When Trump is mentioned as the worst President in US History people are quick to mention that Trump can't be the worst president ever, we had some presidents that own slaves. Now I get the arguments how George W Bush, Richard Nixon, Andrew Jackson or James Buchanan are worst than Trump, but is Trump really better than George Washington, James Madison and other founders who owned slaves?

Hard to reconcile. What you think?

Poll question: Is Trump A Worst President than George Washington?

Poll result (30 votes) Trump the Worst (24 votes) Vote GW and the other slave owner Presidents are the worst (6 votes) Vote

It definitely not the case that dude finds slavery more morally objectionable than any of the slave-owning presidents.


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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I’m not so sure now.

I sad it then and I say it now, he's a mid pack president (bottom mid), butt far from the bottom)... looking objectively at his second term it was very average. His first term was obviously worse, but when you look at it, he largely made some terrible decisions early on and had to live with them for the rest of the time.

compared to ALL the other presidents. Because there were some stinkers if you go back through history.

As measured by historians Bush was a bottom tier president
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?personid=3813

The things that buoy his dismal numbers in this poll are Public Persuasion (fox news/Karl Rove)
Crisis Leadership (um Katrina and all of the 2008 fiasco)
Relations with Congress (he only had 2 years with a Democratic majority party in either house)
Pursued Justice for all (come on)


He's quantifiably a bad president. And having 8 years to enact his shit over the span of a globe as opposed to a region magnifies that.

Bush is in a Regan, Nixon level of bad presidencies. Pillaging of domestic prosperity while driving America to be an overall global destabilizing force on multiple fronts.

I said bottom of the mid rung of presidents. You said absolute bottom or second to it. Your link backs me up, and I agree with all that you wrote. 👍🏿

And he's only propped up from the bottom by fluff.
I think there needs to be a tier of presidencies based on the nature of the world.
There are very few tangible ways that you can reasonably compare the presidency of John Adams to Jimmy Carter


I'd bucket Washington to Lincoln
Johnson to Roosevelt the first
Taft to FDR
Truman to current.

Then of bucket one Jackson is the worst, bucket two Hayes, bucket three Wilson, bucket four Trump then Regan then Nixon then Bush

They'll get propped up by Historians because of their positives, but there has to be a net negative for war (Vietnam/Korea/Iraq), genocide (Trail of Tears), entrenching white supremacy (the Hayes compromise, most anything to do with the Supreme Court) and historians don't really do that.

Reagan was shit too but I was too young to really inhale all of his destruction.

W tho.. what he and Cheney did to our rights, our military and how Katrina played out. That shut was terrible.

when the real culprits were "allies" we protected and sell weapons to all the time.


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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

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Early in this administration it was a question of is he worse than GWB or Reagan in dismantling the state.

Then he started to ramp up his fascism (the stealing of children and giving them to religious orgs without documentation or tracking policies that continue to this day and permanent encampments, specifically) and it became a question of is he worse than Andrew Jackson and his genocidal tendencies. Of the enslaver presidents Jackson is levels above (below) the rest.

But now he's doing something that none of the other presidents did which is strip down the country for parts. America is beholden to the personal and financial interests of one man and his family; and the leverage that buys the rest of the world in the interests of our country, land, and assets is completely unprecedented.

Even in the worst of times, the shitty presidents believed in and defended the country (not all people in the country, and not even necessarily the tenets of democracy) but the country itself.

There's not a single, not one, action Trump has done to benefit America. His core belief is that because he's president anything that helps him personally helps America and he's expressed this multiple times ("a president can't have conflicts of interest) and that's a flat out lie. In fact actions that benefit him directly almost always make this country worse.

to jail and then getting off?

Smh..

Let’s wait and see how many invitations to Goldman Sachs he pulls in when he’s done. It’s all about the Tubmans after all. You could be right that he is profiting from his position. Let’s compare his increased net worth with Obama’s and the Clinton’s and see how it all shakes out.

Slave ownership is fucked up (an understatement), but it’s overt and outwardly fucked up. Trump’s racism and the racism he inspires in his supporters is some backwards ass bitch shit because they’re some “throw a rock and hide your hands” shit if you call them out on it.

“Ummm, yeah bitch, we ALL own slaves. You know how expensive it is to build a country from scratch?!” vs. “I’m sorry a nigger had to die, but I was exercising my right to a citizen’s arrest. What other rights are you gonna say I can’t have access to?!”

and then said grab them by the pussy.

I think that pretty much put him at the top of the list.

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

then again I'm actually alive/an adult to see his Term

Particularly when it's foundational to today and well documented, measured, and tracked over time.
You don't need to have been alive to recognize that the Ice Age was terrible for the capacity of living things

for the current guy to display his ignorance.


James K Polk might have been a giant dummy too, but he didn't have a Twitter account and video cameras around to capture him constantly doing moronic stuff

My point is that displays of ignorance are less consequential than the actual major actions that presidents perform.
Their gaffes and faux pas may be culturally memorable but the actions of the office have ramifications throughout history and change the trajectory of humanity.

Carter isn't considered a great president but there's probably not a better man to have held the office.

I imagine some of those slave holders may have been good presidents and may have done good for the country (according to their times) but keeping people in bondage makes you a terrible human being.

45 is showing us that's he's terrible at both.

You can't be a good president if you buildup a system from maximizing bad
Whether it's human beings via enslavement, manifest destiny ravaging the middle of America, expanding via the Louisiana Purchase ... it's not good.
If you bulldoze the amazon to build a field of hospitals for kids with cancer you're still doing something awful.
What the American presidency has been is about what's expedient for growth for the country, damn the costs. But the costs matter a lot.

>You can't be a good president if you buildup a system from
>maximizing bad
>Whether it's human beings via enslavement, manifest destiny
>ravaging the middle of America, expanding via the Louisiana
>Purchase ... it's not good.
>If you bulldoze the amazon to build a field of hospitals for
>kids with cancer you're still doing something awful.
>What the American presidency has been is about what's
>expedient for growth for the country, damn the costs. But the
>costs matter a lot.


The question here is who the costs matter to and who finds them awful... and why.
They matter to you and I, because they affect you and I, but if we assume that the country and its "higher" principles weren't intended for you and I, we have a different discussion.

"This is how they view you" as the saying goes.

If black people are simply the necessary underclass, what negatively affects us isn't viewed as negatively affecting the country. In fact, what negatively affects us is often seen as exactly what's necessary to HELP the country (slavery being a prime example... controlling our population by any means, including murder, being another).

Depending on how you view it, being "good" for a country founded upon murder and deceitfulness can easily involve enslavement and more killing. Just like a virus, healthiness is bad for it.

In the 80s people took crazy amount of steroids and broke all kinds of world records and didn't amazing feats of athleticism ... then their bodies broke down.

When you're dealing with humans, living in a world that came millions of years before them and will last millions of years after them maximizing the good for only a small number of people is not in the best interest of the planet or the species.

Eradicating cultures, humans, species, and ecosystems in the name of money and dominance is objectively bad.

Sodas are bad for me. I drink sodas anyways. Even if I was the CEO of Pepsi, sodas would still be bad for me. They'd just personally enrich me.

>In the 80s people took crazy amount of steroids and broke all
>kinds of world records and didn't amazing feats of athleticism
>... then their bodies broke down.


This is a fact with no point attached. According to this discussion, I would assume you're saying they did this for America in the Olympics, but I can't be sure.


>When you're dealing with humans, living in a world that came
>millions of years before them and will last millions of years
>after them maximizing the good for only a small number of
>people is not in the best interest of the planet or the
>species.


Some might argue that a good president does what's best for his country, not the planet or the species. This is how white supremacist logic appears to operate... and the country was founded by white supremacists. I want to reiterate that this is how you and I feel, of course, but I think it's important to keep in mind that this view isn't as common as many of us wish it was. White people would seriously destroy this planet and move to Mars before following higher moral principles for the sake of respecting non-white people.


>Eradicating cultures, humans, species, and ecosystems in the
>name of money and dominance is objectively bad.


Of course I agree.


>Sodas are bad for me. I drink sodas anyways. Even if I was
>the CEO of Pepsi, sodas would still be bad for me. They'd just
>personally enrich me.


Bad comparison. In this analogy, America would be the Pepsicola institution or your bank account... which the purchase and highly probable consumption of Pepsi would always be good for... yet still bad for humanity.

You lost me. I'm going to summarize my original point that you responded to.

Marbles: Carter was a good man. Enslaving presidents were terrible people but maybe good presidents.

Me: You can't be a good president if you enslave people, because you're propping up and institutionalizing a destructive and unsustainable system.

Umm.... ok.

No need to summarize, as I understood everything you said.

I'll assume you just don't want to continue, since you didn't ask for clarification of whatever I said that lost you... which is cool w/ me. No worries.

Peace.

>You can't be a good president if you buildup a system from
>maximizing bad
>Whether it's human beings via enslavement, manifest destiny
>ravaging the middle of America, expanding via the Louisiana
>Purchase ... it's not good.
>If you bulldoze the amazon to build a field of hospitals for
>kids with cancer you're still doing something awful.
>What the American presidency has been is about what's
>expedient for growth for the country, damn the costs. But the
>costs matter a lot.

I just don't necessarily think that the Presidency of the United States is a position intended to be a force for good. It's not necessarily a position held by men of high moral character. I believe that it's use is intended to increase & maintain power for the US.

but Trump's one saving grace is that he hasn't started any new wars. Not to say he hasn't been a complete an utter disaster on an international level, but at least he doesn't have any wars he started of his own volition on his resume of incompetence.

The withdrawl from Syria saw us lose a valuable ally in the Turks
He's abandoned Ukraine
In the last month he's asked his generals to fire upon Iranian ships


The ONLY ONLY reason he's not started a war is because he's aligned his personal interests to those countries most against us

So instead of fighting wars over assets and/or culture he's aligning with them an personally profiting off of them all while not protecting global democracy.

For both the country and the world.

his slaves were to him.

Kindness
And he'd also rape many and often. Because he's a rapist.

... as a means to stimulate the economy.

He allowed prison labor to fill the gap.
That’s about as close as he can get

....All time?? I mean, Andrew Johnson was pretty much the Trump of the time back then, a rich slave owner who put together a group of other rich southern slave owners to run shit and silence all anti-slavery talk. His treatment of Native Americans was awful as well, kicking them off their own land and shipping them west.

There's a lot of shitty humans who have been president. I feel like the only ones that were actual decent people are Obama and Jimmy Carter.

.

Whom Trump explicitly models his administration on, BTW.

Johnson was shitty too, but in different ways.

Trump only doesn't engage in chattel slavery because the constraints of the times he lives in.

He's obviously got no problem with human trafficking aka 'white slavery'.

Trump is constrained only by constraints that have been put in place to stop things like genocide. Not by any aversion to them. He doesn't lack the mentality, he lacks the mechanism.

Right today, as I type this, he is trying to find ways to withhold federal funds from states for supplying absentee ballots to their residents to disenfranchise people so that he can remain in power is unheard of.

If black people are simply the necessary underclass, what negatively affects us isn't viewed as negatively affecting the country. In fact, what negatively affects us is often seen as exactly what's necessary to HELP the country (slavery being a prime example... controlling our population by any means, including murder, being another).

Depending on how you view it, being "good" for a country founded upon murder and deceitfulness can easily involve enslavement and more killing. Just like a virus, healthiness is bad for it. Is America a body with a virus? Or is it the virus itself?

That said, the answer to the "worse president" question would have to be Trump, because he'll run the whole country in the ground rather than just mistreating black folks as a means of keeping it afloat. As a black person tho, my answer to the "worse person" question is fuck all of 'em.

>RE: Reiterating this seems more of worse president vs worse person
>If black people are simply the necessary underclass, what
>negatively affects us isn't viewed as negatively affecting the
>country. In fact, what negatively affects us is often seen as
>exactly what's necessary to HELP the country (slavery being a
>prime example... controlling our population by any means,
>including murder, being another).
>
>Depending on how you view it, being "good" for a country
>founded upon murder and deceitfulness can easily involve
>enslavement and more killing. Just like a virus, healthiness
>is bad for it. Is America a body with a virus? Or is it the
>virus itself?
>
>That said, the answer to the "worse president" question would
>have to be Trump, because he'll run the whole country in the
>ground rather than just mistreating black folks as a means of
>keeping it afloat. As a black person tho, my answer to the
>"worse person" question is fuck all of 'em.

most of those early presidents at least did some good things for the presidency or the union, etc. trump doesn't even have that, though he isn't a slave owner (granted he would have been one and would still be one if he could today).

i can understand any vote for a slave owner president, or andrew jackson for multiple reasons, or nixon/reagan, but there's no way that either bush was worse.

At least Washington willingly walked away from the presidency and power, despite people calling for him to stay in power and even assume the role of king.

If Trump were the first president of the US we wouldn’t have had a second President. Even now trump is doing everything in his power to minimize voter turn out, suppress minority voting, actively court foreign influence and help and spread misinformation.

Also, he allowed the largest terrorist attack in American history to occur on his watch.

And he collapsed the economy in spectacular fashion.

And he pushed the legislation that led to the student debt crisis.

And he oversaw the establishment of the security state.

How the fuck is this even a debate?




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Like some banana republic shit.


If that Florida shit had happened in any other country we'd have called for sanctions and possibly military intervention.



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Isn't necessarily a compliment to Dubya. It's really a testament to how truly awful Trump is compared to who I thought was the worst president in modern history.

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Stacking the courts, undoing environmental policy, getting rid of watch dogs and oversight, etc. His impact will be felt by our kids and kids kids. Hes HORRIFIC

But I do think it will take time to see exactly how much damage he has done.

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

and if you just say "he owned slaves" ill write you off as a simpleton.

www.Tupreme.com

https://ibb.co/k4m6n8C

one was one of thee biggest human traffickers in US history.

I'm gonna go with powder face George.

“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, ‘This is a great thing happening for our country,” Trump said of Floyd, who died in police custody last week. “A great day for him, a great day for everybody. This is great day for everybody.”

But he's talking about Geroge Floyd.

I SHIT YOU NOT!!!!!!!

https://pressfrom.info/us/news/opinion/-453840-trump-george-floyd-is-looking-down-and-celebrating-this-great-day.html

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1268928142632157186

So, there's that.

the office even if hopefully he will not be the President who does the most damage to the country (I say hopefully but only time will tell).

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

He lead an actual army.

Trump also came at a time where he had the benefit of hindsight to the moral failings of our history. Rather than seek to set himself apart as an improvement, he actively sought a return to less humanist ideals.

I think there are myriad things that make a significant difference when evaluating when evaluating whether or not this piece of trash iss objectively worse than an actual slave owner.

Shit, he doesn't even care about his own people. They're unwitting tools in servitude of him.

He incited an actual insurrection in response to losing an election.

Maybe deeper examination would yield a different result, but on the surface I'd say it's easy to say Trumo is worse, and its it's not close.

and dominate the slave trade.

I don't see how anyone of African ancestry could say Trump is worse than Washington.

Geo Washington had mixed kids from his rape running around and over 300 people on his plantation.

He got rich off of human trafficking and "Land speculation" a fancy word for GENTRIFICATION and land THEFT.

I do not believe it was ever moral to own slaves, nor do I buy the excuse that we should look at it in the context of the time.

But I do believe that, in terms of direct comparison, with centuries worth of progress and a moral compass that has largely improved on multiple fronts, it becomes a contextual sticking point.

So owning slaves is definitively worse than not owning slaves, and is also worse than simply being a garden variety racist, so that distinction is more significant to the question of who is the worse person.

To the question of who is the worse president, I think the criteria changes a bit. And in this case, Trump is quite literally working to overthrow our democracy, and not because of the yoke of oppressive leadership, but because he lost a contest.

From the standpoint of which is the worst president, I'd say that's a gargantuan reason to vote Trump in this specific context.

Slavery kills any pretense that casts our founding fathers as heroes, and the damage from that reverberates to this day. It can be argued that everything we see now, up to and including the existence of Trump's presidency, stems from their choice to use slavery to build this country.

So I may be overvaluing the benefit of being to look at the horrible decvisions of the past, because it assumes he and the rest of that fucking party thought they were horrible to begin with.

I guess I'm all over place with this. I agree with you in general, but I think what Trump has done, from the primaries all the way up to his lies and treatment of COVID through this coup attempt and a million places in between make him the clear "winner" over George on this one, from the standpoint of what makes each a worse president.

This country was nothing close to a democracy until 1964 and even that was at face value.

Trump just exposed for all those that can't read between the lines in my opinion.