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Originally posted by King Maxx
Talking about presidents in the 1700-1800s is quite different. The country was different. Presidents then were Generals, etc. Yeah some were worst than others when it came to the economy, but in y'all cases then I guess the first 35 presidents were bad.
The country then favored slavery, war, nationalism, etc. So you have to critiqued them by how the mindset of the country was at the time. George Bush is simply ONE of the worst because when he took office, Bill Clinton had gotten us into a surplus and when he left office we were a Great Recession, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression!
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You're still not seeing context.
In the first half of American history. People knew slavery was wrong, they founding fathers wanted to abolish it. But doing so would cause the country to fall apart, and they thought it would be wrong to abolish it too quickly because the slaves would have nothing to do as no one would higher them, and they lacked education.
The country didn't favor slavery, they didn't know what to replace it with. Industrialization was what truly killed slavery as an institution, as it's very inefficient. Lincoln is constantly seen as one of the best because he held the country or tried to during its darkest moments.
Clinton happened to be at the right place at the right time. The surplus happened because of the tech boom. In case you didn't know the periods between 1972-1980s were full of recessions brought on by oil crisis, the growth of foreign markets and so on. Jimmy Carter was considered bad because he couldn't fix the economy. While Reagan was considered good because he supposedly fixed things when in fact he made things worse for the poor and non-whites. Had Clinton came after the dot come bust he would be as hated as Bush.
Also the recession was not because of Bush. But because of the policies of the presidents before him. Such as Reagan and Clinton.
