Quote:
Originally Posted by albionmoonlight
I'm a liberal. I have lots of complaints about these folks. But I stand by the fact that they differ in kind from the current Jews-Will-Not-Replace-Us & The-Occasional-Slaughter-of-Schoolchildren-Is-Good-Because-It-Helps-Keep-People-Scared-and-More-Likely-to-Support-Authoritarian-Strongmen incarnations of the GOP.
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I think the distinction I would draw is that the GOP people you list were still somewhat interested in governing and still saw some sort of public service element to it, even if there was still plenty of corruption, grifting, & law-breaking going on. That's simply not true of the GOP now - those people, if they're still in public office (and many are no longer) are definite outliers.
But I think, to RM's point, it's important to note that since WWII all the major constitutional crisis scandals (which, kind of by definition, involve the POTUS) are on the GOP side, whereas the scandals on the Democratic side are mostly personal:
Truman: some corruption & kickback activities
Eisenhower: at most, an unwillingness to take McCarthy on, but I'm not sure that counts as a scandal
JFK: nepotism (RFK), infidelity
LBJ: cronyism
Nixon: precipitated a constitutional crisis after illegal election activities
Ford: none I know of, really
Carter: none I know of, really
Reagan: Iran Contra is just the tip
Bush I: also implicated in Iran Contra
Clinton: fucked everything that moved, some shady land deals
Bush II: Iraq War, extra-judicial activities, pretty much everything Cheney's office did to undermine constitutional checks & balances
Obama: Holder & the IRS did some stupid shit, but nothing that rises even to the stuff Cheney's office did
Trump: LOL