Who was the Worse President, Obama or Trump? An Online Debate

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

This exchange is from the comments to the essay “Is patriotism obsolete? A borderless world will lead to nothing but chaos,” which I renamed, ““Patriotism vs. Chaos: Thinking Clearly about Immigration.”

I fought the nation-killers in the comments, but one of them, The'BunksAreBest, got me banned. C’est la guerre.
 

theophiluser Stanley1 • 8 days ago

Those who support a President who repeatedly undermines our democratic institutions because he promised them a tax break. That should be obvious.

Stanley1 theophiluser • 8 days ago

OK, so now you're going to be specific about the undermining that Trump's doing, right?

While you're trying to come up with something, here are some reminders of Obama's exploits during the previous eight years:

1. Interfering with routinely valid contracts in Chrysler's bankruptcy. (Bondholders must be made whole before anyone else gets paid; instead, he strongarmed the creditors so that the union got a better deal than the bondholders.)

2. The words-fail-one travesty/connivance/venality of passing the 2010 health-care law and then -- for purposes of political advantage or even re-election survival -- violating the same "signature" law several score times.

3. "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing," to impose central cities' dysfunction on suburbs by taking zoning authority away. For just a hint on this, see “Affirmatively Destroying Respectable Neighborhoods.”

4. Recess appointments made when the Senate wasn't in recess. Flagrantly unconstitutional.

5. He's a racial arsonist, egging on "Black Lives Matter" and all the other lethal nonsense manufactured over the violent deaths of young black thugs like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, plus all the bullsh*t about differential incarceration rates being a result of "racism."

6. With a looming midterm election in mind, keeping companies with fedgov contracts that would be negatively affected by a potential fedgov shutdown from notifying their employees of the possibility, said notification being required by federal law.

7. Trying -- succeeding in some cases -- to force private entities to provide health-care coverages for their employees that violate fundamental principles of the imposed-upon organizations. Personally, I'm an atheist and abortion doesn't upset me, but when it comes to the treatment of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters, I'm a Christian, even a Catholic.

8. The fraudulent and enormously dangerous Iran deal and all the chicanery associated with it.

9. The refusal to acknowledge Islam as the source of Islamic terrorism, and the related attempted ruination of fedgov employees who are trying to honestly do their jobs. Consult Philip Haney's recent book See Something? Say Nothing.

10. "Fast & Furious"

11. His administration's vile treatment of Israel. (I'm half-Jewish, but I know virtually nothing about Judaism; I simply regard Israel as an outpost of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.)

A lot of that is banana-republic stuff.

theophiluser Stanley1 • 7 days ago

Defending trump [sic] by claiming somebody else did things too is no defense at all. All the stuff you list is irrelevant to trump [sic] being the most horrible excuse for a President this country hopefully will ever have to endure.

In particular trump [sic] has undermined the free press, the judiciary, the State Department and every other Department of the Executive branch, our intelligence services, our strategic alliances with long term allies, our fiscal stability, our system of healthcare, the Constitution, our sense of decency and integrity with his his relentless lying and our national security by conspiring with Russians to further their goals to the detriment of our position as the preeminent world power.


Stanley1 theophiluser • 7 days ago

Re your first paragraph: My list doesn't defend Trump. It reminds you of what we experienced under Obama. And you don't evince any concern over any of those, not here anyway. And that lacuna is a commentary on you.

Re your second paragraph's list of things undermined: It's all nonsense. You won't be able to come up with any specifics supporting your list, which is simply boilerplate leftist hysteria.

For example, Obama imposed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA] on the country, a wildly unconstitutional evasion of immigration law. Trump, in contrast, said that it's going to end, but Congress should see what it wants to do on the subject. That's following Constitutional norms.

(I'm disappointed that Trump seems to favor Congress enacting an equivalent to DACA, since DACA is terrible public policy. But at least it wouldn't be abusive of standard process.)