4 ms·

We haven't had a good president in my lifetime. (40+ years) My original post isn't a condemnation of a party, it's a condemnation of both parties working toget

by yareal 3y ago

We haven't had a good president in my lifetime. (40+ years) My original post isn't a condemnation of a party, it's a condemnation of both parties working together to line their pockets while the ship sinks.

vundercind 3y ago
Oh, total agreement. Even Obama was pretty damn bad (gonna end those pointless, expensive wars that’re still killing people? No? Just… gonna keep doing that for some reason? Huh, weird choice, but ok. Could we at least close Guantanamo like you said you would? Also no? Ok well I guess at least we helped destabilize the Maghreb for no reason, great, love that, oh and look you’ve intervened in Syria juuuuust enough to keep it going but not enough to end it the way we’d prefer, causing untold misery, how very hopeful!) Carter’s the last one who might have been good, but was dealt a shit hand and then had dirty tricks at America and Americans’ expense played against him by his reelection opponent, so, hard to say if he’d have turned it around and become effective. Wasn’t effective with the years he did have, though.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Obama tried to close Guantanamo but couldn’t get Congress to go along with it. Presidents in the USA don’t have total power, it’s not like China where Xi gets an almost one hundred percent vote on all his plans. A lot of the things going on that America gets involved with just have bad and worse solutions, if you get the job you either have to make those bad decisions (because the other ones are worse) or just go isolationist (the world still burns, it’s just not the USA’s fault anymore).
  - vundercind 3y ago
    There’s zero chance he couldn’t have shut it down. Military installation. C in C. He could have found a way and it wouldn’t even have taken much effort. He just wanted the political cover of consent from congress and chickened out when he couldn’t get it.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      From what I remember, Congress refused to let the prisoners be kept on the mainland, so ya, Obama could shut it down but then what? We’ve already released or sent to prisons in other countries, what we can, but there are some weird edge cases (30) that need congressional authorization to deal with. In many cases the USA can’t even send these people back to their home countries (eg Uighurs and China), so the only option would be to let them settle in the USA as refugees. A lot of people are really against that.
      - vundercind 3y ago
        I tend to agree with analyses that factor in the relative weakness of the US executive on some fronts, but in this case it’s a situation AFAI recall entirely created by the executive. Novel and probably very fucking illegal classification for the prisoners? An executive invention. Decision to put them where they are now? Executive. Operational control of that facility? It’s military, so, executive. Decision not to move forward with (if nothing else) military trials in all cases, and just hold some of them indefinitely? Executive. How could it not be possible for the executive to undo a situation that was 100% its creation? Fact is, there was no actual will to follow through, and probably never was an intention to try very hard to begin with. [edit] it wouldn’t bother me much except 1) he said he’d do it, already well aware of the challenges and kinds of push-back he’d see, then didn’t do more than try one weak-sauce approach that let him pass the buck and shrug; cowardly as hell, and 2) it was probably the least messy part of the Bush-era disaster to untangle, as far as military and international affairs go (not forgetting the economic crash), and he couldn’t even do that much. If he’d made good progress on the other, worse parts, I’d probably entirely excuse this failure, but he didn’t.
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        They are definitely executive inventions. The problem is that Obama didn’t invent those, he inherited a mess from the last guy. Yes this could have all been avoided by simply not keeping people in Guantanamo. But yes, if Obama couldn’t untangle the least messy part of Bush, he didn’t have much hope of untangling the messier parts of bush, which didn’t happen either. The whole Bush legacy is just one train wreck after another that are still haunting us. I shudder to think what damage Trump could have done if he was as competent in his execution as Bush. We are (mostly) computer scientists, and should realize that reversing something isn’t always feasible with the same amount of energy, or even any amount of energy. Some things are just broken and are going to stay that way (well, the prisoners will eventually age out).
  - sitkack 3y ago
    Hard nope on this. Obama trying was performative, he didn't try very hard. Lets keep the discussion to US presidents and their power, talking about what Xi can do isn't germane.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      The point is to compare an executive with absolute power, to an executive who has to share it with two other branches. It isn’t a what aboutism, the president can’t just unilaterally make decisions that fall out of the purview of executive orders, and even executive orders are really fragile.
      - sitkack 3y ago
        No but they can try harder, not make a shitty performative effort and then move on. That is exactly what Obama did on Guantanamo, the single largest abhorrent stain on what it means to be an American. An extra-legal torture base in Cuba makes us all murderous hypocrites. This is on Trump and Biden as well. Obama deserves the heat because that is what we hired him for. At this point we aren't letting the tortured out because of our embarrassment. Executive Orders are the bondo of American democracy. Obama was a bad president.
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by yareal 3y ago

vundercind 3y ago

Oh, total agreement. Even Obama was pretty damn bad (gonna end those pointless, expensive wars that’re still killing people? No? Just… gonna keep doing that for some reason? Huh, weird choice, but ok. Could we at least close Guantanamo like you said you would? Also no? Ok well I guess at least we helped destabilize the Maghreb for no reason, great, love that, oh and look you’ve intervened in Syria juuuuust enough to keep it going but not enough to end it the way we’d prefer, causing untold misery, how very hopeful!) Carter’s the last one who might have been good, but was dealt a shit hand and then had dirty tricks at America and Americans’ expense played against him by his reelection opponent, so, hard to say if he’d have turned it around and become effective. Wasn’t effective with the years he did have, though.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Obama tried to close Guantanamo but couldn’t get Congress to go along with it. Presidents in the USA don’t have total power, it’s not like China where Xi gets an almost one hundred percent vote on all his plans. A lot of the things going on that America gets involved with just have bad and worse solutions, if you get the job you either have to make those bad decisions (because the other ones are worse) or just go isolationist (the world still burns, it’s just not the USA’s fault anymore).
- vundercind 3y ago
  There’s zero chance he couldn’t have shut it down. Military installation. C in C. He could have found a way and it wouldn’t even have taken much effort. He just wanted the political cover of consent from congress and chickened out when he couldn’t get it.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    From what I remember, Congress refused to let the prisoners be kept on the mainland, so ya, Obama could shut it down but then what? We’ve already released or sent to prisons in other countries, what we can, but there are some weird edge cases (30) that need congressional authorization to deal with. In many cases the USA can’t even send these people back to their home countries (eg Uighurs and China), so the only option would be to let them settle in the USA as refugees. A lot of people are really against that.
    - vundercind 3y ago
      I tend to agree with analyses that factor in the relative weakness of the US executive on some fronts, but in this case it’s a situation AFAI recall entirely created by the executive. Novel and probably very fucking illegal classification for the prisoners? An executive invention. Decision to put them where they are now? Executive. Operational control of that facility? It’s military, so, executive. Decision not to move forward with (if nothing else) military trials in all cases, and just hold some of them indefinitely? Executive. How could it not be possible for the executive to undo a situation that was 100% its creation? Fact is, there was no actual will to follow through, and probably never was an intention to try very hard to begin with. [edit] it wouldn’t bother me much except 1) he said he’d do it, already well aware of the challenges and kinds of push-back he’d see, then didn’t do more than try one weak-sauce approach that let him pass the buck and shrug; cowardly as hell, and 2) it was probably the least messy part of the Bush-era disaster to untangle, as far as military and international affairs go (not forgetting the economic crash), and he couldn’t even do that much. If he’d made good progress on the other, worse parts, I’d probably entirely excuse this failure, but he didn’t.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        They are definitely executive inventions. The problem is that Obama didn’t invent those, he inherited a mess from the last guy. Yes this could have all been avoided by simply not keeping people in Guantanamo. But yes, if Obama couldn’t untangle the least messy part of Bush, he didn’t have much hope of untangling the messier parts of bush, which didn’t happen either. The whole Bush legacy is just one train wreck after another that are still haunting us. I shudder to think what damage Trump could have done if he was as competent in his execution as Bush. We are (mostly) computer scientists, and should realize that reversing something isn’t always feasible with the same amount of energy, or even any amount of energy. Some things are just broken and are going to stay that way (well, the prisoners will eventually age out).
- sitkack 3y ago
  Hard nope on this. Obama trying was performative, he didn't try very hard. Lets keep the discussion to US presidents and their power, talking about what Xi can do isn't germane.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    The point is to compare an executive with absolute power, to an executive who has to share it with two other branches. It isn’t a what aboutism, the president can’t just unilaterally make decisions that fall out of the purview of executive orders, and even executive orders are really fragile.
    - sitkack 3y ago
      No but they can try harder, not make a shitty performative effort and then move on. That is exactly what Obama did on Guantanamo, the single largest abhorrent stain on what it means to be an American. An extra-legal torture base in Cuba makes us all murderous hypocrites. This is on Trump and Biden as well. Obama deserves the heat because that is what we hired him for. At this point we aren't letting the tortured out because of our embarrassment. Executive Orders are the bondo of American democracy. Obama was a bad president.
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