I read comments on #qoto recently that Trump is the Worst President Ever. Are there objective measures that can be used in such a claim? Or is it more meaning something more : of everyone who is president of the USA in 2020, he's my least favorite?
(Sometimes it's hard to tell if the level of political commentary is like my 3 year old declaring it's the Worst Day Ever when she can't get a third serving of ice cream.)
@sno @freemo @sda
I would have thought that economy, jobs, starting international conflicts, deaths of the country's soldiers, harmful legislation, tax rates the debt, wages, etc., would have mattered more as objective measures of a nation's leaders.
But I have a feeling those measures would make him look better than most presidents (except perhaps debt where he's following the same pattern as his predecessors?), and we have a hard time looking at those measures objectively because we have a negative opinion of him personally.
It's like...what if everything was going well in the Star Wars universe than you found out that Jabba the Hut was the one in charge. It would be hard to mentally reconcile those two things.
I also wonder... The worst president OF ALL TIME? How well do you know EVERY other president enough to make that call? I think : "worst of my experience" would probably be better. Or maybe "worst since I started caring about politics"... Worst of my lifetime assumes I have a good understanding of who was president when I was a toddler. I'm not close to being a presidential history scholar, so I'm not qualified to make the statement myself.
This doesn't need to be a long or serious thread. I guess I'm just weary at the hyperbole and extremeness of our ongoing political talk. Politicians talk that way. We don't need to.
@SecondJon
Well yes and no. Those factors are part of the subjective measure of who is "worse", which of course calls on many factors including objective measures such as those.
But largely a president doesnt have a very strong influence on those factors despite popular beleive. The congress has a far more significant effect in that regard.
As such there is far too much nuance than to simply look at measures like that and naively attribute them to the president.
@sda