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Republican presidents

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Commodus said:
I wouldn't include Reagan in that list. He lied about Iran-Contra; the CIA was backing the Contras, who were smuggling drugs in to the US, and therefore helped tear apart whole neighborhoods. He propped up the myth of the "welfare queen," used religion as a wedge issue and, of course, played a key role in pushing the trickle-down economy lie. You can trace many of the things wrong with the modern Republican party back to him.
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Most bipartisan Presidential power rankings place Reagan consistently in the top ten.
 
woolfe9998 said:
Good/better are relative terms. I seem to recall GHWB saying this:



And several other questionable things.
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GHW Bush was a decent human being, although I'd probably disagree with 99.9% of his policies. Bush II was just a placeholder. Trump is the Modern US Conservative mental disorder made flesh.
 
nickqt said:
GHW Bush was a decent human being, although I'd probably disagree with 99.9% of his policies. Bush II was just a placeholder. Trump is the Modern US Conservative mental disorder made flesh.
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Which is why I quoted what he said about atheists, because that wasn't pertaining to any policy.

Look, how good or bad someone was is relative, I guess. I just never particularly cared for the man.
 
fskimospy said:
Yes, both Eisenhower and Bush 41 were decent presidents. Bush 41 was the final Republican to actually attempt to adhere to the tenets of his party, and I imagine his failure to win re-election is what caused the Republicans to abandon them.
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I was thinking of mentioning Eisenhower as a maybe decent R. POTUS, but his choice of Nixon made me hesitate. Other than that, I have only a vague sense of his presidency.
 
MtnMan said:
Dumbya didn't tell nearly as many lies as t-rump, but he was also better at lying.
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Trump tells so many lies if you pay much attention to him you come to figure he's always lying. I mean the intersection of Trump and sincerity is the null set.
 
Muse said:
Trump tells so many lies if you pay much attention to him you come to figure he's always lying. I mean the intersection of Trump and sincerity is the null set.
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Bush lied to further his agenda. Trump just lies...
 
Starbuck1975 said:
Most bipartisan Presidential power rankings place Reagan consistently in the top ten.
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A high charting position doesn't make them right. Reagan did some things well, but as I said, he did some genuinely destructive things that contributed to the decay of the party and the state we're in now.
 
Commodus said:
A high charting position doesn't make them right. Reagan did some things well, but as I said, he did some genuinely destructive things that contributed to the decay of the party and the state we're in now.
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He's full of shit. Reagan gets ranked high on public opinion polls (as in the ignorant) and as time passes reagan's rank has dropped among people who are actually familiar with history.

It's also telling how he "cares" about Hillary and biden's vote on the Iraq resolution and yet names the two Republicans most responsible for our middle east foreign policy who's administrations both contained people who were directly responsible for the shit storm of the Iraq war.

But we all know the guy is a hypocritical partisan hack.
 
ivwshane said:
He's full of shit. Reagan gets ranked high on public opinion polls (as in the ignorant) and as time passes reagan's rank has dropped among people who are actually familiar with history.

It's also telling how he "cares" about Hillary and biden's vote on the Iraq resolution and yet names the two Republicans most responsible for our middle east foreign policy who's administrations both contained people who were directly responsible for the shit storm of the Iraq war.

But we all know the guy is a hypocritical partisan hack.
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Centrist Enabler with a specific roll to play.
 
Commodus said:
A high charting position doesn't make them right. Reagan did some things well, but as I said, he did some genuinely destructive things that contributed to the decay of the party and the state we're in now.
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Can you name at least one (preferably three) policies by Reagan that were actually any good?

His immigration policy is a failure by Republican standards (ie amnesty with no real measures to address future illegal immigration).

Foreign policy? Lol where to begin..


Economic policy? The greatest expansion in the wealth gap, an exodus in manufacturing jobs and union jobs, record deficits and record federal spending including the largest expansion of the military.

Domestic policy? His response to AIDES almost makes trumps response to covid look competent. He helped kill any chance of universal health care. He gutted federal funding of schools. His war on drugs.

Sure, on the surface Reagan looks great but when you scratch the surface, his policies have been an everlasting disaster.
 
nickqt said:
Centrist Enabler with a specific roll to play.
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He's not a centrist though, he just pretends to be because he's just barely smart enough to know that no one can defend Republican policies. When you are a fanatic and team sucks you only want to talk shit about everyone else.
 
ivwshane said:
He's not a centrist though, he just pretends to be because he's just barely smart enough to know that no one can defend Republican policies. When you are a fanatic and team sucks you only want to talk shit about everyone else.
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Centrist Enabler is its role.
Whether or not it has any specific political views on the right or left is immaterial to the role it plays.
 
ivwshane said:
He's full of shit. Reagan gets ranked high on public opinion polls (as in the ignorant) and as time passes reagan's rank has dropped among people who are actually familiar with history.
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Reagan consistently ranks high.

It's also telling how he "cares" about Hillary and biden's vote on the Iraq resolution and yet names the two Republicans most responsible for our middle east foreign policy who's administrations both contained people who were directly responsible for the shit storm of the Iraq war.
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I didn’t list W Bush for that reason. George Bush’s measured response to Iraq during the Gulf War and Reagan’s measured response to Libya is how foreign policy should work. Clinton and Biden own their votes during the WoT. Their spineless political opportunism deserves nothing but contempt.

But we all know the guy is a hypocritical partisan hack.
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Irony
 
Starbuck1975 said:
History respectfully disagrees
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That's... not an answer. I just showed that history disagrees, especially in the broader context of how Reagan effectively attacked non-whites, women and the working class. It's just that we're only gradually realizing how much long-term damage Reagan did, that he was setting up the institutional rot that defines modern Republicans.
 
Commodus said:
That's... not an answer. I just showed that history disagrees, especially in the broader context of how Reagan effectively attacked non-whites, women and the working class. It's just that we're only gradually realizing how much long-term damage Reagan did, that he was setting up the institutional rot that defines modern Republicans.
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As I said, history disagrees. Your opinion is a somewhat partisan perspective that is attributing to Reagan broader societal issues for which Democrats also share blame for engaging in tribalistic identity politics.

Reagan presided over 8 years of relative peace, restored the professionalism and morale of our military, successfully maneuvered the Cold War escalation as a deterrent and then deescalation as the Soviet Union crumbled, built a broad political coalition, and enacted much needed reductions in federal bloat.
 
Starbuck1975 said:
Reagan consistently ranks high.

I didn’t list W Bush for that reason. George Bush’s measured response to Iraq during the Gulf War and Reagan’s measured response to Libya is how foreign policy should work. Clinton and Biden own their votes during the WoT. Their spineless political opportunism deserves nothing but contempt.

Irony
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I didn’t say you said George w Bush, I pointed out your hypocrisy of your “but Clinton and biden” comment and apparently your complete ignorance on the subject.
 
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Starbuck1975 said:
As I said, history disagrees. Your opinion is a somewhat partisan perspective that is attributing to Reagan broader societal issues for which Democrats also share blame for engaging in tribalistic identity politics.

Reagan presided over 8 years of relative peace, restored the professionalism and morale of our military, successfully maneuvered the Cold War escalation as a deterrent and then deescalation as the Soviet Union crumbled, built a broad political coalition, and enacted much needed reductions in federal bloat.
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Wow, more ignorance! Did you get your history lesson from Alex p Keaton?

Lol @ “enacted much needed reductions in federal bloat”.
 
Starbuck1975 said:
As I said, history disagrees. Your opinion is a somewhat partisan perspective that is attributing to Reagan broader societal issues for which Democrats also share blame for engaging in tribalistic identity politics.

Reagan presided over 8 years of relative peace, restored the professionalism and morale of our military, successfully maneuvered the Cold War escalation as a deterrent and then deescalation as the Soviet Union crumbled, built a broad political coalition, and enacted much needed reductions in federal bloat.
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It's not really partisan at all. You think Iran-Contra (and the explosion of the drug trade) was a shining beacon in Reagan's tenure? Star Wars and and otherwise excessive military build-up? Demonizing people on welfare using arguably racist stereotypes? Largely ignoring the AIDS crisis? Attacking women's reproductive rights and generally trying to force religion on others? Making the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else with "trickle-down economics?" Basically, unless you're a hardcore devotee of Reagan's ideology, his presidency had plenty of problems that were exacerbated in future Republican presidencies.

This isn't to say Reagan did nothing right, parts of the economy did well under him, but a lot of what you just said is partisan spin. You focus on restoring "professionalism and morale" when many can point to excessive military build-up that took away from domestic funding and exploded deficits. You say he got rid of "federal bloat," but he also fostered the culture of irresponsible deregulation and government cutbacks that persists in the GOP to this day. You claim Reagan successfully deterred and wound down the USSR when the country was already crumbling by the time Reagan took office; he may have accelerated things, but it was more like a nudge to a country that was already on the edge of a cliff.

Also, on the "tribalistic identity politics" claim: BULLSHIT. The Democrats weren't the ones pushing the stereotype of the lazy black person; they weren't the ones trying to weave Christian ideology into the Constitution; they weren't the ones who wanted to ease up on the Civil Rights Act or veto the Civil Rights Restoration Act. There's a difference between standing up for groups that have been marginalized versus marginalizing them like Reagan did, and your typical "both sides" equivocation doesn't work here (not that it ever does, really).
 
Muse said:
I was thinking of mentioning Eisenhower as a maybe decent R. POTUS, but his choice of Nixon made me hesitate. Other than that, I have only a vague sense of his presidency.
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Ike gave us the interstate highway system, a benefit for the whole country. Trump gave us a wall protecting a tiny bit of the border, and benefits no one.
 
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