Has the GOP, in national power, EVER properly handled a crisis?

[thucythucy]

From HIV/AIDS to climate change to Katrina to 9-11 to Covid-19, can you think of a single national crisis during our lifetimes that hasn't been botched by the GOP?

17 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	No, the GOP always screws things up when in power on a national level
	17 (100%)
	Yes, here's a crisis that was tackled with foresight, competence, and compassion (Please explain).
	0 (0%)
	Other (please explain)
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[catbyte]

1. Does the Civil War count? That's the only one I can think of.

[thucythucy]

3. But that wasn't during our lifetimes

unless you are VERY old, in which case I have to ask: What's your secret? (And please say "Tequila&quot .

But yeah, the Civil War is the last instance I can think of.

The Great Depression under Hoover? Not so much.

[catbyte]

5. You're right--I was going by the title of the post. Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

[thucythucy]

15. No problem.

I'm still only working on my third cup.

[Hugin]

24. That was a completely different Republican party then, though.

It was long before Nixon and Reagan sold their collective souls to the Southern Strategy and the Dominionists.

[benfranklin1776]

7. Good point...but

That Republican Party is long gone. Ever since Raygun and the embrace of Confederate values their track record is abysmal. Today, as their seditious attempts to nullify the election demonstrate, these traitors would be firmly on the side of Jefferson Davis in destroying the union. Of course in their view anything union is a bad thing.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. The civil war was mismanaged at first

If Gen. McLellan had remained in charge, it could have floundered along until a stalemate was declared and confederate states allowed to secede or remain in the union with slavery protected.

[Voltaire2]

11. lots of crises are mismanaged at first, in fact all of them, or they wouldn't be crises.

[Cirque du So-What]

21. You're saying it's not a crisis unless there's mismanagement in the beginning?

Yeah...I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

[Voltaire2]

23. I'm saying it isn't a crisis unless it is a situation that has gotten out of control.

[Cirque du So-What]

26. An unexpected supervolcano eruption: qualifies as a crisis, I think.

The decisions that are made can be good or bad, but it’s still a crisis. Granted, crises can be made worse through mismanagement, but crises exist independently from the decisions made about them.

[benfranklin1776]

2. Disaster, pain and suffering for We The People is their trademark brand.

Of course, in each case you cite it was left to Democratic administrations to come in and clean up those catastrophic messes. Would that people remember this history the next time Rethug candidates come selling their snake oil which is a magic elixir only for mega-corporations and the billionaire class to amass more avaricious plunder from the rest of us.

[thucythucy]

6. That's my thought as well.

This time let's see if we can pound home the fact that we're in this horrid mess entirely because of GOP complacency, complicity, and cruelty.

[benfranklin1776]

12. +1000

Amen and, as you say, we must do it because you can always count on many in the corporate media, as Eric Boehlert demonstrates, to assist people in forgetting.

[liberalmuse]

4. Not in my lifetime.

And I feel like I’ve lived 100 years, 50 of those in the past 4 years.

[Voltaire2]

9. civil war

that was the only time as far as I know.

[Yeehah]

10. Invaded Iraq when the enemy was in Afghanistan

Not just a mistake -- an intentional, unjustified invasion, unfortunately aided and abetted by several Democrats.

[Voltaire2]

14. Oh and the invasion of Afghanistan was and is an unmitigated unending disaster.

[unblock]

13. not sure if "crisis" is the right word, but ike created the interstate highway system and nasa

nasa at least was seen as part of the cold war, so arguably it was created in the context of a crisis. of course, jfk gets credit for setting the goal of getting to the moon, and, critically, returning the astronauts home safely (if donnie were president, he'd make it a one-way mission).

the highway system is a mixed blessing but i think most would agree that it's been a success.

[Voltaire2]

16. that was not a crisis.

[thucythucy]

18. I think we can also give Ike credit

for ending the Korean War. He also sent the National Guard into Little Rock during the crisis there.

Then again Ike almost ran as a Democrat. And it's not like he handled McCarthyism very well. Come to think of it, he also gave us Tricky Dick Nixon as a national figure, and was complicit in overthrowing democracies in Iran and Guatemala, with horrific consequences we still have to deal with today.

A mixed record then. But Ike, compared to today's GOP, was a paragon and rationality and competence.

[unblock]

22. ike arguably helped create the military-industrial complex

or at least stood by silently while it formed.

he gets a lot of attention for having called it out in his farewell speech, after having, at best, neglected the problem while he was in a position to do something about it.

some of our present day health care / health insurance mess can be traced back to postwar changes in the economy (companies using insurance as a competitive benefit linked to employment) under his watch as well. again, he did nothing about it.

[Hugin]

27. "If donnie were president, he'd make it a one-way mission."

By adding "... to plant a Trump flag and die." You would have nailed it.

[former9thward]

17. I was barely alive but ending combat operations in Korea.

By 1952 people were sick of the bloody stalemate in that war.

[thucythucy]

19. I agree.

So chalk one up for Ike.

[essaynnc]

20. Sure they have!

When big business and billionaires needed tax breaks, not once but many times, to lower their tax burden to a "more comfortable" level so they could just survive, and widen that horrible wealth gap to the best that it's been in a hundred years, the Repubs did an admirable job!!! They couldn't let those damn freeloader welfare queens take all the money, now could they?????

[stillcool]

25. A crisis for who?

the GOP is cannibalistic. They love a crisis if they can get something off the death and destruction.

[Poiuyt]

28. Eisenhower and polio

To be fair, if any president properly handled a potential crisis, it wouldn't end up being a crisis, and we wouldn't be talking about it.

[thucythucy]

35. I think FDR should get most of the credit for that.

It was a radio address by FDR that led to the founding of the March of Dimes, which funded the research that led to the vaccines.

FDR famously was a polio survivor (though the extent of his resulting disability was hidden from the public). He raised polio as an issue, and also did much to remove the stigma associated with it. His Warm Springs Foundation and rehab center were the first in the world to employ people with disabilities as staff (and became a hub for gathering many of the people who would go on to be leaders in the disability rights movement of the 1960s and '70s).

Eisenhower of course didn't call polio "a Democrat hoax" and then take credit for the vaccine. He also didn't undermine local health officials when they closed public swimming pools to prevent the spread of the virus. So there is that.

But I think FDR played a far more significant role than Ike.

[Bucky]

40. Disagree about your conclusion

Crisis will come whether we planned poorly them or not.

The covid-19 pandemic would be plaguing the world today even if the president was FEMA legend James Lee Witt himself

The structure of modern life and realities of American cultural attitudes towards social cooperation just about guaranteed six digit mortality count for the US. It could have been handled vastly better than it was, but I think even an ideal handling of the coronavirus crisis would at best reduce the body count and the lifelong olfactory, cardiac, and nervous system disabilities by half.

[ananda]

29. That's because the GOP is not about governing..

or representing the people.

They are strictly about power and greed.

[duforsure]

30. No!

They always take advantage of them to make profits, or skim money from the funding for it. Just look at the first stimulus where trump and Jared made millions getting stimulus money from it. They also funneled money to big corporations likely for kickbacks into trumps never ending campaign slush fund PAC.

[grantcart]

31. 1964 Civil Rights Act

18 Democratic Senators tried to sabotage passage with a filibuster and was thwarted by Republican Senators led by a great Minority Leader, Senator Everett Dirksen.

[yardwork]

32. And that was the turning point for both parties.

The Democrats decided to move toward embracing civil rights for all, and the Republican Party decided their best strategy was to embrace racism and bigotry.

[grantcart]

43. Yep. And this is Nixon's real legacy.

[FakeNoose]

34. President Lyndon Johnson gets credit for the 1964 Civil Rights Act

At that time the southern racists were still members of the Democratic Party, it's true. They were shown the door when this Act was passed in 1964, and Johnson made it happen. There were a lot of bi-partisan arm twisting going on at the time, and Johnson did most of it. He worked with GOP Senators because he wanted the racists to leave the Democratic Party ... eventually they did just that.

[grantcart]

42. That is a complete and inaccurate twisting of history

Johnson deserves credit for making it a priority but was not the key factor in the Senate.

The Senate passage was the result of leadership by Mansfield, Dirksen and Kuchel (R from CA).

Mansfield used his power to keep the bill out of the Judiciary Committee and Dirksen and Kuchel were able to draft an amendment that kept the majority of Republicans on board.

The numbers prove that on this issue LBJ's famous arm twisting wasn't a factor. Only 60% of Dem Senators/Representatives while 80% of Republican Senators/Representatives supported. Before 1964 large numbers of AA voters were still Republicans and the only AA Senator was Republican, Sen Brooks MA.

It was even more significant because Republican Senators took a position that would embarrass the party's nominee, Goldwater, who had voted against it.

18 Democratic Senators tried to sabotage the bill with a lengthy filibuster and only Tower from the Republicans did so.

The most egregious hack of history you take is in asserting that Johnson wanted the racists to leave. He knew it had to be done and his hope was that as a Southern President he could broker a consensus, which he failed at. He is widely and famously quoted after its passage as lamenting, "I have lost the South to the Democratic Party for a generation.

Johnson deserves credit for persevering against Democratic opposition but passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was carried by higher support among Republicans than Democrats. It was the high water mark for a party that preserved the Union and pushed for the enfranchisement of former slaves (males).

[Earthshine2]

33. I like Ike!

He built an interstate highway system.

This is about the best I can do to speak well of Republicans - damn them with faint praise.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. While I Agree...

...that interstate system was a major achievement, it didn't address a crisis.
We already had a country wide highway system (including coast to coast roads like US 6, 66, 30, etc.).
The interstate system was a big upgrade (more efficient traffic flow) but there not a highway crisis it addressed.
Agreed on the accomplishment, but don't think it counts in this thread.

[Earthshine2]

37. I was looking to be generous. As I said, Ike is the best I could give them. nt

[ProfessorGAC]

38. Understood

Harder than rooting truffles.

[Bucky]

39. Culturally, Republicans have a different standard for "handled competently"

Democrats are more impressed by delivery of material relief and demonstrations of national compassion

In handling a crisis, Republicans look more for displays of national strength and prowess at invoking God's mercy.

[Midnight Writer]

41. If you believe the scariest words in English are "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help"

then it is not likely you will govern effectively.

[tblue37]

44. Civil War--but that was a different GOP. Now the parties are inverted.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

45. Well, there was the time Lindsey beat Donny at golf.

It was masterfully kept under wraps and tRump didn't nuke South Carolina.....

So, there's that (some people say)....... .......


Failures? Katrina, 9/11, Iraq, the Great Recession, Puerto Rico hurricane..........that list is very long.