this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Daily reminder that out of all post-WWII GOP presidents, Trump isn't the worst one and is rather run-of-the-mill. From bad to ghoul in human form, it's Ford < Ike/Bush Sr < Trump/Nixon < Reagan < Dubya. On the other hand, Biden is horrible as a Democrat. Post-FDR Democrat presidents from bad to ghoul, it's JFK << Carter < LBJ/Clinton/Obama < Biden < Truman. Combining the two would be like JFK << Ford/Carter < LBJ/Clinton/Obama/Ike/Bush Sr < Biden/Trump/Nixon < Truman/Reagan < Dubya.
Just curious: not that it matters, they're all ghouls, but what makes you put JFK so high, above Carter? JFK presided over the early stages of the Vietnam War and almost ended the world in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also Bay of Pigs and other examples. He was one of the most rabid anti-communists in the whole Cold War.
I give JFK very critical support for at least trying to rein in the national security state which no other president before and since tried. It's the same reason why Truman is such an underrated ghoul (oversaw the creation of the CIA, gave the Dulles bros free rein over national security, nuked two cities, oversaw the genocide of Koreans). I don't see JFK as more of a Cold War warrior than Truman, Ike, LBJ, or Reagan. Nixon, Ford, Carter, and I guess Bush Sr were less of a Cold War warrior than him.
As for Carter, neoliberalism began under Carter's watch even if Reagan made things much worse. Carter was also the beginning of Democrats trying to appeal to centrists and "be pragmatic," which was cemented as party dogma by Clinton.