The Opposition Thread

I would take HW Bush over Arnie, not that it means anything.

It’s all Jeb’s fault. He was the establishment candidate with all the money but he very clearly didn’t want to be, and when his campaign fell apart the establishment resistance to Trump fell apart.

Basically we got Bush 2 because Clayton Williams told a joke and we got Trump because Jeb couldn’t think of a single female American worth having on a bill. Thanks Obama.

I think HW has transformed his image very successfully from when he was President. As a primary candidate running against Reagan he came off as an insane raving warhawk. As President he was a very authoritarian type who was quite arrogant with respect to policy and governance. I don’t recall him ever compromising with the left or even trying to do so. Partly because W was such a disaster, and partly due to HW’s mostly genteel behavior after leaving the presidency, I think people have forgotten how bad a president he was.

In retrospect Desert Storm (along with Serbia 1999) might be viewed as one of the few successful and limited applications of international power in the post Cold-War world. It all seems quaintly irrelevant now, I suppose. Still, however hawkish he came across in 1980, he knew when to get out in 1991. (Granted, the Kurds paid the price there.)

He’s been praised for political courage in raising taxes, but on the other hand there was a recession when he went out, with the usual question about how much blame or credit a president should get for the economy.

What else? Haiti, Panama? Panama was pretty egregious, I think. Don’t really remember the deal with Haiti. Clarence Thomas appointment. But also Souter.

Not being argumentative, but genuinely curious – what do you think makes him a bad president as opposed to, say, an average or above-average one?

My own firsthand experience of his time in office was mostly notable for ‘read my lips,’ ‘a thousand points of light,’ Desert Storm, the S&L bailout, and the flag-burning amendment distraction. In my defense I was only 16. (/Michael Caine voice)

He lost because he kept insisting to everyone we weren’t in a recession, when it was obvious to everyone that we were.

Also, most of the presidents of the last 40 years have been terrible. Obama was the best of my lifetime- and he was good at best, and more likely average.

Arnold represented as a republican when elected, but he risked everything on some propositions and lost them all. After that he was a wishy washy democrat at best. The failing carbon cap and trade program in California, that Gov. Moonbeam said would help build the Hi-speed rail, has been a failure as nobody wants the credits.

Arnold ended up being a hybrid that probably pleased nobody.

I don’t remember Bush1 being a bad president. He was elected to what was bound to be a one term job though. He was smart enough to know that even after vowing “no new taxes” that eventually they would be required.

All president’s look better 20 years later.

Except Buchanan.

This is the political version of “all the children are above average”?

Was Clinton terrible? I guess between the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and welfare reform, and increased incarcerations, you could spin it that way; nor does his inaction on Rwanda look good at all; on the other hand he presided over an era of largely uninterrupted domestic peace and prosperity. I think he was the smartest president since Nixon, and far less corrupt. I don’t know. It’s hard to rate presidents because things are so freakin’ complex. Maybe it was to Lincoln’s “advantage” (legacy-wise, not in terms of personal happiness) that his term was so completely dominated by a single issue. It at least makes it straightforward to cast him as hero or villain.

I think that looking back, Obama will be regarded quite highly, just for the sheer amount of stability and consistency the US government had for 8 years. Everything was very stable, poor people and lower middle class people were able to get healthcare, and the economy safely recovered from a crash.

Yeah, that’s fair. He was trying to please both parties after election and wound up doing not much.

It’ll help his legacy that he was immediately followed by a flaming dumpster fire, of course.

Livia: Castor is ill and Thrasyllus says he won’t recover. He also says Tiberius will choose Caligula to succeed him.
Claudius: Why?
Livia: Vanity. Tiberius wants to be loved, at least after his death if not before. And the best way to ensure that-
Claudius: Is to have someone worse to follow him, naturally. He’s certainly no fool.

That seems to be a common theme with “celebrity” candidates. Jesse Ventura broadly fits that mold as well – elected in large part based on his fame, he ended up achieving little of note during his one term. He tried to sit in the gap between Republicans and Democrats, was not able to get either side to support him, and ended up just bickering with the press half the time over minutia.

Sounds kinda like Trump, if you squint a bit.

Ventura didn’t do any harm though, was honest, and served our country honorably.

Meh, he was a Navy Seal, big whoop. Trump dodged STDs!

Ventura is also a libertarian so his “sitting the gap” was just what he believed in.

It’s not like he was a Republican or even a conservative.

Can you say Democrats are ratfucked? Yes you can:

And because Trump supporters are just this stupid: