Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Fair enough -- here (and the headline makes my -- our -- point).

Scott Lemieux is the same as Jordan Peterson? wow racism

This comes back to that perennial question of measuring someone by character or by deed and which is more important. In terms of which has more importance, thats down to fundementally different ways of seeing the world

no idea why anyone should care about anything but deed tbh, the rest is astrology

boe jiden

deeds make character, read your aristotle yo

boe jiden

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), T

in which Star Wars movie was he

for anyone born in the last half of the 60s, Trump isn't even in the Top 3 worst presidents

Trump's misdeeds as a businessman and as a human being stretch back to well before he became *President of the United States of America* (god, just saying that is creepy). He fails the test miserably on every count, whether it is character, ability, intelligence, or actions.

It's important to Whiney to defend Donald Trump's record

It makes someone like the LGM dweebs look silly

Let's Go Mets?

It's important to Whiney to defend Donald Trump's record

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, May 19, 2020 1:58 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's more important to me that we not continue to wallpaper over the trail of murder initiated by the George W. Bush administration

Mets fans are the only people with brains more broken than liberal pundits.

Could be Trump's COVID body count will start competing with Bush's war record.

great thread

A real roller coaster ride amirite.

the slaves trump would have owned also would have had covid!!!!!!!!!

important not to forget this vital point and I can't believe ppl are disregarding it!!!!!

It's more important to me that we not continue to wallpaper over the trail of murder initiated by the George W. Bush administration

Is it really that important that we nail down the *precise* hierarchy of awfulness between Nixon, Reagan, Bush Daddy, Dubya and Trump? And can it really be regarded as "papering over" anything if someone else ranks Dubya one place ahead or behind where you think his rightful ranking is?

You must realize there is no absolute yardstick for measuring these things. This is just as fruitful an argument as sports fans arguing who was the greatest player ever in the sports they follow.

If you measure it in human death than W is playing in a league of actual genocide, but go off king

Known COVID-19 Deaths in the United States, May 19 2020: 91,499.

It is true that GOP presidents are better at killing their fellow citizens while Dems prefer vaporizing foreigners with drones.

Is it really that important that we nail down the *precise* hierarchy of awfulness between Nixon, Reagan, Bush Daddy, Dubya and Trump?

No, but it is important to maintain perspective and that demands the context of previous Presidents.

Disney really should open the Hall of Presidents show with a lecture from Anton Ego

they own the ip

I don’t think Lemiuex or anyone in this thread underestimates the general venality of the GOP so I’m not really sure who’s at risk of losing perspective

If you measure it in human death than W is playing in a league of actual genocide

Nixon, too, in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Probably in the vicinity of one million deaths and counting - because we left behind so many land mines and unexploded bombs they are still killing people there today.

So, then, we're agreed that Reagan was really a very decent president because he only invaded Grenada and shot cruise missiles at Gadhafi. And Bush Daddy was much, much worse than Reagan because of Gulf War I. Got it.

ahem

AIDS

yep

Ego would not spare him

But that was from inaction, not action. We must get our ethical yardsticks better coordinated. And Ted Williams was the best hitter ever, amirite?

It is true that GOP presidents are better at killing their fellow citizens while Dems prefer vaporizing foreigners with drones.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 19, 2020 3:06 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

Trump truly is a uniter: https://theintercept.com/2020/04/22/coronavirus-somalia-airstrikes/

Since the beginning of the year, AFRICOM has announced 39 airstrikes in Somalia. The command announced a total of 36 such attacks from 2009 to 2017, under Obama, peaking in 2016 with 19 declared airstrikes. Last year, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. conducted 63 air attacks in Somalia, the most ever in a single year.

So, then, we're agreed that Reagan was really a very decent president

I’m comfortable saying Dubya was a worse President than Reagan. If you think saying that is a defense of Reagan, you are inconceivably dumb.

I'm against rehabbing W too, but give this a read and you have to recognize that Trump is also making a play for the genocide leagues (Iran sanctions + Covid, for instance): https://theintercept.com/2020/05/12/second-trump-term-war-climate-change/

OTOH while serving as president Washington shuffled his slaves between Philadelphia and Virginia every six months to avoid having to obey PA law requiring him to free them, so like milo I always find the Worst Ever convo weird and inevitably tainted with American mythicism

Worst U.S. Presidents

honestly might be worth repolling with the full 45 options

All bad.

Instead of worst, where mere ineffectiveness can get a vote, poll most evil

Hold up tho what is “evil”

That’s between each voter and their gods.

If you want it to be body count, vote body count. If you’re divining into a man’s soul to see if he loved his children, vote that.

All bad.

"There's no such thing as a bad boy." -- Father Flannigan

"That little boy grew up to be President of the United States. And that's the rest of the story." -- Paul Harvey

The funny thing about the turn this thread has taken today is that Alfred brought up the LGM blog post (about the Klein article) by saying "Lemieux hated it too." But no one else was talking about the Klein article; in the previous post, xyzzzz__ had linked to an Osita Nwanevu review of Klein's *book*.

Yeah. My mistake -- it struck me as strange that Klein would come up twice in two of my frequented sites.

I am a Klein fan and liked the book, but Nwanevu's critique is worthwhile.

honestly might be worth repolling with the full 45 options

44, right? (Cleveland is usually counted twice)

Trump seems quite a bit worse than Reagan to me. Yes Reagan put a lot of things in place that were detrimental to the future of the US, but there were ample chances to fix it after him (not that anyone did). IMO there are not a lot of ample chances to fix what Trump has done because he's hastening the anthropocene with his actions. So I dunno who is worse, the person who starts a fire or the one who throws accelerant onto it.

or billy joel

Reagan gets an extra strike for creating the political landscape that gave us Bush 1 & 2, Trump, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, etc

Yup. That's where the brain rot set in.