(10-10-2018, 11:43 PM)Galen the Quack Wrote:(10-10-2018, 06:07 PM)Eric the (Green) Wrote: Obama teaches millennials. They aren't learning yet.
The only thing to be learned from (Obama) is what not to do.
Uh.... I know that you have little respect for academics other than those with whom you might agree, but the American Political Science Association the American Political Science Association assessed the merits of all 44 Presidents (for them Grover Cleveland counts as one) this year. Trump rates 44th of 44.
From FDR the Presidents rate
FDR 3 (his role in saving Western Christian Civilization merits such a spot)
Truman 6
Eisenhower 7
Kennedy 16 (would be higher except for the sexual stuff)
LBJ 10
Nixon 33
Ford 25
Carter 26
Reagan 9
GHWB 17
Clinton 13
Dubya 30
Obama 8
Trump 44
1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson, respectively.
The position of Obama between Eisenhower and Reagan suggests some similarities. I have frequently compared Obama to Eisenhower for temperament, respect for precedent and protocol, rejection of pointless adventures, avoidance of scandal, and refusal to do demagoguery. Reagan is similarly adept at communication even if the message is very different, and got good results in foreign policy. Although Trump claims to repudiate everything that Obama did, it is likely that the next President will lionize him -- and eventually he will be the model in behavior for a conservative President even if the agenda is different.
I may have not liked the Reagan agenda, but Trump makes Reagan look great -- by contrast.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.