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  1. #13786
    The Undead One The Chou Lives's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    What everyone is looking for in this Nixon/Trump comparison is this...

    Both are corrupt. Nixon, however, was highly competent, with the exception of his ego getting far enough out of control to have a Watergate break-in, and a press and Congress with enough backbone to not let him get away with it.

    The corruption and malevolence of the Trump administration has been undone by its incompetence across the board, however, he has the benefit of a press who were slow to realize how he manipulated them, a Fox News to prop him up where the rest wouldn't, and a Republican Party with no spine whatsoever to stand up to him.

    That's the difference.
    Exactly. Nixon was smart, but his ego caused a mistake and the government had a spine to take him down.

    Trump is a spoiled show doing it for his ego, ruining everything, corrupt as hell, not hiding it, and only a factor because the senate are crooked and fake media ( Fox) as they get the poor dumb Americans to be brain washed.

    So yes.

    Nixon: Evil but was competent.

    Trump: Just, read the thread. This could take forever. He is that bad, that corrupt, and anyone who bruises his ego in showing competence he considers a threat.

    At best he is a child, at worst he is a wild ape that throws **** everywhere.

  2. #13787
    Silver Sentinel BeastieRunner's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    What everyone is looking for in this Nixon/Trump comparison is this...

    Both are corrupt. Nixon, however, was highly competent, with the exception of his ego getting far enough out of control to have a Watergate break-in, and a press and Congress with enough backbone to not let him get away with it.

    The corruption and malevolence of the Trump administration has been undone by its incompetence across the board, however, he has the benefit of a press who were slow to realize how he manipulated them, a Fox News to prop him up where the rest wouldn't, and a Republican Party with no spine whatsoever to stand up to him.

    That's the difference.
    You, myself, and many others in the thread have marveled at this administration's amount of self-owns.
    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    I'd go Trump, Hoover, Johnson, Harding. If I got a fifth, James Buchanan because he helped set the stage for the Confederacy. Johnson for not doing enough to put it to bed permanently.
    That's why Johnson and Buchanan are my top 2.
    "Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium

  3. #13788
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Mount Rushmore was a trashy monument built on land stolen from the Sioux. The thing to do is give the land back to the Sioux, not build a crappy monument or add or subtract, and so validate that theft.

    Ranking Presidents is a mug's game. Conventionally Washington, Lincoln, FDR are seen as America's Top 3. I personally rank Lincoln as the greatest president because he's a complete figure in terms of being a great intellectual, wonderful and innovative political thinker, master politician, a brilliant war leader who was a quick study and a quick master of strategy, and all things considered, a genuinely decent (not perfect or consitently good, mind you) human being, even accounting for the standards of time. Someone with a capacity for change and growth. He's a complete figure. So the complete measure of Lincoln -- personal goodness and human decency, mastery in politics, military strategy, intellect -- is a good gauge to evaluate presidents. Washington and FDR by contrast aren't as complete figures. Washington wasn't a good general, nor was he a great intellectual and I certainly don't think he was a good human being (it's really impossible for a slaveowner to be considered one). FDR great war leader and commander in chief, brilliant politician, and had his moments as a thinker, but he was also incredibly manipulative and crafty on a personal level, and of course capricious and inconsistent when it came to defending Jews, and racist to Japanese-Americans...so he fails in terms of personal goodness.

    Of course you can have presidents who are consequential like Eisenhower who were otherwise mediocre. Eisenhower appointed Warren to the SCOTUS which was the most consequential judicial appointment of the 20th Century, and he enforced Brown v. Board of Education, he created DARPA (and so all the stuff that came from that, including the internet, is his legacy), America's highway system, and he sent troops to South Vietnam. In a large sense his presidency was consequential to the present day and that the generation of Presidents after him (JFK-LBJ-Nixon) merely dealt with or expanded on the fallout of his policies and decisions. I tend to think of JFK--LBJ--Nixon as a single entangled era of Presidency because policy wise and ideology and personality wise there's so much continuity across their administrations even if there's political and personal differences galore between them...and all of them belonged roughly to the same generation (Nixon and JFK certainly, Johnson was older than them).

    In general most presidents are mediocre and assessing them is hard. Woodrow Wilson was seen as a great president for a long time but in the last decade, deservedly, his estimation has greatly lowered. Theodore Roosevelt is on Mt. Rushmore but aside from his larger than life personality, his legacy isn't as pressing (in either a good or bad sense) to current America as others are.
    It should of course be noted that Washington grew disillusioned with the Slave trade, just for accuracies sake.

    As for Roosevelt beyond his personality he did do wonders with conservation, corruption and helping to fix the issues of the Gilded Age.
    Last edited by ChangingStation; 10-23-2020 at 04:28 PM.

  4. #13789

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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    What everyone is looking for in this Nixon/Trump comparison is this...

    Both are corrupt. Nixon, however, was highly competent, with the exception of his ego getting far enough out of control to have a Watergate break-in, and a press and Congress with enough backbone to not let him get away with it.

    The corruption and malevolence of the Trump administration has been undone by its incompetence across the board, however, he has the benefit of a press who were slow to realize how he manipulated them, a Fox News to prop him up where the rest wouldn't, and a Republican Party with no spine whatsoever to stand up to him.

    That's the difference.
    Also, Nixon operated in a much different environment politically and socially. When Johnson was running the Senate, it was one of the most effective periods for Congress and the real power was in the Senate until Johnson left... and moved the real power into the White House. Also, any politician in Washington was essentially a "New Deal" politician simply because of the legacy of FDR. Nixon started the process but Reagan was the president to finally dismantle the heart of the New Deal. Since Reagan, every president has been a Reaganite irrespective of party as well. I think he harmed the long term future of the country much more than Nixon.

    However, I think Trump is very different from Reagan as well. Trump seems much more nativist and reluctant to enter into foreign or military actions. If anything, Trump's objectives economically seem Keynesian in that he's looking for ways to spend public money domestically simply to stimulate the economy - more military spending, for example, without getting into any wars, and he's trying to build that stupid wall - which would essentially be one way to get a major public works program through a GOP congress that would have no stomach for any real infrastructure spending - like fixing roads, dams, bridges or upgrading the nation's energy system.

    The problem is that he really does not have or know how to use power, and since Bush's second term, the office of President has been growing less powerful, more compromised and easier to defy. He hasn't even deported as many people as Obama did in his first term (primarily because Obama inherited a very effective anti-immigration system from Bush, but it wasn't a priority for him to change it, either). Not that I think Biden will do a better job, though. I do think we'll see a lot more military intervention under a Biden administration and not a lot of serious focus on putting people to work -- unless the progressive wing is able to force some action (maybe through Kamala Harris).

    However, I don't believe we'd see any movement "leftward" if he's elected. If anything, the time to make him commit is before he's elected because that's when he wants something from the voters. Especially if he really only will have one term, like some here suggest, then expectations have to be low for his presidency.
    Last edited by A Small Talent For War; 10-23-2020 at 04:30 PM.

  5. #13790
    I am invenitable Jack Dracula's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    No need to shout. It's possible to miss a post, especially at a period of high activity on the board, like shortly after presidential debate.

    You made a vague reference to a bipartisan plan in a post last night. If you have any links on it, I would appreciate it. Are Democrats on the record saying that they will implement this plan when in office?

    One of the arguments is that Trump is so deeply flawed, that a business as usual Democratic party politician is a tremendous step up.
    We've had this discussion at least 2 or 3 times already thus my frustration.

    Wtf, once more around the block...

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...e81_story.html

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...217-story.html

    At this point, you'll claim there is no defined specific number of immigrants to be granted access per year. I'll then tell you to look it up on the actual plan. You will then express doubts the Democrats will stick to the deal. I'll then express my dismay at your lack of trust in the Democrats when the Republicans have shown repeatedly they have absolutely no compunction about going back on their word.

    Quote Originally Posted by BeastieRunner View Post
    You, myself, and many others in the thread have marveled at this administration's amount of self-owns.
    They don't care. They know at least 40% of the electorate is stupid enough to believe whatever lies they tell them no matter what evidence is brought to light.
    Last edited by Jack Dracula; 10-23-2020 at 04:31 PM.
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  6. #13791
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zinderel View Post
    As I have commented before, being Jewish does NOT preclude one from ALSO being a Nazi/neo-Nazi.

    In the world of fiction, check out the Ryan Gosling movie, THE BELIEVER, in which he plays a self-loathing Jewish man who joins a neo-Nazi group and gets caught up in a plot to bomb his home synagogue.

    In real life history, check out the likes of Erhard Milch, who was 'Aryanized' by Hitler himself for his service to the Nazi party.

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/a...n-nazi-germany

    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...209-story.html

    So...its absolutely fair to look at the policies Miller has shaped and pushed and call him a Nazi/Neo-Nazi, based solely on the facts and the evidence. There is FACTUAL historical precedent for Jewish men joining the ACTUAL Nazi Party (as well as modern day loser neo-Nazi wank circles), and pretending like his Jewishness somehow prevents him from embracing and/or pushing for genocide against 'illegal immigrants' does no one any favors.

    To sum up, 'But he's Jewish!' is not a defense for his awfulness, no matter what his defenders may think. Such a defense generally does more to reveal that the people who work so hard at defending him...by playing on racial/cultural stereotypes of Jewish people instead of evidence...revel in their own ignorance (and casual bigotry disguised as performative 'wokeness') more than anything else.
    Whether he is awful is a different question from whether he's a Nazi or a white nationalist. Nazis are a subset of awful, but as long as he hasn't been part of a group that ordered hundreds of thousands of political enemies and minorities killed (I'm well aware that the actual Nazis killed a lot more people) he's not a Nazi.

    I do still maintain that whether he's Jewish is kinda relevant to whether he's a Nazi. A distinction with the radicalized characters you mentioned is that he has not disavowed his Jewish heritage/ upbringing.

    In political arguments, there seem to be two ways of looking at things. Are you on the right side, so that the correctness of your posture is what matters? In this case it doesn't matter if the mean things about Stephen Miller are correct, because he's a bad person. The other way of looking at things is about whether you're right on the specifics, so that you would be ready for what you've said to be used for a proxy on whether you're correct on other matters, because otherwise if someone who is interested in your arguments were to do a bare modicum of research and determine that it's absurd to suggest that Stephen Miller is a Neonazi, they'd have reason to dismiss all your other arguments. Personally, I'm comfortable with the question of my opinion of whether he's a Neonazi being a proxy for whether I'm correct on other political issues. The idea that it's okay to be wrong on the specifics as long as you're on the right side is one of the main defenses for Trump's many lies.

    Suggesting that someone who isn't a Nazi is one seems pretty close to Holocaust denial, suggesting that what Hitler did is on the same level as what American politicians you don't care for will do if they just had a little bit more power.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  7. #13792
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    Whether he is awful is a different question from whether he's a Nazi or a white nationalist. Nazis are a subset of awful, but as long as he hasn't been part of a group that ordered hundreds of thousands of political enemies and minorities killed (I'm well aware that the actual Nazis killed a lot more people) he's not a Nazi.

    I do still maintain that whether he's Jewish is kinda relevant to whether he's a Nazi. A distinction with the radicalized characters you mentioned is that he has not disavowed his Jewish heritage/ upbringing.

    In political arguments, there seem to be two ways of looking at things. Are you on the right side, so that the correctness of your posture is what matters? In this case it doesn't matter if the mean things about Stephen Miller are correct, because he's a bad person. The other way of looking at things is about whether you're right on the specifics, so that you would be ready for what you've said to be used for a proxy on whether you're correct on other matters, because otherwise if someone who is interested in your arguments were to do a bare modicum of research and determine that it's absurd to suggest that Stephen Miller is a Neonazi, they'd have reason to dismiss all your other arguments. Personally, I'm comfortable with the question of my opinion of whether he's a Neonazi being a proxy for whether I'm correct on other political issues. The idea that it's okay to be wrong on the specifics as long as you're on the right side is one of the main defenses for Trump's many lies.

    Suggesting that someone who isn't a Nazi is one seems pretty close to Holocaust denial, suggesting that what Hitler did is on the same level as what American politicians you don't care for will do if they just had a little bit more power.
    Then instead of a Nazi, he's a Dalek, xenophobic, vile and just won't shut up. Happy?

  8. #13793
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChadH View Post
    We've had this discussion at least 2 or 3 times already thus my frustration.

    Wtf, once more around the block...

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...e81_story.html

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...217-story.html

    At this point, you'll claim there is no defined specific number of immigrants to be granted access per year. I'll then tell you to look it up on the actual plan. You will then express doubts the Democrats will stick to the deal. I'll then express my dismay at your lack of trust in the Democrats when the Republicans have shown repeatedly they have absolutely no compunction about going back on their word.
    These are links to the same article in different papers.

    The argument seems to primarily be about DREAMers and the wall, rather than detained migrant families.

    Trump's immigration framework, sent to the Hill late last month, included a path to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers - more than twice as many as enrolled in DACA.

    For Republicans, Trump's willingness to offer a path to citizenship to a much larger group of dreamers meant any Democratic concessions had to go well beyond a border wall.

    The president's demands for large cuts to legal family immigration programs and the elimination of the diversity visa lottery were intended to balance out the legalization of the dreamers, the aides said.

    Thanks to a push from Trump's hard-line advisers and key lawmakers - and conservative media outlets that amplified threats from "chain migration" and the visa lottery - curbs to legal immigration became a central part of the GOP demands.

    "If you would have said at the beginning of President Trump's administration that one year in he is willing to grant a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million currently illegal immigrants, your jaw would have hit the floor, right? I mean, that is not a concession that is commensurate with a wall," said Josh Holmes, a Republican consultant who is close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "The opportunity here was to do something further than the bare minimum."

    The bipartisan plan from the Senate's self-styled "Common Sense Coalition" did not touch the diversity visa program and made relatively minor changes to family immigration rules. But as the "war room" of administration lawyers and policy experts examined the 64-page text on Wednesday, it was a handwritten note on the final page that set off the loudest alarm bells.

    That section dealt with setting in law DHS's priorities for enforcement. Under the proposal, the agency would focus its powers on immigrants with felonies or multiple misdemeanors, who were national security threats and who had arrived in the country after a certain date.

    Scribbled in the margins was a date: June 30, 2018.

    The administration team was dumbstruck: In addition to making it harder for DHS to deport all of those already here illegally, lawmakers were opening the door to a surge of new unauthorized immigrants by setting an effective "amnesty" date four months in the future.

    "No one who has worked on immigration issues in the administration or on the Hill was aware of any legislation that had ever been proposed and scheduled to receive a vote on the floor of the Senate that created an amnesty program effectively for those who arrive in the future," said a DHS official who helped lead the review. "That would clearly and unequivocally encourage a massive wave of illegal immigration and visa overstays."
    This doesn't really fix the problem of kids in cages. DACA is not about recent arrivals.
    Last edited by Mister Mets; 10-23-2020 at 04:37 PM.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  9. #13794
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChangingStation View Post
    It should of course be noted that Washington grew disillusioned with the Slave trade, just for accuracies sake.
    He also passed laws persecuting runaway slaves, also for accuracy's sake. And let's not forget the Sullivan Expedition he ordered during the American Revolution, and other laws against Native Americans during his Presidency.

    As for Roosevelt beyond his personality he did do wonders with conservation, corruption and helping to fix the issues of the Gilded Age.
    Theodore? Yeah he did start national parks...but Obama broke his record on that front (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38311093).

    Quote Originally Posted by A Small Talent For War View Post
    Also, Nixon operated in a much different environment politically and socially. When Johnson was running the Senate, it was one of the most effective periods for Congress and the real power was in the Senate until Johnson left... and moved the real power into the White House. Also, any politician in Washington was essentially a "New Deal" politician simply because of the legacy of FDR. Nixon started the process but Reagan was the president to finally dismantle the heart of the New Deal. Since Reagan, every president has been a Reaganite irrespective of party as well. I think he harmed the long term future of the country much more than Nixon.
    It's amazing that Trump is compared more often to Nixon, when as a President he resembles Reagan far more.

    At the end of Reagan's administration, 138 officials were indicted and corrupted, the largest until Trump. Reagan's campaign slogan was literally, I s--t you not, "Let's make America great again". People always talk in fear about competent Trump...but you had competent Trump, he was Reagan. Reagan was an union-busting, belligerent, teflon President who cared more about appearance than reality. When he got shot, he staged photographs to cover the extent of his injury to avoid the 25th Amendment being invoked and so on. His administration had an appalling record on public health, letting countless to suffer and die of AIDS during the worst years of the outbreak in USA, with his administration neglecting the warnings of Dr. Fauci (yep the same guy).

    As for Nixon...I have to say I find him legitimately tragic in the sense that he had genuine virtues and good policies mixed with appalling personality issues, and corruption. He was the last real pro-Native American POTUS doing a lot to recognize and help their communities. He created the EPA. He got America off the gold standard. So Nixon...well he was a capable supervillain in that he did do good stuff worth keeping. The same doesn't apply to Reagan and Trump.

  10. #13795
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    Whether he is awful is a different question from whether he's a Nazi or a white nationalist. Nazis are a subset of awful, but as long as he hasn't been part of a group that ordered hundreds of thousands of political enemies and minorities killed (I'm well aware that the actual Nazis killed a lot more people) he's not a Nazi.
    So these guys aren't Nazis?

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  11. #13796
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    He also passed laws persecuting runaway slaves, also for accuracy's sake. And let's not forget the Sullivan Expedition he ordered during the American Revolution, and other laws against Native Americans during his Presidency.



    Theodore? Yeah he did start national parks...but Obama broke his record on that front (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38311093).



    It's amazing that Trump is compared more often to Nixon, when as a President he resembles Reagan far more.

    At the end of Reagan's administration, 138 officials were indicted and corrupted, the largest until Trump. Reagan's campaign slogan was literally, I s--t you not, "Let's make America great again". People always talk in fear about competent Trump...but you had competent Trump, he was Reagan. Reagan was an union-busting, belligerent, teflon President who cared more about appearance than reality. When he got shot, he staged photographs to cover the extent of his injury to avoid the 25th Amendment being invoked and so on. His administration had an appalling record on public health, letting countless to suffer and die of AIDS during the worst years of the outbreak in USA, with his administration neglecting the warnings of Dr. Fauci (yep the same guy).

    As for Nixon...I have to say I find him legitimately tragic in the sense that he had genuine virtues and good policies mixed with appalling personality issues, and corruption. He was the last real pro-Native American POTUS doing a lot to recognize and help their communities. He created the EPA. He got America off the gold standard. So Nixon...well he was a capable supervillain in that he did do good stuff worth keeping. The same doesn't apply to Reagan and Trump.
    The other difference between him and Reagan is that Reagan was actually open to the idea of changing. The entire reason he started talks to end the Cold War was because he was confronted with the possibility of Nuclear War twice (once in a movie screened at him, and once in real life). And then took an interest in the possibility, which caused him to realise just how bad it would be.

    As for Nixon, my father had a similar opinion of him being complicated and keep in mind he hated Thatcher (British Reagan) with a passion.
    Last edited by ChangingStation; 10-24-2020 at 04:02 AM.

  12. #13797

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kirby101 View Post
    So these guys aren't Nazis?


    At this point, I'm pretty sure Mets couldn't spot a Nazi if he was watching the third act of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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  13. #13798
    The Undead One The Chou Lives's Avatar
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    True Reagan and Trump are aloe in that light. : Goes off to think on that, it is weirdly similar.:

  14. #13799
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    At this point, I'm pretty sure Mets couldn't spot a Nazi if he was watching the third act of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
    Some of those skeletons could just be very fine people.

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    I quite like Biden's renaming of those White Supremacists as "The Poor Boys."

    I think we should keep using that.

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