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.)

@SecondJon
Sure it's measurable. Count the fact-checks of his statements that comprise ignorance, lies, or confusion. Trump has the most, hands down.

Count the number of psychologists that have questioned a President's competence. No President has ever had as many as Trump.

@sda @SecondJon @freemo @snow

I can accept that you don't like Trump, and there can be many rational reasons for it, but my suspension of disbelief is ruined with this type of hyperbole.

He's worse than Bush, who started multi trillion dollar endless wars in the middle East? Worse than Lincoln leading the nation into a war resulting in nearly a million deaths and >2% of the population dead? Worse than Lyndon B. Johnson dragging us into Vietnam?

Because you don't like his tweets?

Bullshit.

@AtlasFreeman @sda @SecondJon @freemo @snow

Let's go back to the original claim that Trump lies a lot. Here's some stats with attributed quotes. I don't know how to say if he's "worst"... I don't hear a lot of Chester A. Arthur fans out there. I guess he could be doing some amazing things for our country, but this doesn't excuse him from having a loose relationship with the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3

@nothingplanet
I'm as shocked as you are to discover that a politician isn't the epitome of honesty.

I've read through a number of "false and misleading claims" at the link you shared, and it's things like : he's cherry picking numbers, he's generalizing, he's staying numbers that China hasn't yet confirmed, his "almost this number" is rounding up....

When this is what's being reported on, it's hard to take it seriously. However, I do wonder how this compares to how they tracked previous presidents. Do they have a site like this where they documented every time previous presidents rounded up numbers, exaggerated, took things out of context? When judging Trump against all other presidents in history, we'd want an even comparison.

@snow @AtlasFreeman @freemo @sda

@SecondJon @snow @AtlasFreeman @freemo @sda

I’m as shocked as you are to discover that a politician isn’t the epitome of honesty.

I’m not shocked at all.

Let me give you some background thoughts on this. I’m not seeking to compare Trump to anyone.

Going way back to the run up to the election, I remember the first time I heard “MAGA”. I was floored by the messaging in there. If we unpack it, we have a few separate pieces. First, the fact that America had greatness. Second, the fact that we don’t have it anymore. Thirdly, the fact that we should make it great again. I thought this was really on point.

America has some things that we do near best when compared to all other countries. For example, our culture is pretty strong. American music and TV is very popular around the world. That’s a big win. However, we have some things we don’t do to well and I think it bears to give those things proper recognition so we can be proud to be the best in the world.

Now, the president doesn’t have absolute power, but a lot of people make decisions based on what he says and does. To me, for a president to be most effective, he should provide accurate information to the best of his ability so the rest of us can make the best decisions we can.

To pick on one example:

JUN 29 2019 “At least a million [U.S.] jobs are created by the purchases made by Saudi Arabia.”

According to the page he has said something along these lines 10 times. The rebuttal says:

He is both exaggerating the number of jobs that would be created even if all of the $110 billion in purported sales were actually inked — and misleading about where they would be created. Many would end up in Saudi Arabia.

Now, a quote like this has the effect of making us believe we have more jobs than we really do, and it also has the effect of somewhat justifying our partnership with Saudi Arabia, despite some of their questionable un-American practices.

I’d rather see REAL numbers on the impact that they have on our economy. I would assume Trump has advisers at hand that could give him the actual figures. So, the question is, is this a deliberate exaggeration or was he provided bad information? There are a few other quotes regarding Saudi Arabia and jobs, most of which seem to be inaccurate.

Now, if the president either believes or represents that Saudi Arabia provides a million jobs to our economy, and if they do not, that means there is a million American jobs that don’t really exist. This also means that we won’t take any measures to address this.

What I would have preferred to see is Trump recognize that the Saudis don’t provide that many jobs. Maybe he could restructure the deal with the Saudis so the manufacturing must occur in the US, or somehow apply some of the monies gained to job retraining or employment programs.

This was kind of a long-winded example, but my main point is, if the president provides us with information that is not true, whether due to an innocent mistake or not, it has serious downstream effects not only on what the populace believes, but also on some federal policies. If he’s deliberately lying, I don’t have a clean solution, but if he is being fed bad data by his advisers maybe they can add additional staff to make sure he is getting true information.

I believe a nation is the most effective when it believes the most true things. If we all have a true picture of what is going on with jobs, the economy, healthcare care, etc. we can make proper decisions. If we have information that is incorrect, we might be worrying about the wrong things or even hurting ourselves.

I wish that fact-checking page was available for all our current presidential candidates and I hope it is present for whomever is our new president next term. It is important to me that all Americans have the absolute best information available regarding the state of our country.

I agree 100% with Trump on the need to make America great again and I believe the way we get there is by knowing ourselves better and by knowing the enemy better. Let’s recognize where America is best of breed and let’s figure out where we are weak so we can shore up areas that need some help.

@nothingplanet

I originally started this thread by saying Trump was the worst politician in US history. I stand by that. But I also think that most polticians weve seen in the past decade are a close second.. Obama, Bush, they are all a very close second.

So is it common for politicians to lie, yes it is... So what? ?Just because other politicians lie almost as much (and are almost as bad) doesnt really change anything, doesnt make Trump any less horrific.

@snow @AtlasFreeman @sda @SecondJon

@freemo @snow @AtlasFreeman @sda @SecondJon I don't care about other politicians. For all I know Trump is the most truthful we have ever seen.

I have provided a long list of either deliberate lies or innocent mistakes. For us to make America great again, let's cut out the mistakes and give our fellow citizens the best information we can.

If all the other politicians are filthy liars, let us rise up above them instead of using them as an excuse to spread information that is inaccurate.