path: root/_posts/2021-02-15-every-president-sucked.md

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title: Every President Sucked
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(Not exhaustive; based on cursory readings of parts of [Wikipedia articles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Presidencies_of_the_United_States).)

Washington thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Adams signed the [Alien and Sedition Acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts), which were xenophobic and authoritarian.

Jefferson thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Madison thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Monroe thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Quincy Adams thought partisanship could be solved by appointing his enemies to office (but aside from that he seems pretty decent).

Jackson thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property, and was extremely enthusiastic about Native American genocide.

Van Buren thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Harrison thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Tyler thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Polk thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Taylor thought it was morally acceptable to own human beings as property.

Fillmore signed the Compromise of 1850, which had numerous elements which propagated slavery, and wound up attached to the Know-Nothing Party.

Pierce supported the illegitimate pro-slavery government of the Kansas Territory.

Buchanan encouraged the Supreme Court's decision in *Dred Scott v Sandford* that the Constitution does not apply to Black people.

Lincoln
- ran on a platform of allowing slavery to continue in the states where it already existed
- reversed Frémont's emancipation order in Missouri in the early months of the Civil War
- rejected the Radical Republicans' pressure to immediately and uncompromisingly abolish slavery 
- suppressed a Native American uprising 
- was generally a moderate on issues where moderation is unacceptable.

Johnson
- opposed federal protections for voting rights of former slaves
- undermined the work of the Freedmen's Bureau
- vetoed civil rights protections
- generally did everything he could to fuck up Reconstruction.

Grant
- gave amnesty to former Confederates that allowed them to hold government office
- signed the Comstock Act which suppressed both educational and erotic speech about sex
- appointed zero Native Americans to the Board of Indian Commissioners
- approved of the erasure of Native culture
- started treating Native tribes as subordinate to the US instead of independent and sovereign

Hayes
- sent the military in to suppress strikes
- continued Grant's cultural assimilation of Native Americans
- opened the door for immigration restrictions based on country of origin

Garfield
- felt gross about racial political equality
- fucking died lmfao get rekt

Arthur
- restricted immigration in some racist & ableist ways
- gave us the "public charge rule" that's used to deny immigration rights to people who might rely on welfare
- strengthened federal territory polygamy bans (fuck the Mormons, but like. my polyamorous ass would prefer to have my options open)
- opened up Native American reservations to settlers

Cleveland
- fucked up the linear timeline of presidents
- vetoed a bunch of welfare
- didn't enforce civil rights protections
- fucked over Chinese immigrants
- approached relationship with Native Americans as guardianship, not diplomacy
- sent in the military to break up a railroad strike, killing 30 people
- approved of the Supreme Court's "separate but equal" decision in Plessy v Ferguson

Harrison
- didn't do anything about the Wounded Knee Massacre
- opened more Native American land to settlers
- tried to annex Hawaii, backed a coup against the queen, recognized the illegitimate government

McKinley
- didn't bother enforcing antitrust laws
- didn't bother opposing Jim Crow laws
- finished the annexation of Hawaii
- fucked everything up after kicking Spain's ass in the Spanish-American War:
  - ignored the independent government in Cuba, set up a military government instead
  - went to war with the independent government in the Philippines, sent Taft to take over
  - set up military governments in Puerto Rico and Guam, left them with "unincorporated territory" status so people who live there don't have full constitutional rights
- generally an imperialist dipshit
- lmao Czołgosz got his ass, pour one out for a real one

Roosevelt
- didn't really do much good for civil rights
- more imperialism
- shenanigans around the construction of the Panama Canal
- more racist immigration bullshit

Taft
- caved to racists demanding positions be filled with white people
- more racist immigration bullshit
- fuckery in Nicaragua

Wilson
- lots of racism
- drafting people for WW1
- oppressing dissent against WW1, including fucking over Eugene V. Debs
- did i mention the racism
- the dude literally supported segregation
- like. he told Black military members "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen."
- constantly intervening in Latin American governments
- sent troops to fuck with the Bolsheviks mid-Revolution
- didn't recognize the Russian Soviet Republic
- and also the racism

Harding
- bullshit immigration restrictions
- opposed federal unemployment benefits
- opposed racial integration socially
- kept Wilson's segregation
- rolled back antitrust stuff
- lots of corruption and scandal

Coolidge
- more fuckin immigration restrictions
- avoiding antitrust enforcement
- proto-supply-side trickle-down tax cuts

Hoover
- enforced Prohibition
- fucked up response to the Great Depression
- removed Black leaders from the Republican party to court racists in the South
- more goddamn immigration bullshit! kicking out Mexican-American citizens! ethnic cleansing!
- sent the Army in to fuck up some veterans who were protesting for prompt payment

Roosevelt
- Japanese internment
- immigration fuckery
- not accepting Jewish refugees

Truman
- nuking Japan
- purged communist sympathizers

Eisenhower
- CIA coups in Iran and Guatemala
- pretended Castro didn't exist
- mass deportations
- didn't stop McCarthy
- started COINTELPRO
- wasn't really on board with desegregation
- institutional homophobia

Kennedy
- invasion of Vietnam, with all the attending war crimes and bullshit
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- CIA fuckery all over the place in opposition to leftism
- military alliance with a post-Suez-Crisis expansionist Israel
- took a while to start proactively protecting civil rights

Johnson
- expansion of Vietnam War
- spying on anti-war movement
- fuckery in Dominican Republic

Nixon
- i mean. c'mon. he's mainly remembered for Watergate, the scandal so big we name all our other scandals after it.
- opposed to forced integration
- prosecuted the Chicago Seven
- suppressed the Pentagon Papers
- let Kissinger do heinous Kissinger shit in Cambodia
- fucked over Allende, supported Pinochet's bullshit oppressive regime
- didn't end the Vietnam War

Ford
- pardoned Nixon
- fucked over Vietnam, presumably butthurt that the US lost
- kept Kissinger around
- supplied Indonesia for its invasion of East Timor and fuckery therein
- didn't die

Carter
- opposed universal health care
- continued support for oppressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc
- sheltered the Shah of Iran from justice
- fucked up the rescue mission in the Iran hostage crisis

Reagan
- racism
- supply-side economics
- anti-communism
- put Scalia on the supreme court
- recovered from an assassination attempt
- broke the air traffic controller strike
- heightened the war on drugs
- didn't take AIDS or gay rights seriously
- propped up oppressive regimes in Latin America
- Iran-Contra
- allied with apartheid South Africa

Bush
- didn't retract nomination of Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill spoke out
- invaded Panama to overthrow the CIA stooge who had previously been in charge
- sent Kissinger to negotiate with China
- tried to make it illegal to burn the flag
- pardoned the Iran-Contra people

Clinton
- welfare reform (the bad kind)
- deregulated banking, energy, and telecom
- settled for "don't ask don't tell"
- signed DOMA
- extended copyright
- workplace sexual misconduct
- mass incarceration

Bush
- lied about WMDs in Iraq
- "war on terror"
- Patriot Act
- Abu Ghraib
- Gitmo
- blamed Israeli-Palestinian tension on the Palestinians
- fucked up the response to Hurricane Katrina
- doesn't care about black people
- tried to privatize Social Security

Obama
- frequent use of sanctions as warfare
- let the feds do a bunch of evil shit in Ferguson etc
- did not withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan
- prevented UN from calling for a Palestinian state
- increased aid to Israel
- didn't close Gitmo
- extensive drone strikes, lots of civilian casualties, blew up a damn hospital, extrajudicially murdered a US citizen on purpose
- continued supporting Saudi Arabia despite fuckin heinous shit
- mass surveillance, defense of PRISM, extension of the Patriot Act
- war on whistleblowers (Manning and Snowden should both have been pardoned fuckin instantly) 
- fucktons of deportation

Trump
- bro do i even gotta list this shit

Biden, for the like month he's been in there so far
- backed down from $2000 fuckin instantly
- appointed a bunch of liberal centrist dipshits in his cabinet
- he's a goddamn rapist
- let Fauci keep his job after lying to the public about COVID

happy (slightly late) presidents' day!