• Flying Squid
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      566 months ago

      I would say second-worst after Andrew Jackson. Hard to beat genocide in order to make a massive land grab.

      • @forrgott@lemm.ee
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        506 months ago

        Personally, I’m very bitter about the completely awful effects of Reagan’s tenure. Literally turned the office into a Hollywood act; you know damn well he wasn’t calling the shots. He was there to draw people’s attention.

        • @highenergyphysics@lemmy.world
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          246 months ago

          He also defunded 99% of American science to pour billions into a hole in Texas that never had a chance of working.

          Ever notice how all major breakthroughs these days come from non-US scientists? The scene never recovered.

          • @CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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            56 months ago

            Hey! How dare you insult my ultra American underground particle physics NASCAR stadium!

            Why don’t you just admit already that the Earnhardt boson would’ve been way cooler than the “Higgs”?

        • Mellibird
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          116 months ago

          Let’s not forget the “war on drugs” as well. A lot of awful things came from the Reagan era.

      • @AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Trump/Kushner did try to weaponize the COVID response against blue regions that voted Democrat. That’s pretty bad

      • @YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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        146 months ago

        Trump activity attempting to overthrow the Federal Government pushes him beyond Jackson. Moving the Southeast Tribes to Oklahoma was a fall out of the War of 1812 against the Tribes who joined the British. It doesn’t remove how horrible that was. Moving so many people during a pandemic of Yellow Fever was inexcusable. Obviously Jackson didn’t care.

        I still think Trump attempts to overthrow the government is worse as well as losing 20 million jobs, making the Covid pandemic worse by inaction, and all his criminal activity.

        • Flying Squid
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          06 months ago

          Trump activity attempting to overthrow the Federal Government pushes him beyond Jackson.

          I doubt most indigenous Americans would agree.

          • @YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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            66 months ago

            Trump refused to fill any positions at BIA during his administration. He authorized the Keystone and Dakota Access through Tribal lands, both of which had massive spills that destroyed the land and ecosystem and permanently polluted the drinkable water. Trump withheld covid vaccines from being available on Tribal lands, a move that proved deadly to the Navajo Nation. Trump authorized the blasting of the sacred hills in Arizona’s Guadalupe Canyon to build his border wall. He repealed protections on Tribal land at Tongrass to authorize logging and mining despite Tribal leaders efforts to preserve their lands. Finally Trump ruthless stole 85 percent of Bear Ears Heard from the Navajo Nation in Utah to have uranium mining destroy the entire region.

            • Flying Squid
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              16 months ago

              You know what he didn’t do? Send huge numbers of indigenous Americans on a death march. I’m not sure why you think any of that is worse than literal genocide.

      • AnonTwo
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        6 months ago

        I mean, among the most evil maybe, but he was successful in what he did at least.

        Can’t forget that Trump if anything killed millions not even because he was trying to, but outright negligence.

      • @DahGangalang
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        76 months ago

        I’m surprised at the amount of disagreement your comment is getting.

        I don’t want to downplay Jackson’s displacement of American Indians, but there was one real FUBAR thing Jackson did that no one remembers:

        He paid off the national debt.

        Completely and entirely. The federal government existed debt free for some months (I forget exactly how long, I want to say it was a year or so before borrowing exceeded income).

        On the face of it, this probably sounds like a good thing, but it hard crashed the economy. Obv wasn’t alive at the time, but it’s my understanding that it was the worst economic disaster until the Great Depression (and The Great Depression was only worse because the country and world were far more connected than the world of Jackson’s day).

        That said, I hear inauguration party was a real rager.

      • @SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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        66 months ago

        The difference for me comes down to the relative power both men had. If the US had been the sole hyperpower on the planet, Jackson may well have out-Hitlered Hitler. If Trump’s administration wasn’t actively engaged in sabotaging his deranged orders to attack Venezuela and Iran, we’d probably still be at war. Trump exercised authority over 300M people and has, probably for the remainder of our lifetimes, permanently altered politics in the US and around the world, while Jackson’s ability, monster that he was, was constrained that the US was not a significant world power at the time.

      • Alto
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        46 months ago

        I’d say those two and Wilson are fairly neck and neck

    • @EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      16 months ago

      Buchanan literally sat on the fence so he could do nothing while the country fell apart into a civil war.

      Trump sucked and it would be a disaster to elect him again, but he has a long way to go to beat Buchanan for worst.

  • @yOya@lemm.ee
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    606 months ago

    Show this to any trump fan and they’ll just say:

    “No, he didn’t”. And that’s it. You can’t reason with trump supporters.

  • @jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    496 months ago

    Let’s be clear though, it wasn’t because of his economic policy, it was his thorough mishandling of covid that got one million Americans killed which was the problem.

      • tmyakal
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        56 months ago

        I wish I’d bought a new washer/dryer before he pissed off China with that pointless trade war. Prices doubled overnight and have not come back down.

    • @forrgott@lemm.ee
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      146 months ago

      I don’t that his brainless decisions regarding economic policy did anything but make it worse.

      • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        176 months ago

        Apparently, Trump had a beef with his National Security advisor, and that advisor was good friends with the admiral in charge of the pandemic office. So, to punish the Advisor, Trump closed down his buddy’s office.

          • @Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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            86 months ago

            These thoughts are not original to me.

            The Boomers were mostly raised by people who’d survived the Depression and WW2. The parents were deeply scarred by those experiences and told the Boomers they had to be ‘tough.’ The Boomers grew up in a world of plenty, and never had any idea of what ‘tough’ really was. Men like Reagan and Trump, who built their image as ‘tough guys’ never got within a mile of actual combat. This is perfect for Boomers who spent their lives avoiding real conflict while thinking of themselves as bad ass pioneers.

            The other thing is ‘Future Shock.’ A sociologist named Alvin Toffler and his wife wrote a book back in the 1970s. The idea of ‘future shock’ was that as the Industrial Age died and the Digital Era bloomed, a lot of people would be unwilling/unable to adopt to the changing world. They woudl try harder and harder to keep the past alive, even if it meant killing the future.

        • @Hux@lemmy.ml
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          26 months ago

          The Presidency essentially sharing storylines with any predictable, tween drama. That’s totally normal and ok…

    • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)
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      106 months ago

      I think they handled it all according to the plan. It allowed them to sow distrust in everyone from doctors just trying to save people’s lives, to the very government he was in charge of. It basically set the hook for his cult of “you can only trust me”. And his cult believes that millions are going to die from the vaccine, and at the same time that people dying from COVID is “fake news”.

        • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)
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          26 months ago

          Indeed. I wish we could just trade him a pardon for all his crimes, and in exchange he must take his cult and all move to some remote place where they will be separated from the rest of the world. He can live out his remaining days as some god, and his cult members can stop messing up society for the rest of us. Ah, to dream.

    • @forrgott@lemm.ee
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      56 months ago

      His economic policies did cause severe damage, though. Yes, the pandemic made it even worse. But I disagree with saying it “wasn’t” his economic policies. That implies his policies were productive; they were not.

    • Heratiki
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      -116 months ago

      And the fact the whole world shut down for a few months. I’m sure that had something to do with it.

      • @Alteon@lemmy.world
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        336 months ago

        Which could have been drastically mitigated to an extent if he actually got his base to jump on board and support the vaccine and mask agenda. It wouldn’t have spread anywhere near the extent that it did, nor would we have had the need to shut so many things down and isolate.

        His mismanagement of the COVID pandemic, and his anti-sciencw rhetoric really screwed things up. Hell, there’s still ignorant loons out there that think COVID was a lie and that the vaccines are just for the government to inject a world-ending virus that will get triggered by 5G signals when the Global Cabal decides to end the World. It’s absolutely comical.

        • @Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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          46 months ago

          nor would we have had the need to shut so many things down and isolate.

          I’m not so sure. In my province we had very good mask use and vaccine uptake (once we could get them), but we still went back into lockdown, after our initial long ass lockdown, due to case loads still being too high.

          Masks and vaccines did help of course, but are not a guarantee things will stay open.

        • Heratiki
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          15 months ago

          I’m not saying he didn’t screw the pooch. I’m just saying the whole world economy took a huge hit which clearly was due to the COVID lockdowns. I’m not saying they weren’t needed and we absolutely should have done everything we did. But to pretend it was all Trump’s fault is showing just as much brain power that he does.

      • 520
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        6 months ago

        I mean yeah, Trump can’t be blamed for COVID, but his response to it is another matter entirely.

        Over 1 million dead. That’s a pretty damn big chunk of the population to lose in the space of two years.

        Now I’m not saying he’s alone in the blame, there are state level republicans responsible too, but boy did he try to hamstring those who were trying to do the right thing.

        If I looked purely at his actions, I’d say that he wanted COVID to be some great filter or something to wash through the masses and take out lots of people.

  • Ghostalmedia
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    396 months ago

    To be fair, even if Trump did manage the pandemic like a sane person, the economy likely would’ve still taken a massive pandemic hit.

    Other nations, with better public health policies and lower losses of life, also saw a bonkers hit to economic indicators.

    • @RunningInRVA@lemmy.world
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      306 months ago

      You can’t say that about the rampant spending that took place during his administration. Conservative fiscal policy be damned!

      • @WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml
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        46 months ago

        He gave small business owners instant full depreciation for large assets - specifically vehicles. It was an outright bribe because they all just went and bought luxury personal vehicles and claim they are for work. Sorry, no one uses a Land Rover for work.

  • @badaboomxx@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Well, he got half of his term playing golf. If he had been all day in office I am sure that he’d tanked it even more.

    • @wildcardology@lemmy.world
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      206 months ago

      I’ve watched interviews of MAGAts being asked what specific Trump policy made their lives better and their answers are always “the economy”.

      • @AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        They know that the real reason isn’t popular so they won’t say it most of the time.

        “He’s hurting the wrong people!”

        That’s all one needs to know, to determine that they are only about needless suffering, for needless suffering’s sake. They are not interested in helping anyone. They want to ensure that you have to suffer at least as much, and preferably more than they did.

        This particular ideology is literally counter to every previous ideology. They finally managed to create more than enough for everyone, and for the first time in human history a generation decided to be so greedy that their descendants are less well off than their parents.

        Welcome to late stage capitalism.

      • @Facebones@reddthat.com
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        66 months ago

        I just saw a headline that most Republicans think he should be the candidate regardless of if he gets convicted of his various crimes.

        I didn’t actually read it so take it with a grain of salt lol.

      • @AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        15 months ago

        They don’t care about facts. Their feelings are what makes their policy. That is specifically why they touted the “facts not feelings” meme. They don’t have to abide by it, and it restrics everyone else. They have no shame, they have no sense of hypocrisy. Every single accusation is nothing more than a confession, and we should start ignoring their bullshit red herrings.

  • @HWK_290@lemmy.world
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    46 months ago

    But my gas and eggs are so expensive now and I still have to pay my student loans, surely Biden is the worst president ever?

  • krishnamurti
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    36 months ago

    All we want is just for one side to be perfect. Not like it’s hard or anything 😂

    • @AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Well then you’ll be waiting forever.

      Personally I’d rather try to institute changes, starting at the local level, and moving upwards.

  • AnonTwo
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    -126 months ago

    He certainly didn’t help, but I think it would’ve been the worst Economic record in modern U.S. history no matter who you put at the helm.

    It’d be like blaming any one person for The Great Depression, it was gonna hit either way by the time it happened, whoever was there could only mitigate it.

    Though again, he did nothing to help it, and probably did exacerbate the issues…

    • @RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Anyone else in charge wouldn’t have dismantled pandemic response teams, sold off emergency medical supplies for cash, and dragged their feet on testing and containment, all of which contributed to an epidemic turning into a pandemic. So no. Anyone else would probably not have done just as poorly.

      • @whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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        15 months ago

        I probably won’t ever forget New Zealand having football/soccer matches in a big-ass stadium like normal. Many other countries got back to normal way, way before we did.

  • @mydude@lemmy.world
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    -156 months ago

    At least he didn’t start a new war, beating, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and many more…

  • @paddirn@lemmy.world
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    -226 months ago

    I think Trump did a horrible job and his COVID response was probably the single worst possible part of his administration, but I do wonder, what difference would a Clinton response have made with how everything played out? Certainly there likely wouldn’t have been as much panic and misinformation spreading, BUT right-wingers would still have called the whole thing a left-wing hoax and had been just as vigilant against masking up and taking precautions as under Trump, maybe even worse under Clinton.

    If anything, I wonder if we wouldn’t have delayed how widespread COVID would have been throughout the US, like how we saw with China experiencing a surge in COVID cases after they opened back up, well after everyone else had already been through the worst of it. COVID doesn’t really care who’s in charge, it’s more akin to a natural disaster and still may have played out the same way, once the genie was out of the bottle, it wasn’t going back in. Maybe the numbers of dead Americans would have been significantly less, but I’m not sure what could’ve been done differently by the medical establishment to save lives. Obviously preventing infections in the first place would’ve been the best defense, but assuming it was always going to be an out-of-control pandemic and all those that got infected were going to get infected at some point, could doctors have treated those patients differently and actually saved more lives? I’m guessing we learned alot after those first few chaotic months when the outbreak first happened, so we probably do have better treatments now, and maybe we would’ve gotten those sooner under a less stupidly malicious administration.

    • Chetzemoka
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      6 months ago

      Says “I’m not sure what anyone could have done better” while explicitly stating several things that probably would have been done better by someone else 🤦