2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumQuestion for Bernie supporters..
Who in your mind was the best President in YOUR life time? Name one. One great president you were old enough to vote for.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)bvf
(6,604 posts)edgineered
(2,101 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)Jennylynn
(696 posts)virtualobserver
(8,760 posts)1980 was my first election.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Greatest president of my lifetime.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,693 posts)There have been a couple of good ones, though: Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Neither was liberal enough for me but they are both good people who did some good things.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)SMC22307
(8,090 posts)Response to The Velveteen Ocelot (Reply #7)
TM99 This message was self-deleted by its author.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)n/t
Ned_Devine
(3,146 posts)Response to fun n serious (Original post)
artislife This message was self-deleted by its author.
fun n serious
(4,451 posts)I was starting to think y'all hated all presidents.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)SwampG8r
(10,287 posts)I would think reagan.
But thats only my opinion and i could be wrong.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)marlakay
(11,468 posts)I also like Obama but feel he could have done more and was influenced not to try.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)chknltl
(10,558 posts)I thought about saying President Lincoln but you specifically stated POTUSes that we voted for and I am fairly sure that I have never voted for a Republican President.
Databuser
(58 posts)No question about it
fun n serious
(4,451 posts)Clinton and Obama.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)fucked up in East Timor and Afghanistan, and was pretty much a lame duck because he thoroughly alienated congress.
Didn't he also support unfettered trade with China?
How soon we forget. I would say, all in all, it has to be Obama. Considering he had only 5 months of a Dem majority, he has done pretty darned well for us.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)None have been great.
highprincipleswork
(3,111 posts)Hillary.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Best one I've voted for, also I would argue the best one, in terms of aggregate positive impact during his entire tenure, in my entire life, and that includes Carter.
Doesn't mean I've agreed with the guy 100% of the time or even not been disappointed by him.
Frankly, something I wish we ALL would talk about more is how we had that majority going into 2009-10 and we had a window under which we could get a LOT of shit done; and yes, we got the ACA (without the public option, but still an accomplishment) but that was preceded by a fully and totally unnecessary year of endless dithering and dicking around with "town halls"
We spent a full year where we could have taken care of a whole laundry list of things, and instead we just gave an excuse for every yahoo with a tricorner hat to be shown yelling on C-SPAN.
What was up with that?
LibDemAlways
(15,139 posts)my lifetime, JFK.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Unfortunately, we haven't had any president who measured up to him since.
Johnson was good on some of the domestic policy, but I have my doubts about how much he knew and did not tell about the assassination of Kennedy. Carter had some wonderful qualities.
At the time of Bill Clinton's presidency, I believed he was good. But since then I have learned so much about things he did and bills he signed that have seriously harmed our country and in addition I have learned so much about the damage done by the issues and causes he did not pursue, that I have changed my mind and believe he was not a good president, not at all.
I simply learned a lot about him and watched our country failing thanks to bills he signed. Of course, the Republican presidents were worse.
I am a Bernie supporter. I hope we can get our financial sector into a realistic relationship with the economy of the rest of our country, make better headway on saving our environment and educate our children without bankrupting them from the get-go while still caring for the vulnerable and the elderly.
Clinton was useless when it comes to having the vision to understand what we needed in terms of domestic policy in the 1990s.
Hillary is even worse in this respect. She lacks vision.
CobaltBlue
(1,122 posts)fun n serious
(4,451 posts)CobaltBlue
(1,122 posts)fun n serious
(4,451 posts)highprincipleswork
(3,111 posts)rule. That's back when we were Progressive, after FDR paved the way.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)I was optimistic when Carter won, but he spent four years spinning his wheels trying to get a handle on what he was doing. Carter was president when I got married and our first child was born. Runaway inflation made it a miserable time to start a family. He gets a C-. I like Carter personally and wish he had done better.
I was optimistic when Bill Clinton won, but was disappointed when at the end of his eight years he failed to reverse the middle class squeeze that became epidemic under Reagan and Bush the Preppy. Clinton at slowed down the rate of the increase in the income gap, so I will award him the best president of my lifetime, in spite of pursuing a basically Republican policy that featured a disastrous trade agreement (NAFTA) and an equally disastrous deregulation of finance industry that set the stage for the crash of 2008. While Reagan and Bush the Preppy each get a D-, Bill Clinton gets a C.
Bush the Frat Boy served two full terms as president despite never being elected to either. He began two wars, one premised on a pack of lies and allowed large amounts of funds to AWOL in one them; he pushed upper class tax cuts that were supposed to create jobs and growth, but produced the opposite and capped off his his tenure in the White House with the global market crash of 2008, although much of that was caused by Clinton's unwise deregulation of Wall Street, as already noted. Nevertheless, the Frat Boy either didn't see it coming or just had no will to do anything to stop it. This led to the TARP program in which crooked Wall Street banks were bailed out, the last big heist of the Bush administration. The Frat Boy gets an F.
I was utterly giddy about the election of Obama, who promised national health insurance, the end of the Iraq War, to employ a less`belligerent foreign policy and restore lost civil liberties at home. His healthcare package was a big improvement over the largely privatized system that preceded did not include a public option and let millions to remain uninsured. Spying on American citizens by the NSA began during the Frat Boy's tenure and Obama continued it without apologies. He got us out of Iraq, but then started us well on a primrose path back. He will pass to his successor the war in Afghanistan, which he also inherited from Bush the Frat Boy. His goal of a less belligerent foreign policy has similarly mixed results. Obama's greatest success has been due to his preference for negotiating with adversaries as opposed to simply going to war as a first option. The best example of this is the nucl;ear deal with Iran. On the other hand, Obama continues belligerent action in the world's trouble spots with drone strikes that have a high likelihood of creating a great deal of collateral damage. Otherwise, upon taking office, Obama failed to prosecute Bush administration war criminals or Wall Street criminals who nearly destroyed the world economy. Although Wall Street fraud continues, Obama's justice department has only levied fines to punish the banks for their misbehavior and failed to bring any criminal case against any crooked bank executive.. To date, this has failed to abate Wall Street fraud. Finally, Obama has continued negotiating free trade deals that hurt American workers and make it easier for corporations to avoid taxes and bring cases against governments challenging their right to mandate limits on pollution or occupational safety and health standards. Obama's legacy will look a lot better if the three remaining trade pacts he has in the queue fail to pass Congress. Obama gets a C-.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)this is the way to drive young voters away from the Democratic Party. Sanders' supporters are the future of the party, whether you like it or not. Sanders' message is the future of the party, whether you like it or not. One Sanders' supporter will be the best president in our lifetime, and you had better hope to live to see it, even if you did everything to prevent reasonable policies from becoming law.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)I turned 18 in 1997. I can't say he was great...in a lot of senses, he's been a disappointment. the thing I wanted most from him was the utter crushing end of the Clinton wing of the party.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)After this election Bernie!