The long, strange desclension of Republican presidents

[Politruk]

Trump has the personality of a spoiled child, the vocabulary of a fourth grader, the intellect of a high school dropout, and the morals of a juvenile delinquent.

And the Americans chose that over Hillary Clinton.

Not only that, but some actually made her out to be some kind of existential threat to the republic!

 

[YDB95]

And the Americans chose that over Hillary Clinton.

Not only that, but some actually made her out to be some kind of existential threat to the republic!

Well, she certainly was an existential threat to their bubble where it's still 1952.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Amen.

Sadly, these shortcomings make him instantly appealing to an alarming percentage of less educated Americans (Good Morning @Rightguide !)

With his garish and tasteless display of wealth Trump lives the way a poor man would live if the poor man became rich.

 

[YDB95]

With his garish and tasteless display of wealth Trump lives the way a poor man would live if the poor man became rich.

That, plus their belief that it's ordained by God who is successful in this life, as well as his validating their bigotries, is why they love him so much.

 

[JohnEngelman]

That, plus their belief that it's ordained by God who is successful in this life, as well as his validating their bigotries, is why they love him so much.

I do not think the poorly educated Trump cultists Trump pretends to love are Calvinists. They want Trump to bring back factory jobs. Someone should tell them that there is no future in factory jobs.

 

[Rightguide]

Eisenhower preserved the reforms of the New Deal, even though right wing Republicans wanted him to repeal those reforms. When Eisenhower directed the CIA to contribute to the overthrew of the democratic government of Iran, he caused the Iranian Revolution of 1979. When he refused to sign and honor the Geneva Agreement of 1954, he made the War in Vietnam inevitable.

Nixon prolonged a war the United States did not deserve to win.

Gerald Ford was not so bad. The Communists won the War in Vietnam during his administration, and he did not blame the Democrats.

Reagan taught Republicans it was acceptable to cut taxes for the rich while raising military spending and tripling the national debt.

Bush I correctly labeled Reagan's economic policy "Voodoo Economics." Then he went along with it when Reagan chose him for his Vice President. Bush I handled the Gulf War well and had the sense not to invade Iraq. Bush II lacked that sense.

Trump has the personality of a spoiled child, the vocabulary of a fourth grader, the intellect of a high school dropout, and the morals of a juvenile delinquent.

Joe Biden’s presidency has demonstrated that, under the right conditions, even a candidate compromised by foreign influence, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, can ascend to the highest office, provided the election process is sufficiently manipulated. His administration further illustrated that a coalition of domestic operatives could effectively govern on behalf of a cognitively impaired figurehead, advancing deeply un-American policies while concealing the true sources of power behind a carefully managed media narrative. Meanwhile, their open-border agenda appears less about humanitarian concern and more about engineering a demographic shift, one aimed at displacing the traditional American electorate with a more pliable voting bloc to secure long-term partisan dominance.

 

[JohnEngelman]

Joe Biden’s presidency has demonstrated that, under the right conditions, even a candidate compromised by foreign influence, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, can ascend to the highest office, provided the election process is sufficiently manipulated. His administration further illustrated that a coalition of domestic operatives could effectively govern on behalf of a cognitively impaired figurehead, advancing deeply un-American policies while concealing the true sources of power behind a carefully managed media narrative. Meanwhile, their open-border agenda appears less about humanitarian concern and more about engineering a demographic shift, one aimed at displacing the traditional American electorate with a more pliable voting bloc to secure long-term partisan dominance.

I do not agree that the Chinese Communist Party assisted Joe Biden's rise to the presidency. I largely agree that the Democratic policy on immigration is motivated by the fact that immigrants usually vote Democrat.

i continue to vote Democrat, partially because the Republican Party only cares about rich people, and partially because I like immigrants.

 

[Rightguide]

I do not agree that the Chinese Communist Party assisted Joe Biden's rise to the presidency. I largely agree that the Democratic policy on immigration is motivated by the fact that immigrants usually vote Democrat.

i continue to vote Democrat, partially because the Republican Party only cares about rich people, and partially because I like immigrants.

That's fine, but the 30 million Dollars they paid him bought something.

 

[Rightguide]

i continue to vote Democrat, partially because the Republican Party only cares about rich people, and partially because I like immigrants.

Then if that is true how do you explain this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1921693516754833453

 

[Rightguide]

Scott Bessent: Chinese Officials Told Us How They Took Advantage of Biden as Soon as He Entered White House​

By Bryan Chai May 12, 2025 at 8:12am

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a striking revelation in a video clip posted Monday, shedding light on how Chinese officials disregarded trade obligations during the presidential administration that preceded President Donald Trump’s.

Speaking in Geneva, Bessent shared insights from recent closed-door talks with Chinese counterparts, pointing to what he described as a failure of enforcement under former President Joe Biden.

During a media briefing, Bessent recounted a candid admission from the Chinese delegation.


“In January 2020, President Trump produced a template,” Bessent said. “We had an excellent trade agreement with China, and the Biden administration chose not to enforce it.”

He added, for emphasis: “The Chinese delegation basically told us that once President Biden came into office, they just ignored their obligations.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/scot...ook-advantage-biden-soon-entered-white-house/

Maybe they knew they could get away with it, having rewarded Joe handsomely over the years with millions of Dollars.

 

[Politruk]

I largely agree that the Democratic policy on immigration is motivated by the fact that immigrants usually vote Democrat.

Latinos don't.

 

[Politruk]

His administration further illustrated that a coalition of domestic operatives could effectively govern on behalf of a cognitively impaired figurehead

No one ever pulled Biden's strings. And he was a better president than any Republican since Eisenhower -- just by not being evil.

 

[Rightguide]

No one ever pulled Biden's strings. And he was a better president than any Republican since Eisenhower -- just by not being evil.

Are you on drugs?

 

[Politruk]

Are you on drugs?

You know I'm right. No one has ever, when challenged, been able to identify who was supposedly really running things behind Biden.

I've heard Reagan called "only a glorified actor," but I see no reason to think anyone else was the director of that show.

 

[Rightguide]

There has never been a Pub POTUS since Eisenhower who was worth anything. Every one since was worse than the one before.

"Have you heard about the Eisenhower doll? You wind it up, and it does nothing for eight years!" But, in fact, Eisenhower was very busy behind the scenes. He cultivated a public image of idleness -- that was just his way of shoring up morale and calming Cold War anxieties. "You see? Everything's great! The President doesn't need to do anything but golf!" It is notable that Eisenhower had no ideological politics to speak of and could as easily have been a Democrat -- both parties approached him to be their candidate. He accepted the New Deal as a fait accompli, and sensibly dismissed as stupid and irrelevant the reactionaries who would roll it back. The worst you can say against him is that he planted the seeds of the Vietnam War.

Then there was Nixon -- a man it was really easy for Boomer hippies and activists to see as the motherfucking Antichrist, and it's hard now to say they were wrong. Now, to be fair, Nixon was very highly intelligent, and sincerely committed to public service as he understood it. But his conception of civic virtue never included honesty, not even in principle -- his attitude was, those in the know will make the decisions, and the public will be told what it needs to be told. Privately he was the most vulgar sort of racist, as transcripts of Oval Office recordings make clear, but he was not really emotionally invested in either side of the civil rights movement -- politically, racism was only something to exploit for advantage, hence the Southern Strategy. Nixon was personally responsible for prolonging the Vietnam War, which would have ended in 1968, but Nixon used his connections to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks -- just so the war would still be there as an issue for him to run against in November, claiming he had a "secret plan" to end it. (This is very well documented.) OTOH, we can thank Nixon for the EPA, and normalizing relations with "Red China," among other things. He was a flaming Commie by the standards of today's GOP.

So was Reagan, even though he fulfilled the dreams of the Movement Conservatism that began in 1964. Reagan did not repair the economy or win the Cold War, those were just things that happened on his watch. He left an entirely pernicious legacy in American politics -- see Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future. The worst thing about Reagan was that he was stupid even before he went senile -- but, unlike Trump, he did have a knack for surrounding himself with people who knew what they were doing. He was as hands-off as Eisenhower pretended to be, let his subordinates do the governing, which was probably the best choice in his case. But on the whole, the Reagan years were an embarrassment -- remember James Watt, the pro-corporate Interior Secretary who thought the Beach Boys would drive people to destructive craziness?

Bush I was only Reagan Lite. He was a man of his old-money class -- he never changed the evil and destructive supply-side approach that he himself mocked as "voodoo economics" during the 1980 primaries. And that led him to wreck the economy. Otherwise, forgettable apart from the Gulf War.

Bush II was far and away the worst president since Buchanan, until Trump edged him out of that ranking. He was as stupid as Reagan and not one whit more honest. He led us into a pointless and expensive quagmire of a war based on lies -- it was as if FDR had responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor by invading Brazil. He wrecked the economy utterly. No good at all ever came of his "compassionate conservatism" and "faith-based initiatives."

And now there's Trump. A president with the intellect and ethics of a real-estate developer, and not a successful one. A man who both embodies and and encourages/validates all that is evil and contemptible in the American national character -- willful ignorance, anti-intellectualism, greed, dishonesty, arrogance, racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, American exceptionalism, religious bigotry, producerism, etc., etc. A kakistocrat who surrounds himself with the most incompetent, dishonest and malignant officials to be found. How did the Party of Lincoln sink this low?!

The "every Republican since Eisenhower was worse than the last" routine classic. It's like watching someone blame every thunderstorm on the same cloud because they can’t be arsed enough to check the weather patterns. Sure, Eisenhower was a closet Democrat, Nixon was Satan in loafers, Reagan drooled his way through the Cold War, Bush Sr. was forgettable, Bush Jr. was a war criminal in a cowboy hat, and now Trump is the final boss of human depravity, but somehow, in this sweeping morality play, we’re supposed to pretend the Democrats were pillars of virtue the whole time, as if LBJ didn’t escalate Vietnam and uselessly kill 58,000 Americans, Clinton didn’t torch Glass-Steagall while sexually violating interns, and Obama didn’t drone half a continent while lecturing us on hope. The Party of Lincoln didn’t sink, it just doesn't fit your delusional screenplay.

 

[Politruk]

but somehow, in this sweeping morality play, we’re supposed to pretend the Democrats were pillars of virtue the whole time.

Resorting to whataboutism means you got nuttin'.

 

[Politruk]

The Party of Lincoln didn’t sink, it just doesn't fit your delusional screenplay.

It did do everything described in the OP. That's sinking.

 

[ll74]

Joe Biden’s presidency has demonstrated that, under the right conditions, even a candidate compromised by foreign influence, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, can ascend to the highest office, provided the election process is sufficiently manipulated. His administration further illustrated that a coalition of domestic operatives could effectively govern on behalf of a cognitively impaired figurehead, advancing deeply un-American policies while concealing the true sources of power behind a carefully managed media narrative. Meanwhile, their open-border agenda appears less about humanitarian concern and more about engineering a demographic shift, one aimed at displacing the traditional American electorate with a more pliable voting bloc to secure long-term partisan dominance.

How many planes did China give Biden?

 

[icanhelp1]

Are you on drugs?

I tip my hat off to you, your tenacity to continue to argue with these uninformed trolls is quite remarkable. They always argue the exception and not the rule. Trump is embarrassing the shit out of the democrat party. They'd rather protect criminals over American citizens. SAD!! I remember Quoting immigration law to 74, statutes that proved Biden was ignoring his duties to protect our borders. 74 saying if your not satisfied with how Biden is handling immigration lobby your congressional representative to change the law and yet Trump closed the borders acting within the framework of the law.

 

[ll74]

I tip my hat off to you, your tenacity to continue to argue with these uninformed trolls is quite remarkable. They always argue the exception and not the rule. Trump is embarrassing the shit out of the democrat party. They'd rather protect criminals over American citizens. SAD!! I remember Quoting immigration law to 74, statutes that proved Biden was ignoring his duties to protect our borders. 74 saying if your not satisfied with how Biden is handling immigration lobby your congressional representative to change the law and yet Trump closed the borders acting within the framework of the law.

47 has temporarily made changes to border security with emergency actions, which will either be negated by Congress or immediately reversed by the next President.

My statement was in regards to a President working with Congress to fixi a problem without the need for a capitulation to a President behaving like a King to take transactional action.

 

[Rightguide]

It did do everything described in the OP. That's sinking.

You are delusional.

 

[Politruk]

They'd rather protect criminals over American citizens.

Immigrants, including illegals, are not criminals. Abrego Garcia is no criminal. Neither are most of those who have been shipped to El Salvador.

 

[Rightguide]

47 has temporarily made changes to border security with emergency actions, which will either be negated by Congress or immediately reversed by the next President.

BS, The President is acting within the Constitution.

My statement was in regards to a President working with Congress to fixi a problem without the need for a capitulation to a President behaving like a King to take transactional action.

Biden didn’t inherit a border crisis, he engineered one. Far from working with anyone to fix the problem, he violated his oath of office by willfully refusing to enforce existing immigration law. The very statutes President Trump used to bring the border under control, laws Biden claimed either didn't exist or somehow tied his hands. The irony? The same people who screamed that Trump lacks the authority to act were watching Biden dismantle enforcement mechanisms with purposeful indifference. This wasn't neglect; it’s deliberate sabotage of national sovereignty that perpetrated crimes against the American people and humanity in general.

 

[Politruk]

You are delusional.

I'm not wrong on any point. You won't find a word in the OP that you can truthfully contradict.

 

[Politruk]

BS, The President is acting within the Constitution.

He does not even vaguely understand the Constitution.

Biden didn’t inherit a border crisis, he engineered one.

There never was one. And Biden equaled Obama's high rate of deportations.