Re: Damage to international relations...
Bush gave countries the feeling that "I don't like what America is doing but we can eventually get back to normal". Trump gave countries the feeling that "We can never trust America again".
I think it's the opposite. Bush admin were establishment Republicans that spilled over from Bush Sr/Reagan/Ford-Nixon years Trump wasn't a party guy so may be seen as more of an aberration.
Lets take a look at some facts, shall we?
While some may claim that Trump was an 'Aberration', he still had ~40% support nationally, and ~80-90% support within the republican party up until the last election. And republican congress-critters continued to support him (remember, only 1 GOP senator voted to impeach Trump, after he tired to bribe/blackmail a foreign government into overturning the election). And this was after 3 years of Trump calling neo-nazis "fine people". Of Trump making literally thousands of false statements in public. Of Trump attacking foreign allies.
If I am a foreign leader, I'm not going to look at Trump as an 'aberration'... I am going to start thinking of him as the new norm for the Republicans.
Republicans went from Bush (a president who was wildly unpopular when he left office, but who didn't overturn trade deals, didn't berate NATO, etc.) to Trump, a man who was quite submissive to Russia, instituted protectionist measures, and regularly attacked allies.
Yup, its a given... Bush shouldn't have gone into Iraq. But whatever the death toll was, it will probably be exceeded by the number of deaths Trump could have prevented had he handled covid better.
Iraq War led to 500k+ deaths. Trump is responsible for some of US's covid deaths but not all or even most.
First of all, the 500k deaths in Iraq is probably an over-estimation. The web site Iraq Body Count (hardly a pro-bush source) puts the number closer to 200,000. (Yes, that is still a substantial number, but nowhere near as high).
Secondly, while I agree that not ALL U.S. covid deaths can be attributed to Trump, I think the majority can.
The best comparison for the U.S. system is Canada... We share a geographic isolation from Eurasia, we both have 'westernized' health care systems (admittedly with different costs/delivery mechanisms, but the treatment options are similar), and we have similar population demographics. However, if you compare fatalities, the U.S. has ~1200 deaths per million. Canada's death rate is around ~470 per million. In other words, we only have 40% of the fatalities that the U.S. does. There are 386,000 Covid deaths in the U.S. If they handled, covid as well as we did, that number would be closer to 150-200,000. So, I would chalk up the number of Covid deaths attributed to trump to be ~200k. (And that's only the
current deaths. You can add thousands to that total over the next few weeks, as people infected at the end of Trump's tenure start to fall ill, even if they don't actually die until after Biden becomes president.)
So, Trump's Covid death toll is roughly equivalent to Bush's Iraq toll, if not greater.
See:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/Lastly, and most importantly... EVEN if you think the Iraq war was completely unforgivable. Even if you have this image of Bush sitting in the oval office twirling a long handle-bar moustache like some 1800s villain with a plan to kill Iraqis for fun. As I pointed out before,
at least Bush did some good stuff.
I have pointed that out multiple times before, but you seem to ignore it. Hmmm... I wonder why?
From:
https://www.history.com/news/what-was-a-george-w-bushs-greatest-achievementMuch of the legacy of President George W. Bush is wrapped around the war on terror and military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what many consider his greatest achievement is a public health effort steeped in humanitarianism that won accolades across the political spectrum: Bush has probably done more than any other president to combat AIDS, particularly in Africa.... That initiative became known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR....A Stanford University analysis of PEPFAR’s first three years calculated 1.1 million lives saved with a 28 percent reduction in HIV/AIDS.So there you go... even if you think the Iraq war was completely and totally wrong,
more people are alive today thanks to Bush's actions.. (And, it should be noted that Trump has acted to cut back on those medical programs. So... add more to Trump's death toll.)
But then, Bush never locked hundreds of children in cages after separating them from their families.
I'm sure he did it with Muslims.
Really? Where?
Show me where Bush was systematically having Muslim children locked in cages.
Oh, and if you're counting those, can we also count Muslim deaths caused by Trump's increased use of Drone strikes in the middle east? Or his actions that caused dozens/hundreds of Kurds to be killed by mismanaging troops?
But anyways, i've already argued Trump is a worse POTUS than Dubya. Both are moron a-holes.
But your earlier statement was:
I always thought Dubya was a worse POTUS than Trump but i think Trump just passed Dubya on the list.The point that I was making was that Trump should have passed the Shrub on your list of bad presidents YEARS ago. Even without his attempts at overturning valid election results. Even without his support of terrorism.