diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | _posts/2021-02-15-every-president-sucked.md | 254 |
1 files changed, 254 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/_posts/2021-02-15-every-president-sucked.md b/_posts/2021-02-15-every-president-sucked.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5221def --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2021-02-15-every-president-sucked.md @@ -0,0 +1,254 @@ +--- +title: Every President Sucked +--- + +(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! |