That Lincoln fella seemed alright. Plus, Garfield was literally assassinated for not being corrupt enough.
Lincoln committed the largest mass execution in American history, as punishment for fighting back against mass starvation imposed on the Dakota by the American government and the accepted, continuing theft of dwindling tribal lands by white settlers. It was part of the ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples.
There are no hero presidents.
John Adams? He was willing to sacrifice his career if it saves an entire nation by refusing to declare war on the more powerful France, despite American public opinion baying for blood. He also didn’t have slaves.
Guess who signed Trump’s favorite law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798?
His treatment of indigenous peoples is more complex, but it’s not really what you would call good either. He certainly had racist views of them, even though he opposed slavery.
Lincoln several times supported massacres of natives and Garfield spent much time fighting against unions and was a huge supporter of big business.
CW for genocidal racism
“But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace unless we get rid of the Negroes. Certainly they cannot, if we don’t get rid of the Negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us, I believe, to the amount of 150,000 men. I believe it would be better to export them all…”
- Abraham Lincoln
https://archive.org/details/autobiographyper0192butl page 903
George Washington’s dentures weren’t wooden. They were made from the teeth of enslaved people.
So our first president literally wore the bodies of his victims as a cosmetic. Like Leatherface.
The only difference with the current administration is that they found out they don’t need to hide the corruption.
I disagree, they also do it at unprecedented volumes with no principles or guard rails. If every administration was this corrupt, the presidential pension wouldn’t have to needed to be created to keep Truman out of destitution. He refused to monetize the office by taking board positions or speaking gigs. Jimmy Carter would have kept control of his farm as well.
No administration is clean, but there are definitely those that have less grime than others.
The fear of public visibility was the guardrail. I definitely didn’t state that each individual was complicit in the corruption, just that the rolling administrations were corrupt and I believe that whole-heartedly. Because a single guy gave up his peanut farm doesn’t change the big picture.
We now have a system in which the billionaires no longer need to slow their roll to protect from repercussions because there are no repercussions any longer. That’s my point, the pace of exploitation is accelerated simply because they realized it can be. If there’s no downside to increasing your profit 10 fold, why would they not do that?
I agree that for some the fear was the motivation. That said, I doubt many people would have been upset with Truman if he took some speaking gigs or joined a few boards. I think that came from a place of principle.
They worked hard for years to get it at this point where you can be this corrupt in the open.
The US Presidency was a font of corruption from the first day it existed.
More evil *
Idiots not seeing the difference between presidents that start wars and those that end them allowing warmongering presidents to take the POTUS.
Which presidents “end wars” that don’t immediately pivot to new ones?
Just comes out to a bunch of articles saying jimmy carter started no wars but that is irrelevant when he helped the shah massacre his citizens and helped Suharto massacre his citizens and invade east Timor.
Oh wow, turns out politicians are fallible human beings, just like every other person.
If you follow the philosophy that humans are inherently evil, that’s fine, but don’t make out like every US president ever has been somehow unique in this regard.
The point is the job of us president requires “evil” due to its structural alignment and how the country functions.
The US isn’t uniquely evil among settler colonial states, but it is a settler colonial state. That’s inherently going to be worse than a non-settler colonial state.
There are no perfect leaders. Every one of them did good things and bad things. Some did more good than bad, some did more bad than good. Currently we have one who is all bad.
No american president did “more good than bad”.
Teddy Roosevelt was an okay chap for the time.
Tell that to the Philippines,Central America, Hawaii and so on and not to mention he was a committed white supremacist who did tours in the south admonishing black people to accept their place.
