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mike parwana's avatar

Aside from his attempt at insurrection Trump was a squarely bad president but not the worst. His most awful tendencies were often muted by his cabinet and advisors and by the moderating influence of Democrats in Congress. But his attempt at insurrection puts him in a category alone.

GWB would be my vote for the worst non-traitor president. He was installed as president by the thinnest of margins and a specious ruling by SCOTUS then rather than attempt to unite a divided nation he declared he had a mandate and proceeded to push hard a far right agenda. His administration’s focus on re-making America blinded him to warnings of potential terrorism and he presided over 9/11. Rather than taking the course of treating 9/11 as an international crime and rallying the world in support of justice, an inclusive gesture, he and his leftover Vietnam era advisors determined a course of war to prove America’s military might. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. We had no beef with them. We just wanted bin Laden. GWB spent little effort to negotiate a handover.

Consider for a moment how history would have been different if Bush had given 6 months for a worldwide effort to bring bin Laden to justice through negotiation. Would negotiation have been successful? Perhaps not, but in that time a much more sophisticated plan could have been devised at a highly targeted mission to capture him.

But wait! There’s more! GWB lied to the world to start the Iraq 2 war. He signed documents the “legalized” torture, black sites, Guantanamo Bay… He is unquestionably a war criminal for authorizing all of that. It’s not even a close call. It is not a question of doing necessary bad things for the greater good of the nation. None of it was necessary. And it further divided us.

GWB ignored the many millions who took to the streets in protest of the Iraq War. He called them “focus groups,” and herded them into “free speech zones.”

He was an anti-Lincoln.

All of that set up for a Trump to come along. So when Trump signed an agreement, essentially a surrender to the Taliban, a group we consider terrorists, Americans were so weary of war that we hardly noticed that the USA surrendered to terrorists without even bringing the actual Afghan government into the talks.

My vote is for GWB as worst president ever.

Trump belongs on a list by himself. He should not, and cannot legally be president again - not because of the 14th Amendment, but straight up due to his violation of his oath of office.

My vote for the worst SCOTUS would be the Roberts Court.

EDIT: does everyone understand that the United States of America under Trump negotiated a surrender to the Taliban who were not even a nation state at the time? Because we should all know that. We surrendered in Afghanistan. That was not Joe Biden.

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Catherine's avatar

More people should get their news from Last Week Tonight. John Oliver never disappoints.

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