Trump got some devastating poll news, given his disdain for former President Joe Biden: a majority of Americans now say he's doing a worse job than Biden did.
Trump is up there as worst president of all time. Only president who was worse was Andrew Jackson. If this ICE stuff gets any worse he my become the king of worst presidents.
Andrew Johnson was by far the worst of all time for sabotaging Reconstruction. Basically every problem we have now including Trump/fascism is a direct result of Johnson’s actions.
Johnson didn’t invent racism. Even with Reconstruction proceeding properly, ALL those racists would have still been there, gumming up the works.
They got the three post-war Constitutional Amendments that formed the foundation of Reconstruction, and that was probably the biggest lift.
So Johnson was bad, but not the worst. Until now, the worst were those pre-war presidents like Buchanan that moved America toward Civil War.
Now, however, we have an actual traitor in the office, who is an asset for a hostile foreign enemy, has attempted an Insurrection, stole hundreds of classified documents, is mind-bogglingly and openly corrupt, and is a proven pedophile to boot. There is no doubt that Trump is solidly in last place, and it isn’t even close.
In fact, when he’s finally out, and we find out what was really going on behind the scenes, his last place position will only solidify.
If Reconstruction had proceeded properly, the United States would have hung all of the Confederate officers and government officials and at least pulled up the root of the problems in the South. Johnson allowed them to fester and re-emerge, and we have been living with those problems since.
Not punishing heinous crimes like chattel slavery and violent insurrection is how we get precedent for not punishing even more crimes. Like Ford pardoning Nixon so “the country can heal” and then Reagan using that precedent for Iran-Contra and then Bush using that precedent to steal the 2000 election and commit the US illegally in Iraq etc etc. And now Trump realizing that laws don’t matter at all and doing whatever he wants with impunity. Most of the Supreme Court justices are direct descendants of politics Johnson enabled. Roberts clerked for Rehnquist ffs, an avowed segregationist who wouldn’t have been politically viable if Reconstruction had succeeded.
But would Lincoln have hung all the Confederates? I doubt it. Certainly, some should have swung, like Davis and Lee, but I doubt it would have been as across the board as you suggest. Lincoln’s humanity likely would have prevented it, and he would have put the emphasis on healing, more than punishment.
I grant you, things would have been far different under Lincoln, but the lack of technology would have prevented the Federal government from dealing with many of the same inevitable problems that occured anyway. You can deal with governmental issues in the courts, but when it comes to the ground level, face-to-face interactions between people, in towns and small cities, which is where most of real life exists, especially back then, the authorities were likely to be enthusiastic about supporting racists and racist policies, and the Feds weren’t going to be much help in the best of circumstances. You could Federally squash a problem in one place, but it’s still going on in a thousand other places.
The point is that just saying Reconstruction would have gone perfectly under Lincoln, and prevented all our current problems, is a bit optimistic. I think the systemic racism of the South (and everywhere else), was going to make a fully successful Reconstruction an impossibility.
Getting the three Reconstruction amendments was the important part, because it gave us the legal foundation to constantly chip away at the systemic racism that still exists today.
But yeah, I can fully agree that Johnson was still an awful shithead.
Trump is up there as worst president of all time. Only president who was worse was Andrew Jackson. If this ICE stuff gets any worse he my become the king of worst presidents.
Andrew Johnson was by far the worst of all time for sabotaging Reconstruction. Basically every problem we have now including Trump/fascism is a direct result of Johnson’s actions.
Johnson didn’t invent racism. Even with Reconstruction proceeding properly, ALL those racists would have still been there, gumming up the works.
They got the three post-war Constitutional Amendments that formed the foundation of Reconstruction, and that was probably the biggest lift.
So Johnson was bad, but not the worst. Until now, the worst were those pre-war presidents like Buchanan that moved America toward Civil War.
Now, however, we have an actual traitor in the office, who is an asset for a hostile foreign enemy, has attempted an Insurrection, stole hundreds of classified documents, is mind-bogglingly and openly corrupt, and is a proven pedophile to boot. There is no doubt that Trump is solidly in last place, and it isn’t even close.
In fact, when he’s finally out, and we find out what was really going on behind the scenes, his last place position will only solidify.
If Reconstruction had proceeded properly, the United States would have hung all of the Confederate officers and government officials and at least pulled up the root of the problems in the South. Johnson allowed them to fester and re-emerge, and we have been living with those problems since.
Not punishing heinous crimes like chattel slavery and violent insurrection is how we get precedent for not punishing even more crimes. Like Ford pardoning Nixon so “the country can heal” and then Reagan using that precedent for Iran-Contra and then Bush using that precedent to steal the 2000 election and commit the US illegally in Iraq etc etc. And now Trump realizing that laws don’t matter at all and doing whatever he wants with impunity. Most of the Supreme Court justices are direct descendants of politics Johnson enabled. Roberts clerked for Rehnquist ffs, an avowed segregationist who wouldn’t have been politically viable if Reconstruction had succeeded.
But would Lincoln have hung all the Confederates? I doubt it. Certainly, some should have swung, like Davis and Lee, but I doubt it would have been as across the board as you suggest. Lincoln’s humanity likely would have prevented it, and he would have put the emphasis on healing, more than punishment.
I grant you, things would have been far different under Lincoln, but the lack of technology would have prevented the Federal government from dealing with many of the same inevitable problems that occured anyway. You can deal with governmental issues in the courts, but when it comes to the ground level, face-to-face interactions between people, in towns and small cities, which is where most of real life exists, especially back then, the authorities were likely to be enthusiastic about supporting racists and racist policies, and the Feds weren’t going to be much help in the best of circumstances. You could Federally squash a problem in one place, but it’s still going on in a thousand other places.
The point is that just saying Reconstruction would have gone perfectly under Lincoln, and prevented all our current problems, is a bit optimistic. I think the systemic racism of the South (and everywhere else), was going to make a fully successful Reconstruction an impossibility.
Getting the three Reconstruction amendments was the important part, because it gave us the legal foundation to constantly chip away at the systemic racism that still exists today.
But yeah, I can fully agree that Johnson was still an awful shithead.
Or James Buchanan for allowing America to devolve into Civil War.