To impeach, or not to impeach

[Eric the Green]

(11-21-2019, 01:00 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-21-2019, 10:38 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You may not be aware that there is credible evidence that our intelligence services were   used against Trump. Why didn't Mitt run again, that's an easy to answer. In our eyes, Mitt Romney already  lost to what we viewed as an inferior opponent that he should have been able to walk all over/defeat so to speak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical...ted_States

Historians disagree with you, so far, in rating Barack Obama as a President. Incumbent Presidents can usually get re-elected by promising more of the same unless such is failure (Hoover, Carter), or the President shows himself an inept campaigner (Ford, the elder Bush). The historical ratings have the 44th President in the first or second quartile among Presidents. That is difficult to beat. 

Mitt Romney's wife has MS -- multiple sclerosis. That is a huge complication to being a First Lady, and it might be too much for her.Were it not for his wife's malady, Romney might instead be President. If Trump could win, Romney could also win. He would have won bigger than Trump.

The most recent rating by historians of the Presidents of the last century (this goes back to Woodrow Wilson) gives the following ratings:

Wilson 11
Harding 41
Coolidge 31
Hoover 36
FDR 2
Truman 9
Eisenhower 6
Kennedy 10
LBJ 16
Nixon 29
Ford 27
Carter 26
Reagan 13
GHWB 21
Clinton 15
Dubya 33
Obama 17
Trump 42

Cleveland is not counted twice. The top five are  Washington 1, Jefferson 5, Lincoln 3, TR 4, and  FDR 2. Placement of Washington, Lincoln, and FDR are matters of taste. Washington established what the Presidency is; Lincoln saved the Union; FDR (with his good buddy Churchill) saved Western Christian Civilization from demonic leaders of consummate resources and ruthlessness. Jefferson and TR are usually 4 and 5 in some order. 

The bottom? 

A. Johnson 44
Buchanan 43
Trump 42 
Harding 41
Pierce 40
W. H. Harrison 39
Fillmore 38

To be sure, academics are having a difficult time adjusting to Donald Trump, who breaks many of the rules that other Presidents have followed. He is as much a break with the past as was Andrew Jackson, who rates 19. The Trail of Tears and the expansion of slavery weren't big problems in Jackson's day, but they are now.  I would be more charitable with William Henry Harrison, who made the catastrophic mistake of delivering a long speech outside in a cold rain while an old man... resulting in the shortest Presidency ever.  His blunder hurt only himself. 

To be sure, the Presidency has changed greatly over the last century... and the United States is not the 'suburb of Europe' that it was in the early nineteenth century. America is a great power, and the federal government has far greater power and responsibility. 

It is possible to be overall a below-average President (Coolidge, Dubya) to get re-elected. Both of those two bad Presidents did their big damage in their second terms. Coolidge sponsored a speculative boom that could only go bust, and he enforced reparations against a shaky Weimar Republic that ensured that in the event of a worldwide economic meltdown that the Antichrist had a chance to take over Germany. Trump's first term the second term of the second Bush look good by contrast. 

I rate Trump 43rd or 44th of 44 different Presidents (not counting Cleveland twice). Buchanan blundered badly, trying to save the Union by appeasing the slave-masters. I doubt that someone else could have gotten different results.

Rating presidents is always a fun sport. Buchanan is always put last, but like you suggest, I wonder if another president could have done better and still please the Democratic Party of that time. I would rate Dubya worst, because he started an unnecessary war in Iraq that killed 400,000. His presidency was lethal and we are still fighting there to keep the results in bounds. His poor government regulation of the economy contributed to the great recession, and his poor response to Katrina was also lethal. The economy was weak during his term and the debt skyrocketed. He achieved very little of a positive nature. So far I would put Trump as next to last, but the way he's going he might overtake Bush for last place. The only reason I put Bush lower is because he was much more deadly, so far. Trump has avoided wars, while still contributing to possible wars later on with his neglect and militarism.

I agree with the top 3 but I would place FDR first. He saved both the economy and the free world. Lincoln and Washington can't match that. Reagan is of course vastly over-rated. His only virtue was that he was popular. His economics have ruined the economy for most people, and his administration was perhaps the most corrupt ever until Trump. He gets some credit for negotiating with Gorbachev when the chance came, but I give Gorby full credit for the changes in the Soviet Union, not Reagan's costly military spending which began the debt catastrophe.

Eisenhower is over-rated. He accomplished very little except keeping the nation on an even keel. My liberal views would shift a number of these rankings, no doubt. This recent list leans heavily toward the conservative view. Their placement of Jefferson so high reflects conservatives' current obsession with the free market and laissez faire, and they see in the classical liberal Jefferson a prophet of the philosophy carried out by Eisenhower, Reagan and the Bushs, which they rate far more highly than I and other liberals would rate them. Those with values that reflect the ability to lift up the poor and oppressed would create a different rating list, and for that reason alone Lincoln would be rated above Washington. I don't see that Jefferson accomplished all that much as president. He himself rated his other accomplishments more highly.