Thread: Republican Presidents: WHo was the Best and who was the Worst?

Lincoln of course was the best. Most will say that Nixon or Hover was the worst. But where do the rest fall? Where do you put Eisnehower? Bush 41? Reagan? Bush 43?

Originally Posted by CONSagainROMNEY

Lincoln of course was the best. Most will say that Nixon or Hover was the worst. But where do the rest fall? Where do you put Eisnehower? Bush 41? Reagan? Bush 43?

Bush I all the way, threatened to cut off support for Israel leading to Oslo accords, actually did cut off support to the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines leading to its downfall. I can't even argue against the Gulf War, despite the financial motivations I wouldn't want to live in a world where Saddam Hussein was occupying Kuwait. His earlier activity as head of the C.I.A was hardly benine though, maybe his presidency redeems him a little. I would say Reagan was the worse for what the C.I.A was getting up to in Central and South America at the time but given famed preference for watching movies over reading his briefings I'm not sure that he can be held culpable for these atrocities.

Originally Posted by Red_Dave

Bush I all the way, threatened to cut off support for Israel leading to Oslo accords, actually did cut off support to the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines leading to its downfall. I can't even argue against the Gulf War, despite the financial motivations I wouldn't want to live in a world where Saddam Hussein was occupying Kuwait. His earlier activity as head of the C.I.A was hardly benine though, maybe his presidency redeems him a little. I would say Reagan was the worse for what the C.I.A was getting up to in Central and South America at the time but given famed preference for watching movies over reading his briefings I'm not sure that he can be held culpable for these atrocities.

Where do you put Lincoln? Eisenhower? Nixon? Bush 43?

I think I have to go with Rutherford B. Hayes. He effectively turned over policies that were designed
to bring former slaves into mainstream American society.
His changes allowed the Democrat party to suppress African American participation is voting and society.
It still surprises me that any African American would ever vote for the party of the KKK (Democrat).

Originally Posted by longview

His changes allowed the Democrat party to suppress African American participation is voting and society.
It still surprises me that any African American would ever vote for the party of the KKK (Democrat).

The "Democrats" of old were more conservative than anything else=Dixiecrat
The Radical Republicans were more liberal..
Simply put you have it in opposite

No it was the democrats who were allowed to pass laws to suppress freed slaves from voting.
Hayes backed off on reconstruction and troops, which had kept the democrats in check.
With no Republican controls, the Democrats passed Jim Crow laws,
Released the Democrat enforcement branch of the party (The KKK).
Basically destroying the policies put into place to help freed slaves enter society.
This continued all the way up to the late 1950s, It's why MLK was a Republican.
Read about Booker T Washington's idea of the Future, it reads like what became of the
Vietnamese refugees.

Originally Posted by CONSagainROMNEY

Lincoln of course was the best. Most will say that Nixon or Hover was the worst. But where do the rest fall? Where do you put Eisnehower? Bush 41? Reagan? Bush 43?

I am a bleeding heart lib, but I didn't mind bush 1. Eisenhower was abetter military man than a president, but I think he was honest. Bush 2 was an idiot, Reagan was an actor and Nixon was certainly corrupt.

Originally Posted by liblady

I am a bleeding heart lib, but I didn't mind bush 1. Eisenhower was abetter military man than a president, but I think he was honest. Bush 2 was an idiot, Reagan was an actor and Nixon was certainly corrupt.

Hiya Liblady, nice to see you back

Originally Posted by longview

It still surprises me that any African American would ever vote for the party of the KKK (Democrat).

I love this stuff, really. After a while it becomes perfectly understandable.

To understand the nature of American political parties, you need to understand that in the long view, they are malleable. The Republican Party in many respects was liberal or radical thanks to the influence of the Free Soil movement at the same time that it had that conservative streak from the Whig influence. The Republican Party slowly lost its feeling of being the party that pushed the boundaries in terms of what was acceptable with regard to Civil Rights and had to a decent extent become identified with the development of corporations rather than the party of the farmer or the worker. Many African Americans kept with the Party due to loyalty at the same time that there was still a decent chunk that were responsive toward their interests. In the first few decades of the 20th century, there were a core group of African Americans that had become disillusioned with the Republican Party for those reasons. Some of those disillusioned still in the end supported the Party, but begrudgingly. Others became involved in populist and socialist movements alongside poor or working class whites, because they felt that both parties were non-responsive toward their plight.

You didn't see much movement into the Democratic Party until the 1930s. By then the temperament against the Republican Party was stronger, but they were still not receiving much attention from the Democratic Party. FDR didn't really court their voting demographics (the efforts were more symbolic and irrelevant than African Americans preferred), but around 1935 with the Social Security Act and the Second New Deal, there was more of a willingness to join that Party. That being said, FDR and Democrats after him did have to deal with the southern Democrats who were not keen on having the African American vote influence the national party platform. Some Democrats were more toward the southern mindset (not to make you believe that somehow segregationist ideals were not in the North), and others were not. Basically 1932 was the last time that the Republican Party could completely take the African American vote for granted. African Americans in many cities became politically important for politicians to carry districts or entire states, and the Democratic Party's platform slowly became crafted to being more in line with the needs or desires of African Americans.

Setting it up this way would help you figure out how one segment of the Democratic Party could be in conflict with another segment through the 1960s.

Best Republican? Although Teddy Roosevelt comes close, I'd have to say R. M. Nixon. From corporate and income tax rates, to the EPA, to universal healthcare, to government price- and wage-controls, he would be on so far to the left of the modern Republican Party, that even the modern Democrats would throw him out of the "big tent" for being a divisive class warrior.