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Rank the 21st Century Presidents


vcczar

Rank the 21st Century Presidents  

24 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is the Greatest US President of the 21st Century?

  2. 2. Who is the 2nd best president of this century?

  3. 3. Who is the 3rd best president of this century?

  4. 4. Who is the worst president of this century?



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It was hard deciding between Bush and Trump. I think Bush has been the worst for the world, but if I think of the president as America's president, giving preference to how American's are impacted, I'd say Bush is barely better than Trump, even with the Patriot Act and Great Recession in mind. 

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My "favorite" President is Bush concerning the 21st century. In terms of the "best" objectively, I'd say it's certainly Barack Obama. 

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Bush vs Trump is close, and I actually would have had Bush easily below him before 2020. Because, before 2020, Trump was simply a standard Republican who used dangerous rhetoric and didn't do much governing. Then 2020 came along, and Trump bungled a pandemic, caused skepticism on vaccines to rise, refused to accept the results of a Democratic election, and oversaw his supporters riot at the US Capitol because of that. His last year in office was incredibly dangerous to the future of American Democracy, and that beats all the policy qualms I have with Bush.

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36 minutes ago, Rezi said:

Trump [...], caused skepticism on vaccines to rise

Well, I remember a former President telling his supporters to get vaccinated and getting booed for it. A highly unusual and surreal moment at a Trump rally actually.  And I also remember a Vice President and current President who have both raised skepticism on vaccines by questioning the safeness and effectiveness of vaccines developed and rolled-out under the then-current administration.  

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2 minutes ago, Patine said:

But I don't see what, "standard," elements of Republican ideology going into the 2016 election you believe he had

He said going into the 2020 election, not 2016. By 2020, Trump had signed tax cuts, appointed standard conservative judges and Justices (almost all of whom ruled against him on numerous issues, most notably election lawsuits), signed a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, enacted deregulation, and made basically cosmetic adjustments to NAFTA. There were issues where Trump broke from traditional GOP orthodoxy for sure, what sticks out most to me is his decision to abandon the Kurds or his repeated attempts at a travel ban, but the bulk of his actual governance up until covid was fairly standard for a Republican. 

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15 minutes ago, ConservativeElector2 said:

Well, I remember a former President telling his supporters to get vaccinated and getting booed for it. A highly unusual and surreal moment at a Trump rally actually. 

Just because he's telling his supporters to get vaccinated now doesn't mean he didn't cause an increase in skepticism then.

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8 minutes ago, Patine said:

Other than Kavanagh, the other two judges he nominated were almost certainly fed to him by underlings that he had no previous knowledge of, or about. In fact, other than Bannon, several family members, and that oil company guy for Secretary of State, it seems the same was true for his whole set of Cabinet and other senior appointments.

Including Kavanaugh, all of his judicial appointments were fed to him by the Federalist Society. This is part of standard Republican governance, and it actually proves Rezi's point, a President Scott Walker or Marco Rubio would have also appointed Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett or Neil Gorsuch. Trump's appointments were a lot of GOP establishment figures, his last Attorney General having literally been George HW Bush's Attorney General.

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18 minutes ago, Patine said:

they'd be shot down by even many Republicans in the Senate. Plus, Trump went on and on about, "wheeling and dealing," and, "the Art of the Deal," (his ghost-written book), but always coming out ahead of those he deals with.

Right, he governed as a standard Republican up until the pandemic, because he was constrained by many Republicans in the Senate who were not going to act on his more populist agenda items, and the exception Rezi noted was his rhetoric. 

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5 minutes ago, Patine said:

As I asked Rezi, not being very Socially Conservative, Libertarian, Pro-Free Trade, or Military Adventurist in his own platform, what strong elements of Pre-Trumpist GOP ideology were really left to define him as a, "standard Republican?"

What I meant was that his Governing was that of a "standard Republican". Which did, indeed, deviate from how he campaigned. Trump himself was not a "standard Republican" in nature, but his presidency mostly was, at least for the first three years.

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10 minutes ago, Patine said:

As I asked Rezi, not being very Socially Conservative, Libertarian, Pro-Free Trade, or Military Adventurist in his own platform, what strong elements of Pre-Trumpist GOP ideology were really left to define him as a, "standard Republican?"

As a person sure he was not very standard Republican, as a President he appointed pro-life, socially conservative judges and justices (it is in fact his appointments that make the overturning of Roe this year very likely), he enacted a ton of deregulation at the administrative level, his USMCA is a free trade agreement, it is essentially NAFTA with minor adjustments, and as for military adventurism, I think it's notable that the area of policy where the President has broad unilateral authority is the area of policy where he most bucked party orthodoxy and it's likely because congressional Republicans reined in his agenda to what they found acceptable, which is standard Republicanism. 

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I chose Bush, but I don't think I would rate him as the best. I have problems with all of them.

Edited by Timur
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