
trump's handling of covid is uniquely terrible because of all the ways he cocked it up. disbanded the pandemic response team which could have eliminated it at the start, turned covid prevention into culture war, was the majority of all disinformation in the entire world with regards to covid, had no plans to distribute vaccines, the list goes on.
who knows how many less millions of people worldwide would have died with literally anyone else as president.
Trump also you know, sent a mob into the capital building to stop the ceremonial counting of the EC votes, watched the entire disaster unfold on live television, and didn't give one singular shit if that meant they were going to kill his own Vice President or anyone else.
Trump also you know, sent a mob into the capital building to stop the ceremonial counting of the EC votes, watched the entire disaster unfold on live television, and didn't give one singular shit if that meant they were going to kill his own Vice President or anyone else.
He gave a shit in that he wanted it to happen. The mob went after Pence specifically because Trump labeled him a traitor. And Trump praised the mob in a national address while they were still rampaging through the building.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Trump also you know, sent a mob into the capital building to stop the ceremonial counting of the EC votes, watched the entire disaster unfold on live television, and didn't give one singular shit if that meant they were going to kill his own Vice President or anyone else.
He gave a shit in that he wanted it to happen. The mob went after Pence specifically because Trump labeled him a traitor. And Trump praised the mob in a national address while they were still rampaging through the building.
Yes, and the steady trickle of news and reports make it pretty clear that he intentionally sandbagged or sacked anyone who might have been in a position to prevent it from happening. He didn't just cheer it on. He orchestrated it.
The story about the DC National Guard Major General having his authority to release troops explicitly stripped prior to January 6th should - if proven true - result in prison for someone. At least in a sane world.
trump's handling of covid is uniquely terrible because of all the ways he cocked it up. disbanded the pandemic response team which could have eliminated it at the start, turned covid prevention into culture war, was the majority of all disinformation in the entire world with regards to covid, had no plans to distribute vaccines, the list goes on.
who knows how many less millions of people worldwide would have died with literally anyone else as president.
And the thing that really makes it so much worse imo is that it was all for literally no reason other then his shitty personality. There was no political goal here. It was just his narcassism.
George W Bush was so bad, it was the tipping point for me turning from conservative to liberal. Although I had already been moving in that direction for a few years prior (I can't really reconcile my views on science with conservative thought), that was the thing that broke me. To be fair, I think I was more of a moderate at best, looking back.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
I was a Republican by upbringing/default. W was definitely my turning point as I watched him declare two wars with no real basis, kill a few million people by demolishing their economy, industry, and lives, and thoroughly fuck things up back home.
I don't know that he's the worst, but he certainly ranks up there.
Trump also you know, sent a mob into the capital building to stop the ceremonial counting of the EC votes, watched the entire disaster unfold on live television, and didn't give one singular shit if that meant they were going to kill his own Vice President or anyone else.
Actively cheered it on, I’ll never forget that one of his last tweets was basically “this is what you get”.
He 100% believed that his mob was doing the right thing and that they would be able to force the country into keeping him in office. They were doing exactly what he wanted them to.
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And while he may be the worst person in human history to be stuck in an escape room with that you wouldn't have to worry about trying to kill you, I think that generates the most hate isnt something about him.
Trump's win and subsequent loss both are a dark mirror of our country.
Every feeling of progress or hope of a better tomorrow from the last 20 years feels irrevocably stained by his election. It's the same feeling that the people who marched for civil and voting rights felt in 1968.
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He was also the primary source of disinformation about a plague, causing a significant percentage of the country to believe it was a hoax, which along with causing a lack of federal support has resulted in 421,000 dead americans and counting.
I believe he'd not start off with absurd denialism, wear a mask, and not try to silence scientists. He'd also order a billion doses of vaccine from Halliburton, and then claim that everything is handled and the doses are totally are going to show up.
Didn't he create a bunch of infrastructure to help other countries during the SARS epidemic? Not as much as Obama did for ebola et al, but he actually did decent work there?
Also non-americans. The study in question said he was the primary source of disinformation about COVID for the entire world.
Yep, he clearly wanted to use one something awful. Thankfully nothing bad enough happened on his watch for him to get a chance.
Long term, that might even outdo his wars.
I would look to the Bush admin's work on AIDS, launching of pepfar in 2003, which to date has been credited with the saving of 17 million lives.
I don't think it is a stretch to think that Bush would have sided with science if a pandemic was raging on his watch, because he did.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
He'd be fine with science right up until it started interfering with businesses or paying the unemployed. So yes to masks and standing 10 feet apart, no to economic relief or actually closing anything. Which is still better than the current low bar I guess.
Yeah and though he didn't side with science with regard to stem-cell research, from what I remember he did take it very seriously and did a lot of homework to educate his decisions. I don't think W would have brought masks into the culture war because he isn't chauvinistic and maladjusted like Trump but the Katrina response indicates incompetent and unqualified people in crucial roles would have been a problem just like they were with the Trump administration.
So I think GWB would have killed a lot less people but that's a low bar.
probably other things like yes to production act use... the earlier joke about Halliburton getting rich off making PPE and vaccine supplies is accurate, but still significantly better than what we dealt with. And you could make an argument that stuff like the small business assistance loans would have had way more support and broader use from the executive under bush, since it basically translated into a form of tax cut if you did it right.
Lockdowns would still have been avoided as much as humanly possible by him, sure... but even just the stuff above would have been a big leg up.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
See, the problem isn't that Trump had incompetent people in the core key roles (see: Fauci, Birx, etc) its that he kneecapped them for the sake of his own ego and grandstanding. Bush was literally the exact opposite. "This shit looks hard, you guys figure it out" - and Fauci was there during Bush's admin. It would have unquestionably gone better due to the nature of Bush's hands-off style.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Trump put Mike Pence in charge of the federal response. The same Mike Pence that actively accelerated an HIV epidemic in his home state of Indiana when he was governor. He also seemed to defer to his economic team on almost everything which is comprised of grifters, billionaires with conflicts of interest, and a Hollywood producer. Lets also not forget Jared who it was later revealed to mastermind the executive branch discouraging coordination between and among state governments.
The experts would have been there for Bush but the liaison roles that come with his administration need to be staffed competently too and who knows what horse league experience was brought to said positions.
Bush or Reagan I can see using COVID as a prime opportunity to loot the nation and of course minority communities would be getting the short end of the stick when it came to resources and other assistance. Lots of Americans would die unnecessarily - if it were 12 years ago we would probably be talking about how terrible it is 50,000 Americans died on Bush's watch before Obama could come in and take over.
But Bush and Reagan also didn't have the current crop of batshit crazies in Congress who buy into the whole 'small enough to drown in a bathtub' government line of thinking. The crazies in their era still knew that outrage over government spending was an act for political points, and were fine with government spending that lined their own pockets (and occasionally tossed some scraps to the masses).
Of course with COVID, we had the one-two punch of McConnell and the Senate being as terrible as they are. Trump or not, had the Senate simply extended the original stimulus package from May though the election (in a naked attempt to buy votes) not only would they probably have won in November, they also would have avoided a lot of the pain during the pandemic that pushed mask wearing and social distancing to the partisan signalers it somehow became.
this is and has always been the case outside of a handful of true believer House Reps that have no effect on policy
Also, in March of 2020, W made a very vocal plea to end pandemic partisanship and adopt logical health standards, inclusive of wearing masks, supporting the medical community with what they need and finding creative ways to provide support and outreach to each other when normal human contact is so high risk.
Trump is uniquely fucking bad when it came to how he dealt with Covid.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I think he would have done better. Trump lacked follow through. In everything. Bush did not. Also Bush's people, while terrible were quite competent. If W had said I'm going to use the Defense Production Act, he would have had that signed and working in place. W and more importantly his people, knew what they were doing.
Agreed, whereas other areas of scientific funding were lackluster, W spared no expense in biodefense.
Trump managed to be bad in all the standard terrible ways we've seen the pandemic mismanaged elsewhere. Denying that it's happening or as serious as it is, misappropriating resources, not locking things down or instituting basic public health measures certainly aren't unique to Trump. He might have been a global leader in mismanagement, but it's going on at large and small scales all over the country and all over the world.
It's not because he mismanaged government so poorly prior to the pandemic that it was unprepared both materially and in international cooperation needed to fight the pandemic. Any President could be incompetent like that.
It's that Trump has been uniquely and singularly terrible in ways that defy logic. It's not too much of a stretch to say that if 18 months ago you had published a book that factually recounted what Trump has done and said over the past year, it would be rejected even as absurdist dark humor fiction. Having the President sideline the man who was leading the pandemic response and was arguably the nation's most trusted figure at the time because he was getting too much positive press, then stand up in a press conference and suggest people inject / ingest bleach or sunlight was on nobody's bingo card.
The Tulsa super-spreader event, the ACB 'Masque of Red Death' ceremony / party, the entire first debate performance and everything around that...any one of those would be a signature ridiculous moment of any other presidency and I bet most people reading this had forgotten at least one or two of those things happened. To say nothing of the behind the scenes incompetence of Jared taking some time away from Peace in the Middle East to try to handle a pandemic.
At the very least GWB and Cheney were smart enough to realize that if they opened up the stimulus hose for people they'd most likely cruise to re-election.
I still am shocked Trump and his people haven't openly blamed their loss on McConnell. I guess that would involve admitting they actually lost but I can't fucking believe they didn't see abandoning additional stimulus as a political liability. The Supreme Court vs. stimulus was a false choice the GOP created as an excuse to not spend money.
You just made me think about Wilson as a darkhorse candidate:
1 - Fucked up the spanish flu pandemic
2 - Fucked up Treaty of Paris / League of Nations
3 - Setup the wild speculative economics of the 20s that lead to the depression
4 - HUGE racist, like Lovecraft's cat level racist
...and a bunch others that I'm probably forgetting
This is a good video on why Wilson was such a disaster as President:
who knows how many less millions of people worldwide would have died with literally anyone else as president.
He gave a shit in that he wanted it to happen. The mob went after Pence specifically because Trump labeled him a traitor. And Trump praised the mob in a national address while they were still rampaging through the building.
Yes, and the steady trickle of news and reports make it pretty clear that he intentionally sandbagged or sacked anyone who might have been in a position to prevent it from happening. He didn't just cheer it on. He orchestrated it.
The story about the DC National Guard Major General having his authority to release troops explicitly stripped prior to January 6th should - if proven true - result in prison for someone. At least in a sane world.
And the thing that really makes it so much worse imo is that it was all for literally no reason other then his shitty personality. There was no political goal here. It was just his narcassism.
I don't know that he's the worst, but he certainly ranks up there.
Actively cheered it on, I’ll never forget that one of his last tweets was basically “this is what you get”.
He 100% believed that his mob was doing the right thing and that they would be able to force the country into keeping him in office. They were doing exactly what he wanted them to.