A Competition for Worst American President of My Adult Life
Trump v. Bush
I’m in the process of making my absolute final edits to my forthcoming book The Case for American Power (pre-order here) and thinking I may have to delete this sentence. I suppose that’s where we are.
It was some solace, throughout all of this, that as bad as Trump was (is), George W. Bush still had a real claim to the title of worst American president of my adult life. Or my life.
Of course, related as they are, these are three separate questions, and each of which is worth considering:
Is Trump a worse president than George W. Bush? (Yes, with caveats)
Will Trump prove to have been worse for the country in the medium to long term than Bush? (Probably, but I’m not sure)
Is this moment in American political life “darker” than the post-9/11 + early Iraq war period of national hysteria?
Would be curious if you all have any thoughts?
From a non-US perspective, I honestly think the international outcomes of Bush’s presidency were much worse than anything Trump did during his first term and his second term so far. I don’t even think it’s close.
From the outside looking in, Trump seems much worse for the US domestically, especially around basic democratic norms, freedom of speech and rule of law. There is probably some retroactive bias that makes the violations of the GWOT era seem less bad, but overall I would still say Trump is worse.
Is it a darker moment right now? To me, it doesn’t seem like it’s even the most polarised moment since 2016 (every other year since has felt unprecedented) but I’ll defer to people in the US on this.
1 & 2 are basically the same question, so my answer is: it's too soon to tell. On the surface it's easy to say Bush was better, he clearly has a kinder heart and is more personally morally upright. But the destruction of the system of international law did not begin with Russia invading Ukraine or our tacit encouragement of the destruction of Gaza. It began with the invasion of Iraq. The economic conditions that led to Trump's first election in 2016 stemmed from the tax cuts that accompanied the invasion, which together blew up the federal and trade deficits. (There's a reason economists call them twin deficits.) American manufacturing and dried up after China entered the WTO and got Most Favored Nation status -- that was also Bush Jr's doing. The spending and home buying binge, & encouraging low income buyers to purchase homes they couldn't afford, that led to the 2008 housing crisis -- yup, that too. Putting Ukraine and Georgia on the list of NATO aspirants -- yes, that too was Bush Jr.
We have spent the last 20 years reaping what he sowed.
3. This does feel like a much darker time. There was a sunny optimism and solidarity in our pre-smartphone/social media culture that is now a distant memory. The elder millennials who came of age wearing velour tracksuits and watching Paris Hilton milk cows were, on the whole, a happy, well adjusted generation, compared to young people today.
But then, to my earlier point, we are now reaping the terrible harvest we sowed in our naivete and hubris. Of course it's ugly. Of course it feels like the end of something big.