The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(02-03-2022, 02:33 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 06:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: We typically have an alternation of Party dominance because one of the Parties once in power either starts to fail or goes stale. We had a succession of three two-term Presidents (Clinton, Dubya, Obama) followed by a President from the other Party. Trump came close to getting re-elected despite an execrable record as President, which demonstrates the usual effectiveness of incumbency. The last one-term President before Trump, the elder Bush was basically an echo of the politically-successful Reagan. It took three terms for the Reagan-Bush Presidency to go stale.

Had President Trump been a more effective President, then he would have won re-election. He did enough to cause enough voters (by about one million nationwide, which demonstrates the distortion that the Electoral College creates) to turn against him. Trump claims to have lost because of 'late' votes. No, he lost because of votes counted late, and that the votes were counted late in Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh does not so much reflect votes coming in late as it does the delay in completing the count. Votes counted the next day count no less than those that can be counted and tallied within a few minutes after the precinct (with a small population) closes.

Republicans have yet to figure why they fare so poorly in winning certain demographics. When they finally respond appropriately they will win big again.

PB, you elected the worst president that the majority of the country has seen during its lifetime. That's just Us (the majority of modern day adults). He's also commonly viewed as being the worst President in Modern Time by most experts these days. You can say whatever you want about Trump because it's not going to help or matter to most at this as long as Biden is in office. BTW, Harris ain't going to fair an better than him. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up like Marie Antoinette. Yes, that's right, America may decide to place her on ignore and leave her for the mob to get rid of these days.

It is far too early to evaluate President Biden,  as he has entered the Presidency in the wake of a Putsch intended to prevent him from becoming Presidency and the perverse conduct of Donald Trump as President. Despotic tendencies, official corruption, erratic deeds, denial of scientific expertise, and suspect foreign policy give Trump no precedent. To be worse one would have to bring America to the brink of civil war, start a war that ends with the defeat of the USA that leads to a large surrender of territory or its dissolution, or foments a hostile revolution that overthrows the system. Joe Biden becomes President with three characteristics in common with James Buchanan: being long past prime for leadership, having a long time of public service, and being from Pennsylvania. The third is an obvious irrelevancy. This said, Joe Biden has shown his first priority as undoing the damage that Trump has done. Such may not be completed in President Biden's lifetime. Major destruction often comes suddenly with the repair taking far less time than the incident of destruction. 

I saw a physical case of such two days ago. An inattentive driver rushed into my lane because I had slowed down as I saw a UPS truck stopped to make a delivery. The van that that poor fellow had driven slammed into the UPS truck. I stopped, pulled to the side of the street, and called 911. The UPS truck seemed to take little damage, but the van endured extensive damage, including  the loss of the front passenger-side wheel and leakage from the engine compartment. In less than a second came damage to the vehicle that would surely take more than a week to repair.  Donald Trump is to the Presidency what that vehicle damage is to that van. I had slowed down to accommodate the UPS truck. Had I been speeding I would have hit the truck.

Well, Trump was defeated, fair and square, in a re-election bid. In case that you have awakened from thirteen months of coma you could be excused for thinking that the current president is the worst. Otherwise here is an assessment by historians.         


I

Quote:In compiling its 10 Worst Presidents rankings, U.S. News averaged presidents' scores from three separate metrics: C-SPAN's 2021 Presidential Historians Survey, Siena College's Presidential Expert Poll and the Presidential Greatness Rankings conducted by professors at the University of Houston and Boise State University.

Those narrowly missing the cut were Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Chester A. Arthur, who ranked 11th- and 12th-worst, respectively among the nation's 45 former commanders in chiefs. President George W. Bush, who had previously ranked 11th-worst in the last iterations of the U.S. News rankings, was remembered more fondly by recent presidential surveys. He ranked 15th-worst, just ahead of James A. Garfield and Martin Van Buren.
U.S. News for the first time included President Donald Trump, as his term has ended, who is the second-worst president overall, according to U.S. News’ most recent methodology.


PRESIDENT USN RANK C-SPAN (2021)  SIENA COLLEGE'S PRESIDENTIAL EXPERT POLL (2018) PRESIDENTIAL GREATNESS SURVEY (2018)
James Buchanan 1 1 2 2
Donald Trump 2 3 3 1
Andrew Johnson 3 2 1 5
Franklin Pierce 4 3 5 4
William Henry Harrison 5 5 6 3
Warren G. Harding 6 8 4 6
John Tyler 7 5 8 8
Millard Fillmore 7 7 7 7
Herbert Hoover 9 9 9 9
Zachary Taylor 10 10 15 10
Benjamin Harrison 11 13  10 13
Chester A. Arthur 12 15 11 14
Rutherford B. Hayes 13 12 13 16
Richard M. Nixon 14 14 16 12
George W. Bush 15 16 12 15
James A. Garfield 16 18 17 11
Martin Van Buren  17 11 20 18
Calvin Coolidge 18 21 14 17
Gerald Ford 19 17 18 20
Jimmy Carter 20 18 19 19
Grover Cleveland 21 20 22 21
William Howard Taft 22 22 23 23
Ulysses S. Grant 23 25 21 24
George H.W. Bush 24 24 24 28
John Quincy Adams 25 28 27 22
Andrew Jackson 26 23 26 30
William McKinley  27 31 25 26
James K. Polk 28 27 33 25
Bill Clinton 29 26 30 32
John Adams 30 30 31 31
James Monroe 31 33 37 27
Lyndon B. Johnson 32 34 29 35
Barack Obama 33 35 28 37
Woodrow Wilson 33 32 34 34
James Madison  33 29 38 33
John F. Kennedy  36 37 35 29
Ronald Reagan  37 36 32 36
Harry S. Truman 38 39 36 39
Dwight D. Eisenhower 39 40 39 38
Thomas Jefferson 40 38 40 40
Theodore Roosevelt 41 41 41 41
Franklin D. Roosevelt 42 42 43 42
Abraham Lincoln 43 44 42 44
George Washington 43 43 44 43


Updated on July 6, 2021: This article has been updated.

https://www.usnews.com/news/special-repo...presidents

OK -- Washington defined the Presidency. Lincoln saved the Union. FDR saved American capitalism and in turn (with Churchill)  Western Christian Civilization. For good reason the best five Presidents are typically "Mount Rushmore and FDR". 6th to 12th range from Eisenhower to Obama, and you know how often I compare Obama and Ike.  

Do I agree with these assessments? Not entirely. I doubt that Reagan will stay so high should his economic philosophy be repudiated and I see the generational cycle leading away from his continuing lionization. I would rather not rate William Henry Harrison because he was not President long enough to have any lasting influence. Know well that Jackson was once largely rated one of the greatest Presidents, but his reputation has slid into mediocrity. The expansion of slavery would lead to the American Civil War, and the Trail of Tears doesn't look so great anymore.  Toward the bottom end are several Presidents, mostly from the run-up to the American Civil War who acquiesced with slave-holding interests until Abraham Lincoln took over. Also near the bottom are Andrew Johnson, who bungled Reconstruction; Warren G. Harding, whose personal corruption would take nearly a century to surpass; and Herbert Hoover, who might have saved the world much grief had he backed the banks. Although I cannot put all the blame for the Stock Market Crash of 1929 I can fault him for the severity of the Depression.  Note well that the harshness of the economic meltdown led to the rise of Satan Incarnate in Germany.   

Trump put American democracy at grave risk for his bloated ego, and he fostered a  mass movement that shows contempt for the institutions that make democracy possible. He is beyond forgiveness.