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Let's leave america for a bit: Margaret loving Thatcher. Also pretty much every tinpot dictator ever, from Pinochet to Mobutu.
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Apr 29, 2015 06:06
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it's reagan and every one of you knows it
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Apr 29, 2015 06:18
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You're all wrong. It's George Lucas.
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Apr 29, 2015 06:56
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Just off the top of my head, I'd go with Robert Mugabe.
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Apr 29, 2015 06:57
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I think we can all agree that Richard Nixon was the worst president of Richard Nixon's presidency, perhaps?
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Apr 29, 2015 07:07
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Ratoslov posted:I think we can all agree that Richard Nixon was the worst president of Richard Nixon's presidency, perhaps? Did Nixon ever go in for surgery while Agnew was still around?
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Apr 29, 2015 07:10
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GWB is the only president worse than Nixon and no one had any clue he would be ever a tenth as bad as he was. Nixon was evil but Bush was really as dumb as we all said. Nixon was loving dirty and insane but he was trying his best, Bush just wanted people to smile. He was loving heartbroken when kane west said he didnt like black people on SNL. This guy was the president. We where hosed. He wasn't mentally not smart, he just surrounded by the worst and had a doglike loyalty that was right wingers liked but left wingers found infuriating. He was also a guy from CT aping a southerner in a way that I can not fathom southerners not finding insulting.
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Apr 29, 2015 07:21
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paranoid randroid posted:Nixon was the last human president and its been nothing but reptoids ever since. The man liked to lurk mostly submerged in water like an alligator though.
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Apr 29, 2015 07:50
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MonsieurChoc posted:Let's leave america for a bit: Margaret loving Thatcher. Worst Anglo leader still surely goes to James II. I mean, in terms not of being evil, but being a terrible leader.
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Apr 29, 2015 08:01
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Ego-bot posted:Just off the top of my head, I'd go with Robert Mugabe. Don't blame Mugabe, blame Xi Jinping for propping him up and forcing ethnic cleansings in Rhodesia.
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Apr 29, 2015 10:05
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For reals though James Buchanan was a bad president.
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Apr 29, 2015 11:14
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My Imaginary GF posted:Don't blame Mugabe, blame Xi Jinping for propping him up and forcing ethnic cleansings in Rhodesia. Does this have anything to do with the last 15 years in Zimbabwe?
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Apr 29, 2015 11:43
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His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
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Apr 29, 2015 11:48
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If we aren't just talking US presidents, then maybe look to Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. This guy decided he didn't think HIV and AIDS were linked, saying basically that poverty causes HIV and that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. He banned anti-retrovirals in the country, and as a result something like 300,000 cases of AIDS that could have been managed with the drugs lead to death and increased rates of transmission/infection instead. Now if it is US presidents, the answer is Andrew Jackson, for the Indian Removal Act, the spoils system, and killing people in duels during his presidency. This guy paid off the entire US national debt and still managed to nosedive the economy into a depression. I could go on and on.
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Apr 29, 2015 11:54
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eSports Chaebol posted:Worst Anglo leader still surely goes to James II. I mean, in terms not of being evil, but being a terrible leader. Well, yeah. The problem with Worst Leader of All Time is that the competition is really, really fierce. I mean, just going by American Presidents, everybody seems to have forgotten Jefferson Davis.
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Apr 29, 2015 12:08
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Bolow posted:Carter? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Jimmy_Carter#Indonesian_occupation_of_East_Timor http://www.csusmhistory.org/atkin008/plea-to-carter-response-from-reagan/
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Apr 29, 2015 13:28
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1.Andrew Johnson: Completely squandered the victory in the Civil War by being an unrepentant scumbag white supremacist motherfucker. Just imagine how different the country would be today if staunch anti-slavery Union man Hannibal Hamlin had been President after Lincoln. Don't think about it too long or you'll get depressed and want to drink poison. Seriously, Andrew Johnson is the worst and it's not particularly close. 2.George W. Bush: Just take a look at the state of the U.S. the day he took office and the day he left office. At peace + surplus + leader of the world to bogged down in multiple lovely quagmires + huge deficits due to insane tax cuts during said wars + international pariah clearly guilty of torture and other war crimes. What a loving disaster. Historians of the future will be brutal. 3.Ronald Reagan: Chief Warden of the Prison Planet, patron saint of current "NO TAXES EVER" insanity as well as all other right-wing nonsense based on theory and not reality, King of Deficit Spending, appointer of utter scum like Ed Meese and Bill Bennett. A near-literal monster in every sense of the word. Death squads and handing weapons to terrorists somehow don't top "He restored America's spiritz!!!" 4.James Buchanan: Total garbage but a tiny bit better than the top 3. Doughface piece of poo poo who couldn't fellate slaveowning scum hard enough as President. Compared to these 4 worthless motherfuckers Nixon might as well be George Washington.
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Apr 29, 2015 13:39
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I'm going with Francisco Solano López of Paraguay, who started a war that got 70% of his country's adult male population killed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War My vote for worst president goes to either Buchanan or Reagan.
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Apr 29, 2015 15:40
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Nixon was practically a socialist, apart from the whole racist war criminal thing. Ford wasn't much further to the right, and I believe he would've gone down as a very good President had he been re-elected. Jimmy Carter though can go gently caress himself. He countered the rise in unemployment in the late 1970s by doing absolutely gently caress all. His foreign policy was utter shite as well, judging by the business with the Shah. Worst of all, he was so loving bad at his job that he let Reagan into the White House. He is part of the reason that the Bushes and Clinton were elected. Similarly, the Labour Party, lead by James Callaghan in a minority government, hosed up by not calling for an election in 1978 before the Winter of Discontent. If Labour had regained a majority, they wouldn't have been forced out by a vote of no confidence after the Scottish Assembly referendum failed in 1979, they wouldn't have lost to the Tories under Thatcher and they wouldn't have been out of power for 18 years. If Ford had been elected over Carter, and if Callaghan had called an election in 1978 and won, then we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in now. Yes, neoliberalism would still come to dominate economic discourse, but it wouldn't have happened so quickly or effectively. Venomous fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 16:15
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Also,  at the failure of the Lecompton Constitution. Pierce can also get hosed for provoking Bloody Kansas.
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Apr 29, 2015 16:19
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JonathonSpectre posted:Seriously, Andrew Johnson is the worst and it's not particularly close.
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Apr 29, 2015 16:29
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to be fair, he also got the US out of the mess JFK started in Vietnam, and opened relations with China better president than Obama and Dubya, probably ninotoreS fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 17:46
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ninotoreS posted:to be fair, he also got the US out of the mess JFK started in Vietnam, and opened relations with China Ike started the US's commitment in Vietnam, so I think he's at least as culpable. But really the French are to blame, and gently caress those guys for it.
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Apr 29, 2015 17:48
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If we're talking worst prez, it's hard to beat Andrew "literally committed genocide" Jackson
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Apr 29, 2015 17:53
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JonathonSpectre posted:Ronald Reagan is the devil omg didn't he inherit a terrible recession and more or less fixed it by the end of his 8 years, handing Bush Sr. and Bill those nice economies? and didn't he manage to generally work well and get things done with a congress controlled by the opposition? that in particular seems like an impossible feat these days i know there's plenty of bad to mention too, but it still seems like there's enough positives to keep him off the top-5 worst list i mean there's been some really lovely presidents ninotoreS fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 18:06
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Reagan's legacy has been thoroughly edited by conservative sycophants to remove the compromise positions (like ending the recession by stimulating demand with massive federal government spending) so their messiah can be pure.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:13
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By worst do we mean the worst at achieving what they want to, or they want to achieve the worst things? Like Johnson and Grant both undermined reconstruction, but Johnson wanted too while Grant was too drunk to care.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:24
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Grant lobbied for ratification of the 15th amendment. Grant attacked the KKK relentlessly (and probably unconstitutionally) and destroyed it as a significant organization until the 1920's. Grant stationed Federal troops throughout the South to enforce the rights of freed slaves. The President that hosed up reconstruction was Andrew Johnson. That's why he is literally the worst. By the time Grant was in office, Johnson had pardoned the majority of rich confederates and returned their plantations to them. The opportunity for radical change in the South (40 acres and a mule) was well past. Grant was an ineffective politician as well, but he was a far better guarantor of the rights of freedmen than the presidents which came before and after him.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:36
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Atrocious Joe posted:By worst do we mean the worst at achieving what they want to, or they want to achieve the worst things? Only not? Grant was actually really effective at implementing reconstruction and was only thought of as an incompetent president because of southern revisionism and it was the loving gilded age when everyone was corrupt as gently caress. I mean he wasn't a great president but he wasn't a bad one either.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:37
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Nixon was petty, vindictive, paranoid and shady but he did enough good to not be the worst.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:07
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ninotoreS posted:didn't he inherit a terrible recession and more or less fixed it by the end of his 8 years, handing Bush Sr. and Bill those nice economies? and didn't he manage to generally work well and get things done with a congress controlled by the opposition? that in particular seems like an impossible feat these days He did this primarily by continuing Carter's neoliberal shock therapy to its conclusion. hosed up but true.
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Apr 29, 2015 20:51
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Looking at just US presidents: -Hoover -Andrew Johnson -Franklin Pierce -GWB e: oh gently caress I forgot Harding. Good thing history did too because Nixon's not even the most corrupt lol were all much worse than Nixon in no particular order. If we're looking at the rest of the world there are probably a hundred leaders worse than him before you even hit Y2K from the other direction. ninotoreS posted:didn't he inherit a terrible recession and more or less fixed it by the end of his 8 years, handing Bush Sr. and Bill those nice economies? and didn't he manage to generally work well and get things done with a congress controlled by the opposition? that in particular seems like an impossible feat these days Yeah, let's face it, when Andrew Jackson is arguably top half it's sort of hard to put Reagan too far down the list. Adar fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 20:53
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To add to everything else, Nixon's rapproachment doctrine towards the USSR and China was a significant force for peace, and set the stage for the Soviet Union's fall later on. I actually quite like Nixon. He was a flawed man, but he strikes me as very much a pragmatist.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:02
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Nixon slaughtered at least a million human beings just to hold power as President.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:15
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El Scotch posted:Nixon was petty, vindictive, paranoid and shady but he did enough good to not be the worst. He was reptilian, but at least had some interest in governing. Which is more than you can say about a lot of politicians.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:16
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paranoid randroid posted:He was reptilian, but at least had some interest in governing. Which is more than you can say about a lot of politicians. He would literally be the best Russian leader since, idk, Alexander II? Does Chernenko count here?
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Apr 29, 2015 21:18
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Valhawk posted:He did set up the EPA and helped the Clean Air Act and OSHA get passed. He also ended practices of forced assimilation and restored some Indian nations' tribal autonomy. The Native Americans generally view him relatively positively for ending the Indian termination. Also his "obsession" with China gave us the biggest détente of the Cold War. The outsourcing of American manufacturing comes from rigged trade deals set up to benefit Western multinational corporations, not lack of xenophobia.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:27
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Mind you he was also so loving crazy that Henry Kissinger of all people had to tell him to reel it in on more than one occasion.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:29
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Adar posted:-Hoover As President Hoover was slow to respond to the Depression but did eventually expand the federal government to deal with the crisis. He was particularly effective at laying a groundwork for later New Deal policies in agriculture and those related to the federal reserve. Not saying Hoover should be seen as a great President, but he wasn't a bad one.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:47
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AdvancesMONKEY posted:GWB is the only president worse than Nixon and no one had any clue he would be ever a tenth as bad as he was. Nixon was evil but Bush was really as dumb as we all said. Nixon was loving dirty and insane but he was trying his best, Bush just wanted people to smile. He was loving heartbroken when kane west said he didnt like black people on SNL. This guy was the president. We where hosed. He wasn't mentally not smart, he just surrounded by the worst and had a doglike loyalty that was right wingers liked but left wingers found infuriating. Bush was actually the voice of reason in many cabinet meetings. He frequently shot down Darth Cheney and Paul "Adolf" Wolfowitz's crazier ideas. The whole dumb redneck thing was mostly an act. Not to say he wasn't a right-wing warmongering Jesus freak but there were many people in his administration who were much worse than he was. It wasn't just his accent that was constructed (and as a southerner I can confirm that rednecks ate that poo poo up) but his entire persona. Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 22:44
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