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muriel_volestrangler

(101,158 posts)
1. That sounds roughly right, so far
Sun May 21, 2017, 02:49 PM
May 2017

Yes, I think he's the worst American leader ever. Nixon was just as willing to use underhand methods, but understood politics. He did stay in control, until everything collapsed. That had some awful effects (prolonging the Vietnam War), but also preserved the way the American politics was designed to run, until it decided to get rid of him. The competency vacuum you now have means you have no idea who will be able to get what stupid/corrupt/evil policies enacted, or when the system will be able to stop it (probably by 2020, but a lot can go wrong in 4 years).

In world terms, he doesn't have the physical hatred of people to commit genocide or ignore the deaths of millions, so he's not as bad as Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao or Stalin, or various kings from further back.

He's worse than Berlusconi, because while Berlusconi had just as big an ego, and was just as sexist and nationalistic, Trump is more bigoted against foreigners, and less intelligent. Plus Berlusconi was only in charge of Italy, not the world's largest nuclear power. He may be as bad as Mussolini; on the plus side, he doesn't have a genocidal maniac to team up with; on the minus side, he has those nuclear weapons. The same argument goes for a comparison with Franco.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia might be comparable; men in charge of world powers without the competency to run them, or the humility to get someone trustworthy to do it. Disaster followed, though the really bad stuff was caused by their successors. A warning from history.

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