Current Events > Popular opinion: I think Trump wasn't that bad of a leader

(+) Yeah! (+)

Compare him to someone like Vlad the Imapler for example.
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Yeah or Ivan Groznyy

/s

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Brutai topic

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"In total, Vlad is estimated to have killed about 80,000 people through various means."

quite tame compared to trump

MrMallard posted...

Brutai topic

I
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America has nothing but bad leaders, and Trump was even worse

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hockeybub89 posted...

America has nothing but bad leaders, and Trump was even worse

Obama was bad?
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nothanks1 posted...

Obama was bad?

He was one of the most anti freedom the press oresidents ever. While Trump talked a lot of shit Obama took significant action against the press.

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CanuckCowboy posted...

He was one of the most anti freedom the press oresidents ever. While Trump talked a lot of shit Obama took significant action against the press.

I mean, Trump's administration ended WH press briefings and pulled credentials from journalists who had covered WH news for years, plus they showed explicit favoritism for certain outlets. That's in addition to just constant petty trash talking.

What did Obama do?

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CanuckCowboy posted...

He was one of the most anti freedom the press oresidents ever. While Trump talked a lot of shit Obama took significant action against the press.

Nobody mine this gem. Like, wow lmao

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Hexenherz posted...

I mean, Trump's administration ended WH press briefings and pulled credentials from journalists who had covered WH news for years, plus they showed explicit favoritism for certain outlets. That's in addition to just constant petty trash talking.

What did Obama do?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html

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PoundGarden posted...

Nobody mine this gem. Like, wow lmao

Obama was great but thats a simple fact buds. Don't get your knickers in a knot.

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Meanwhile Mr Trump just inspired violent attacks on reporters by the police
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nothanks1 posted...

Meanwhile Mr Trump just inspired violent attacks on reporters by the police

I didnt say he wasn't trash.

I said he talked a lot of shit whereas Obama took significant action.

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CanuckCowboy posted...

I said he talked a lot of shit whereas Obama took significant action.

So having his police force attack innocent reporters isn't significant action?

Name one reason I shouldn't block you
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nothanks1 posted...

So having his police force attack innocent reporters isn't significant action?

Name one reason I shouldn't block you

If stating a fact upsets you so much you go and do it.

like id miss seeing your posts.

And for the third time in this topic I'm not defending Trump and I liked Obama.

Are you so emotional about this you can't stand the idea someone can criticize Obama for something?

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cool you carry on trolling friendo
I'll remove you from the list when the topic is done so you don't shit on it more
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he thwarted all attempts at war that his cabinet was salivating for by virtue of having a short attention span and hilariously undermined the intelligence community that has been serving conservative interests for decades more effectively than any president i can think of. if only for those two things i cant really say hes even the worst president we ever had

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ultimate reaver posted...

he thwarted all attempts at war

Except civil

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CanuckCowboy posted...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html

Any way around the paywall -_-

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Hexenherz posted...

I mean, Trump's administration ended WH press briefings and pulled credentials from journalists who had covered WH news for years, plus they showed explicit favoritism for certain outlets. That's in addition to just constant petty trash talking.

What did Obama do?

Person A kills 500 people and Person B kills 400 people.

"Person B didn't do anything wrong look at Person A!"

Stop with the whataboutisms. It's embarrassing.

IXI_Fission_IXI posted...

Person A kills 500 people and Person B kills 400 people.

"Person B didn't do anything wrong look at Person A!"

Stop with the whataboutisms. It's embarrassing.

I was legitimately asking what Obama did regarding the media and why that person thinks Obama was a bigger threat to free press than Trump. He posted a link to a resource I can't access.

So slow down on the unprovoked responses for a minute lol.

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Hexenherz posted...

I was legitimately asking what Obama did regarding the media and why that person thinks Obama was a bigger threat to free press than Trump. He posted a link to a resource I can't access.

So slow down on the unprovoked responses for a minute lol.

i cant access it either but off the top of my head:

Obama was incredibly aggressive about going after leaks, regarding internal drama and prospective plans. There were several multi-year court cases with him going after journalists to attempt to wring sources for various critical stories about him out of them. He really liked invoking the WW1 espionage act on people over this stuff, something that had only been used a handful of times by all presidents prior to him combined, and did it something crazy like toss it at 10 different people over the course of his eight years. I think it's also well known that Obama took an extremely heavy handed approach to whistleblowers during his administration, and that's an entire other can of worms. You might be able to justify it in some cases, but not at all the majority of them and people would have been screaming bloody murder if it was anyone but Obama doing it.

For all the huffing and puffing Trump did, he didn't pursue leakers anywhere near as hard and as iron-fistedly as Obama did. Often it didn't seem like he pursued them at all, honestly, it just made him pout and call them names. I can totally get behind Obama being a lot more harmful for transparency because it was a situation of moron vs someone who actually knew what they were doing


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I don't remember as many leaks of classified info happening under Trump to begin with. Most of them were about how shitty his administration was handling things.

And Obama literally commuted Manning's sentence. :/

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When the standard of not that bad equates to the world still exists, theres a lot that can fall below that bar.

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I clicked on this topic and got buried under a giant wave of "But Obama!"
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Hexenherz posted...

I don't remember as many leaks of classified info happening under Trump to begin with. Most of them were about how shitty his administration was handling things.

And Obama literally commuted Manning's sentence. :/

obama commuted manning's sentence after years of mistreatment in prison under his administration. it wasn't like he suddenly levelled up and gained that power on his way out of office. there's a reason she continues to criticize him after being set free lol

And I dunno how you aren't remembering all of the trump leaks during the last 4 years, especially towards the first two years of it. There was a lot of reports of discontent, yes, but also an enormous amount of stuff reported from confidential meetings and stuff about plans and paths he was preparing to take. 2017 and 2018 mostly consisted of Trump running back and forth getting mad about leaks and threatening to find out who they were and (as usual) ultimately not doing anything. The back half of his presidency just sort of seemed to accept they were going to happen

https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/04/leaks-surge/

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All that link says to me is that yes I was wrong, but also Trump was a garbage administrator who enabled people to leak classified information with less fear of retribution :/


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good leaders incite terrorism now?

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on one hand yes trump was terrible at managing people but that was a benefit to you and me because dysfunction and corruption was on full display and it was not heavy-handed in repercussions for the leakers. on the other hand, yes obama was better at managing people but that was a detriment to you and me because whenever someone came out and exposed dysfunction or corruption, he went after them full force and it created a huge chilling effect on whistleblowers.

this isn't a "trump good obama bad" thing and i would honestly have obama 2 before a second trump term, but obama came into office promising the most transparent administration ever and what we got instead was probably one of the most dug in and secretive, and it didn't really benefit a public that would want to know the sort of things being whistleblown to hold leaders accountable

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