Republican presidents only look good in hindsight and by comparison.

[TeamPooka]

In my life Republicans have picked some horrible people to be their candidates and our presidents.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush Jr and Trump.
They keep getting worse and after Nixon a lot of us didn't think that was possible.

Nixon - crook. Period.
Reagan - OMG Everything bad in our country started during Reagans years in office.
Bush - just kept that train going. Crashed the economy for a second time since he and reagan took office.
Bush Jr - I didn't think we could have a dumber or more corrupt president at the time. I was wrong.
Then came Trump.

Gerald Ford is literally the best Republican President of my life time
Why?
Republican voters didn't pick him!

So sure, to many Bush looks great, now that he's gone and not Trump.
Because Republican presidents only look good in hindsight and by comparison.

[empedocles]

1. Well, compared to trump, everybody looks good.

Don't have to be a President either.

[dawg day]

2. Nixon: A crook....

but not as bad as Trump!

What an epitaph!

[TeamPooka]

3. diminishing returns for sure.

[EricMaundry]

4. Each is worse than the previous one.

[Solly Mack]

5. It is kind of like being asked to pick the least objectionable serial killer.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Each time, I think they can't possibly lower

And then they prove me wrong.

[TeamPooka]

7. It's a distinct possibility that Republican voters hate America

[BlueWI]

8. Finally, someone said it!

Between the GHWB hagiography and the naked power grab in Madison this week, not feeling the love for the GOP.

[maddiemom]

9. The fact that Eisenhower isn't their most revered president since WWII says it all about modern ...

Republicans. REAGAN is their hero?!?!

[TeamPooka]

11. yup. Ike built the highways, taxed the rich, and warned us of the military/Congressional/Industrial

complex that wants all the money and power.

[maddiemom]

15. My mom was active in Democratic politics in a very Republican area.

My dad voted mostly Democrat, but was registered as a Republican for professional reasons. My first memory as to politics was her working locally for Stephenson. Later she greeted JFK when he barnstormed through the area, and I helped recruit "Kennedy Girls." (everyone wanted the hat and sash, even though their parents were voting for Nixon). Mom never agreed with me when, as an adult, I thought that Ike had been a pretty good president. Thankfully she was in her late eighties and had lost interest in politics when the Republicans REALLY became bad.

[Harker]

10. Well put.

What's the next one going to be like?

I hope we never have to find out.

[PatSeg]

12. Yes, after Ike,

it was all downhill. Over the years, they kept trying to find their "Kennedy". Because they couldn't find an equivalent, they hired an actor and spun a myth around him for years after he left office. Reagan doesn't come close to the persona they've manufactured.

[TeamPooka]

13. I think after the embarrassment of Nixon resigning as a crook who needed a pardon the GOP

decided that all rules could be broken.
The shame of Nixon's crimes and failures drove them to literally abandoning all they believed in and justify that winning is the only thing that matters for them now.

[PatSeg]

14. I think you're right

Republicans are really bad losers and will do anything to win.

[Bucky]

16. As a history buff, I like Ike

Seriously, Eisenhower did so much more right than wrong, a ratio no Republican president since then can match.

- stood up against imperialism in the Suez Crisis
- supported Civil Rights efforts (tho' too moderately) & appointed Earl Warren
- massively improved the national infrastructure w/Federal highway system
- ended the stalemated Korean War with honor
- denounced the growing (and now unstoppable) military-industrial complex
- kept income taxes really high on the top brackets (around 90%!)*

That's what a real small government conservatism should look like



*of course nobody actually paid 90% on their income - they employed accountants to document how they were reinvesting their wealth into job-creation to earn more rational taxation rates, but it put the onus of proving there was "heroic job creation" on the people claiming it.

[czarjak]

17. LBJ sent 'em off deep end.

[samnsara]

18. listen to Maddows Bagman to hear Bushes involvement in Agnew's scandal

[demigoddess]

19. all the republican ideas are based on one falsehood.

They think the US won WWII singlehandedly. We didn't. We just added help toward the end. And they think that winning that war put us in the money afterward. It didn't. We made money because so much of Europe was destroyed. And we had returning Vets who joined unions in their new civilian jobs. Took more money home to the family. And we had to build lots of new homes and feed half the world from our farms. That's why we did well after the war.