How Trump Has Changed My View of Past Presidents

Misc

If Trump is good for one thing, it is perspective. I never thought I would say, "We didn't know how good we had it with Bush II". Bush abused the legal system and checks and balances, but he acknowledged them. Bush crapped on the Constitution repeatedly, but he didn't ignore it or argue against it.

Note: the Reagan comment is not kitsch. Reagan, Republicans in general, and the overall homophobia of the eighties (remember "fag" as the universal word for "dork/moron/wimp"?), delayed action on the "gay plague" for years. I was a kid, and I could see this was going to kill millions of not only gay people, but everyone else. Conservatives went so far as to call AIDS "God's wrath" against homosexuals and drug addicts. Their inaction ultimately cost millions of lives.

On top of that, Reagan set in motion many of the problems we have today. He brought the religious right into the Republican party and led to the division between religious extremists and everyone else that colors American politics to this day. He killed unions - not only where corrupt and unnecessary, but where they made better lives for the working class. His deregulation led to everything from banking scandals that cost tax payers billions of dollars to "news" outlets being allowed to lie and present one-sided facts as news -- which in turn led to Fox News, then the Tea Party, and now the alt-right neo-Nazis shaping our politics.
GW Thrush (Moderator)

Posted: 05/13/2017