2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDonald Trump is the worst presidential candidate I've ever seen in my lifetime.
Granted, I'm in my late 20s so the only presidents I've lived under are GHWB, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Trump is perhaps the single worst candidate I've ever seen running for the presidency - he makes GWB look competent and articulate in comparison, for God's sake.
Who's the worst candidate you've seen? The candidate I most often hear Trump compared to is George Wallace. For those who remember the Wallace campaign: was Wallace as bad or worse than Trump?
uponit7771
(90,363 posts)... gave him some child like cards to read to the media which he just throws away and says anything that comes out of his stupid mouth.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)that kept the Vietnam war going throughout the election. He then broke his promise to the North Vietnamese and kept the war going for many years. Reagan did the same thing with the hostages in Iran.
Frankly, these are far more disgusting than anything Trump has done that we know of. Trump is pretty loathsome as far as we know. Highly unqualified.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)country in our history.
yardwork
(61,703 posts)He just hasn't had the chance yet.
Bill USA
(6,436 posts)impress the other rich kids - lest they find out how scared he really is.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,214 posts)when he found out Donald and a friend skipped school and tried to buy switchblades. He was 13.
NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)was a lot tougher than soldiers who were in the actual army and in Vietnam.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,214 posts)which were surgically corrected AFTER Vietnam.
enough
(13,262 posts)redStateBlueHeart
(265 posts)DemonGoddess
(4,640 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)I never thought anyone could match DimSon, but I'm starting to wonder if DimDon has an edge on that idiot!
PatSeg
(47,586 posts)Never thought it would be possible. I suppose GW was relatively manageable, whereas Trump can't be controlled for more than a day, if that long.
PJMcK
(22,048 posts)Donald Trump thinks he's a pro. But he's not.
He's an idiot.
yardwork
(61,703 posts)Also, Wallace didn't get the Republican nomination.
Pat Buchanan was also very bad, but he didn't get the nomination either.
Trump is worse because he is a full blown malignant Narcissist. And he's the nominee.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And I've been aware of the elections since1968. Even Nixon was somewhat qualified.
Even friggin Reagan had been a governor.
MFM008
(19,818 posts)I was 3 when Kennedy waved at me when his motorcade went by.
Rump is a disgrace to humanity.
CanonRay
(14,113 posts)DCBob
(24,689 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Trump is a racist and there is no cultural milieu excuse today.
localroger
(3,630 posts)Reagan's legacy has been very effectively whitewashed. There is hardly any record of just what a moving gaffe machine he was in his day, or the simple naked fact that his only real skill or experience was acting -- he was playing the President, not being the President. And in his second term it became very obvious the Alzheimer's was eating away at him.
But the one thing I will credit Reagan with is that he knew he was an actor playing a role, and while the people who were really running the country were corrupt and evil they mostly weren't too stupid and it was in their interests to avoid things like nuclear war. GWB was also elected to be a useful idiot but unlike Reagan he thought he was running the country, surrounded himself with equally stupid sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear, and thus we got 9/11 and Iraq.
As for Trump, everyone thinks he brings "business skills" to the picture even though the skills he is using to win the election are his carnival barker / reality show pitchman chops. He is very good at positioning himself and making himself the most important person in the room, and extremely dangerous because he believes he is the smartest person in the room even though he is really a very shallow and venal shell of a human being. We were all afraid Reagan might accidentally fire the missiles but Trump is vain and full enough of himself to do it quite deliberately, and he won't tolerate the company of anyone who might dissuade him from anything his ego tells him to do.
nruthie
(466 posts)I've been around for 74 years and have seen a lot, but this one is everything loathsome all wrapped up in one hidious package. Evil personified. Horrifying.
Blue Idaho
(5,057 posts)Goldwater and Trump are equally dangerous and each would have no problem launching nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat.
woolldog
(8,791 posts)But Trump is so much worse. I can go back to Reagan and I haven't seen anything like this.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)R B Garr
(16,975 posts)caricature of all the repugnant and negative qualities that have come to represent that party. He's basically a walking joke of a man that even his own party didn't want (except for the bigots and tea party extremists).
sofa king
(10,857 posts)I thought Mitt Romney was the worst, but that is soooo 2012. Romney is a friggin' pussycat, now, compared to Trump the hungry tiger in my telephone booth. I feel like that fucker wants to hurt me, just for seeing through his ridiculous facade and daring to say it.
I've seen candidates as ignorant (W), and I've seen candidates as dishonest (Romney), and I've seen candidates as hateful (Dole), and I've seen candidates as racist (Duke), and I've seen candidates as evil (Nixon).
But I have never seen a mere candidate simultaneously lower the level of public discourse and raise the level of politically motivated violence at the same time. I've never seen a candidate whose mere existence as a losing candidate is a threat to national security. I've never seen a person so consumed by vapid evil and so unabashedly proud of it.
If someone told me that Donald Trump was specifically created by Cthulhu to destroy the world, I'd half believe it at this point. It will take America years to recover from his failed candidacy. If he wins, I fear someone might nuke us on election night just to be the first in on it. I wish I were just trying to be funny.
And then there's the generation of hateful racists who have been given false hope and the opportunity to organize around him. It breaks my heart to see Democrats on the verge of total success, and to see the seeds of America's total destruction being planted everywhere at the same time.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Which takes us back toward Dewey, but I'm not quite old enough to actually remember Dewey. But Dewey's faults were that he accepted most of FDR's New Deal, not that he (Dewey) was totally ill-prepared.
I suspect there is a good chance that Trump may be the worst candidate the republicans have nominated in their entire history. That would be since before the American Civil War
GreenPartyVoter
(72,381 posts)still_one
(92,394 posts)greymattermom
(5,754 posts)he had been elected to something before and had a little government experience. Trump is worse.
still_one
(92,394 posts)pick of Lemay, who had no qualms of using nuclear weapons, and advocated a first strike use during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Lord Magus
(1,999 posts)tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Wallace was a one issue guy - and it dealt with blacks. Goldwater vs Trump is a very fair comparison. Both as dangerous as hell, and egos that were larger than they were.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,836 posts)George Wallace was one of the worst of those who ever got any traction. But, interestingly, shortly before he died he recanted his racist positions and asked for forgiveness from the Black community. I don't think Trump would ever recant or apologize for anything. Wallace was an old-time populist/segregationist politician, and (unfortunately) those weren't unique. Trump is something else altogether: he's a narcissist with no real principles at all other than whatever makes him look good. For that reason he's more dangerous than Wallace ever could have been.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)He can't raise money and he won't spend his own (probably because he has much less than he brags about). Trump is a failure at Job No. 1.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]
trof
(54,256 posts)I'll be 75 in August.
Never thought I'd see worse than shrub.
I was wrong.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Much worse than the Bush campaign. Trump tops them all.