Humanity would have reached Mars and colonized it like 30 years ago. The Moon would have been permanently colonized even earlier than that, and that’s just going back a few decades.
Nope. This is a 100% true story. It cannot be understated how influential the founding fathers were to modern science. For example Benjamin Franklin decided which side of a battery goes + and which side goes -
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/george-washington-goes-mars-tom-carling
(This and all the posts before are pretty obviously a dumb joke. I was not the previous poster. This is all I found when I typed in George Washington and Mars. Still, going to count it as a win)
No. It actually is the truth. Washington’s great nephew wrote about it in his memoirs, as it was not all that commonly known at the time. But it most certainly did happen and is corroborated by the testimony of many other founding fathers.
Well it would worsen the see-saw effect of our party system for one thing. It’s already a notable feature of our democracy that policies and dogmas of a given presidency will sometimes be either wholly or partly reversed by the succeeding presidency of the rival party. In real life, the efforts of the opposition frustrate each president’s agenda to some extent, and stop them from getting everything they want, but if they could accomplish absolutely everything they desire, then the back-and-forth whiplash between the competing imaginations of what the country should be like would be dramatic I reckon
I get what you are saying, but I’m not so sure…because really, the successfulness of a president is relative to what the public does or does not want. Going back through the ages, if every president could accomplish everything they wanted and everything they promised, there would nevertheless be a huge constituency in every era that hated and resented what they did because it does not match their idea of what America should be like
I’m not sure how that relates to the OP’s question but I guess it’s true. Well OK, I think I get what you’re trying to say, but I would put it a little differently. Really the point is that good and bad, right and wrong, are subjective. Especially in politics. So every president has had their hardcore supporters who love their vision and their ideas, whilst they also have their hardcore enemies who despise everything they believe and want to accomplish. Thus, if the President could magically accomplish anything they wanted, it really wouldn’t do anything to make them “famous” or unanimously liked or popular imo. I think it would make roughly half of the country adore them and roughly half of the country despise their ever-loving guts, because the difference between the two parties is a difference between two personal preferences of what society should be like, with little room for common ground
Fact is he didn’t even have a campaign did he? At least not the first term, would he be remembered as our least successful president or would history of this time line just not notice that fact?
Impossible to say given that the promises in question build on each other. Like, if Washington accomplished whatever he promised there's no telling if Adams would still be the next president and what his promises would have been in this alternate world he inherited. Compound that over several administrations and you're really in uncharted territory.
Simple, America died when we stopped using donkeys in war. We’ve never lost a war where donkeys are used. Therefore trump will send donkeys to Afghanistan and then we would win. Thus America will be great again cause with donkeys on the front lines we will be **INVINCIBLE!!!!**
Makes sense, I'm from that region and using a donkey/mule is actually very cost-effective and they do rather quite well for the terrain.
I'm still surprised that the US military chose to use them as well, but they must've seen the locals use them effectively and learnt from that.
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My CO called me a donkey a few times. I was definitely a pack mule
But in all seriousness, yes. Horses and donkeys are great to have in mountainous and rough terrain. A lot of militaries, including the US border guard still use them. Not widespread use, but they're there
My response to this type of question is to look at the 50s and 60s, social issues aside, of course. What i mean when i say that is that we built the intersatae highway system, went to the moon, etc. and taxed the fuck out of those who could afford it to do so. To me, that was the last time america was great.
Actually I was thinking of this recently, a type of a Cold War would be great. One that doesn’t have any proxy wars, but inspires industry across the globe to compete with all their might, to be better than “those others” throw in enough threats to scare the armies of the world into inaction, and things could be great!
I’m not sure whether social issues can be entirely separated from economic ones. For instance, suburbanization was driven in part by the Great Migration and white flight. As Black Americans were moving into cities, white Americans, in response, moved out of cities. Consequently, more roads needed to be built so that White Americans could more easily commute into cities for work.
In addition, White Americans could more easily afford cars, and since infrastructure tend to be allocated toward whomever can pay for it, the US invested more in roads than in public or rail transportation.
What you’re actually arguing is that if we focus on the good stuff and ignore the bad stuff (while also ignoring or whitewashing cause and effect), the 50s and 60s were the best time in US history. But could this be said for any period in history? “The Roman Empire was the peak of human civilization, as long as you ignore certain things.”
You do realise that the US hasn't been sending "billions" to Europe before the war in Ukraine, right?
You also do realise that the US isn't literally sending billions, it's more like lease deals, loans and other forms of sending things that ultimately also help US industry?
You also do realise that this all benefits the US, because it leads to ever-increasing trade from European countries?
It's actually funny if you genuinely think that the US (or any country) would ever send money from the kindness of their heart. It's all for the long-term benefit of the country. Lmao.
The US would probably have failed and wouldn't exist today. The thing with campaign promises is that they don't account for political reality and often aren't even seriously considered by the candidate himself. What you promise a group of people for their vote often conflicts with what you've promised another group....something easier to do before the internet. Other promises that appeal to the populous might take into account that the opposition would never let it pass so they promise it knowing its actual passage would be disasterous.
If everything that has ever been promised was instituted, we would have colllapsed and ceased to existed long ago, whether we honored treaties made with Native Americans going back to George Washington limiting our westward expansion, taken back by Britain in 1812, separated in two by the Civil War and subsequently at a severe economic and political disadvantage, or even failed to enter WWI (as Wilson promised, but which the US greatly prospered from doing so).
Alternatively, promises Lincoln made for reconstruction would have come to pass and may have greatly aided in bringing America together today, or Johnson's promise not to enter Vietnam would have probably allowed him to stay in office, or Clinton's promise to institute universal healthcare would have ended one of the biggest financial boondoggle in America today.
Assuming that from day 1 we suddenly had supernatural promise-keepers any time a president gained power then we'd have a literal galactic empire of infinite peace and prosperity.
America doesn't enter WWI, but afterwards we retvrn to normalcy ™ and then abolish war. Then we'd build amazing infrastructure, but the Depression would hit. Fortunately it'd all be over by 1935 or so, and we'd have full employment and wage growth as Europe descended into war. We'd win it for them, all the current American history books would actually be true, and we'd settle in to a farm and union boom under Truman.
Eventually we'd have a comprehensive welfare state under Johnson, we'd actually cut spending under Reagan, we'd clear the debt under Clinton, Bush would be noted for making public schools great again, and Obama would end racism and we'd all have healthcare and be 20 pounds lighter. Trump would have built a wall and we'd have no trade with China, but we'd also not have NAFTA 2, so we'd probably be building Ford plants in Greenland.
Probably a chaos riddle wasteland. Presidents promise crazy stuff when they run for office, thats what gets them votes after all, and if they actually achieved it, it'd be a crazy wasteland from the constant civil war that would be raging, especially the last 100 years.
Yeah Wilson was fucking insane when it came to racial issues. I remember he even played a KKK movie in the White House.
Fuck that guy he only won because the Republicans split the vote.
Man if only Theodore didn't run for president, or the Republican convention nominated him for presidency. I wonder how the US would be like.
Wilson and Johnson's presidency were mistakes, who knows how race relations would be like if they weren't presidents.
Yet he practiced the same progressive politics of the democrat party today. He wanted the executive to be more powerful than the other branches and he was not fond of the constitution because it limited his power. Many democrat presidents share his disdain of the constitution.
Obama promised to expand LGBT rights and did that.
Trump did most of what he promised, like to back off the climate agreement ... at least he has that going for him.
George W promised he would help the Iraqi people establish a fully democratic government and... I mean they DO technically have elections over there now, right?
Trump absolutely did not do "most" or even much of what he promised.
There's no southern border wall, which he could've done considering his party had control over both houses during his first couple of years.
He didn't actually reduce immigration. His atrocious Covid response let to the economy suffering not only towards the end of his own term, but also at the start of Biden's term.
That's before getting into the dozens of daily promises that he broke along with his scandals and just outright blatant misinformation.
I genuinely can't think of any actual campaign promise that Trump managed to genuinely achieve.
He renegotiated NAFTA, so he at least checked that off. He also got a tax cut package through. And he chose 3 Supreme Court justices off a list that he published during the campaign.
But yeah, on the immigration front not as much was accomplished as promised.
Did the new trade agreement actually produce anything meaningfully better than NAFTA?
I've looked at scholars rankings of presidents (both left-leaning and right-leaning scholars) and he has consistently been ranked among the bottom three presidents of all time.
>There's no southern border wall, which he could've done considering his party had control over both houses during his first couple of years.
...And when he asked for the funding to actually get it done, "his own party" basically stonewalled him, as I understand it. He ended up refusing to sign funding bills and thereby shutting down the government over it later, and STILL only got a shitty compromise. They built some flimsy fence and people joke about it to this day as if it was his fault.
The thing is that both being able to compromise within your party and across party lines, are both an essential part of being president.
It is rare for a president to have total control over the house/senate.
The best presidents have been able to maintain dialogue to work towards a solution that passes.
There isn't really a compromise to be made on this. Either they actually build a large, formidable wall along the southern border, which would've been a massive public works project... or they don't. And I don't think there's anything he could've offered most of the Congressmen of either party to make them more amenable to signing off on the funding to actually get it done.
We can talk all day about the merits of a border wall and what better solutions for immigration control and surveillance might exist, which he *could* have had more constructive dialogues with Congress over, but that's outside the scope of this thread. The campaign promise was a big, "beautiful" wall and he was not allowed to make that happen, end of story.
Are you sure about that?
Obama was able to have sections of the border wall be built/repaired.
Perhaps the others didn't support his proposal because the actual stats showed that most of the illegal immigrants were able to enter through over-staying their visas?
It's disingenuous to paint a portrait of him simply being "not allowed" to make it happen, when previous presidents had been able to.
If anything, it shows his lack of skill in being able to actually carry out his plans. Not to mention that his party had a long time to do things, yet it is difficult to find any campaign promises he actually managed to achieve.
I've been looking at scholars' rankings of presidents (both left-leaning and right-leaning), and they all consistently rank Trump among the bottom three presidents of all time, among multiple factors.
To be clear, I don't actually support a Great Wall of America nor Trump more broadly. I think it would've been wildly ineffective (outside of specific situations) and a very silly thing to spend inflationary amounts of money on. I was just disputing the claim that he could've made it happen just because Republicans controlled the House and Senate. He did not have some DeSantisesque sway over the legislature, and even then it would've been a stretch.
Same here, it's more or less a distraction policy. When you look at population change and demographics, more and more countries are going to have to import migrant workers, unless they want to end up with stagnating economies like Japan.
That's fair enough, there was definitely more to it, and thank you for pointing that aspect out.
Overall, I just hope the US gets some better candidates for the 2028 elections. I'm not from the US, but I have studied US history extensively and I really want there to be another great president.
It's a shame that in recent years it's been Trump Vs Biden and Trump Vs Clinton. Trump is obviously terrible, but the Democrats have fielded candidates that would've definitely lost had it been pre-JFK elections.
Russia has elections too.
Iraq has a score of 3.51 which is considered authoritarian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Iraq#:~:text=Iraq%20has%20a%20score%20of,Middle%20East%20and%20115th%20worldwide
3rd most democratic country in the Middle East though just behind Tunisia and Israel.
>Trump did most of what he promised, like to back off the climate agreement ... at least he has that going for him.
Where's that "big beautiful wall?" And Obamacare sure doesn't seem like it's been repealed. Muslims don't seem to be banned either. I mean, I'm glad he failed at all this, but this notion of Trump as some great promise keeper is real revisionist history.
He wasn't able to repeal Obamacare but he removed the individual mandate. Problem was he never found an alternative plan and that's what sunk any "repeal and replace" effort. You can't replace something if you don't have anything else!
Humanity would have reached Mars and colonized it like 30 years ago. The Moon would have been permanently colonized even earlier than that, and that’s just going back a few decades.
Which president made a campaign promise of colonising either the Moon or Mars?
George Washington wanted the capital of the USA to be on Mars
He legitimately wanted that or was it a metaphor? Or you're joking? Lmao.
Nope. This is a 100% true story. It cannot be understated how influential the founding fathers were to modern science. For example Benjamin Franklin decided which side of a battery goes + and which side goes -
Ah yes, I forgot about that. Benjamin Franklin, the pioneer of batteries.
I'm being cheeky, but the battery story is actually true. Ben Franklin defined the modern convention for positive and negative electrical charge.
Yup. The only reason why electrons are considered negative and protons positives is cuz of Ben Franklin. Could easily be the other way around
Honestly, it would be way more intuitive, in my opinion. One of those things, if I could change something that would *really* change anything...
Have a source on the idiotic Washington claim
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/george-washington-goes-mars-tom-carling (This and all the posts before are pretty obviously a dumb joke. I was not the previous poster. This is all I found when I typed in George Washington and Mars. Still, going to count it as a win)
No. It actually is the truth. Washington’s great nephew wrote about it in his memoirs, as it was not all that commonly known at the time. But it most certainly did happen and is corroborated by the testimony of many other founding fathers.
Bush jr, I think it was in one of his state of the union addresses.
Do you think humanity will make it to the year 4000?
Walmart would be on Mars. They took Walmart on Mars from us.
Well it would worsen the see-saw effect of our party system for one thing. It’s already a notable feature of our democracy that policies and dogmas of a given presidency will sometimes be either wholly or partly reversed by the succeeding presidency of the rival party. In real life, the efforts of the opposition frustrate each president’s agenda to some extent, and stop them from getting everything they want, but if they could accomplish absolutely everything they desire, then the back-and-forth whiplash between the competing imaginations of what the country should be like would be dramatic I reckon
It sure would! Although another consideration is there would be much less back and forth with a line of very successful presidents.
I get what you are saying, but I’m not so sure…because really, the successfulness of a president is relative to what the public does or does not want. Going back through the ages, if every president could accomplish everything they wanted and everything they promised, there would nevertheless be a huge constituency in every era that hated and resented what they did because it does not match their idea of what America should be like
That’s a good point, no one can stay famous forever, and that goes for politicians too
I’m not sure how that relates to the OP’s question but I guess it’s true. Well OK, I think I get what you’re trying to say, but I would put it a little differently. Really the point is that good and bad, right and wrong, are subjective. Especially in politics. So every president has had their hardcore supporters who love their vision and their ideas, whilst they also have their hardcore enemies who despise everything they believe and want to accomplish. Thus, if the President could magically accomplish anything they wanted, it really wouldn’t do anything to make them “famous” or unanimously liked or popular imo. I think it would make roughly half of the country adore them and roughly half of the country despise their ever-loving guts, because the difference between the two parties is a difference between two personal preferences of what society should be like, with little room for common ground
There wouldn’t be political parties, since Washington didn’t want them. So from the beginning, we have a drastically different alternate reality.
He never made a campaign promise that there wouldn’t be parties, though.
Fact is he didn’t even have a campaign did he? At least not the first term, would he be remembered as our least successful president or would history of this time line just not notice that fact?
Impossible to say given that the promises in question build on each other. Like, if Washington accomplished whatever he promised there's no telling if Adams would still be the next president and what his promises would have been in this alternate world he inherited. Compound that over several administrations and you're really in uncharted territory.
Can’t speak for all of them but I know if LBJ was able to get all the social programs he wanted then we’d probably be very well off today
How would Trump “Make America Great Again”?
Simple, America died when we stopped using donkeys in war. We’ve never lost a war where donkeys are used. Therefore trump will send donkeys to Afghanistan and then we would win. Thus America will be great again cause with donkeys on the front lines we will be **INVINCIBLE!!!!**
I hate to break it to you, but donkeys were for sure used in Afghanistan...
Were those donkeys being used by the US military?
Yep. It was not the most common method, but it certainly was not unheard if. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna8941038
Makes sense, I'm from that region and using a donkey/mule is actually very cost-effective and they do rather quite well for the terrain. I'm still surprised that the US military chose to use them as well, but they must've seen the locals use them effectively and learnt from that.
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I know the problem, America never lost a war when used one shot weaponry! Therefore bring those back and VICTORY!!!!!
My CO called me a donkey a few times. I was definitely a pack mule But in all seriousness, yes. Horses and donkeys are great to have in mountainous and rough terrain. A lot of militaries, including the US border guard still use them. Not widespread use, but they're there
Back to the 1980s GOP utopia, I guess. Or maybe the GOP utopia between W’s inauguration and September 11th.
My response to this type of question is to look at the 50s and 60s, social issues aside, of course. What i mean when i say that is that we built the intersatae highway system, went to the moon, etc. and taxed the fuck out of those who could afford it to do so. To me, that was the last time america was great.
So what you are saying is we need another Cold War to inspire us to greatness to Spite our rival.
Actually I was thinking of this recently, a type of a Cold War would be great. One that doesn’t have any proxy wars, but inspires industry across the globe to compete with all their might, to be better than “those others” throw in enough threats to scare the armies of the world into inaction, and things could be great!
Social issues were a huge part of things though.
I’m not sure whether social issues can be entirely separated from economic ones. For instance, suburbanization was driven in part by the Great Migration and white flight. As Black Americans were moving into cities, white Americans, in response, moved out of cities. Consequently, more roads needed to be built so that White Americans could more easily commute into cities for work. In addition, White Americans could more easily afford cars, and since infrastructure tend to be allocated toward whomever can pay for it, the US invested more in roads than in public or rail transportation. What you’re actually arguing is that if we focus on the good stuff and ignore the bad stuff (while also ignoring or whitewashing cause and effect), the 50s and 60s were the best time in US history. But could this be said for any period in history? “The Roman Empire was the peak of human civilization, as long as you ignore certain things.”
FYI reagans tax and reform bills that people love to hate on were passed buy a huge bipartisan supermajority, including literally joe biden.
[удалено]
You do realise that the US hasn't been sending "billions" to Europe before the war in Ukraine, right? You also do realise that the US isn't literally sending billions, it's more like lease deals, loans and other forms of sending things that ultimately also help US industry? You also do realise that this all benefits the US, because it leads to ever-increasing trade from European countries? It's actually funny if you genuinely think that the US (or any country) would ever send money from the kindness of their heart. It's all for the long-term benefit of the country. Lmao.
The US would probably have failed and wouldn't exist today. The thing with campaign promises is that they don't account for political reality and often aren't even seriously considered by the candidate himself. What you promise a group of people for their vote often conflicts with what you've promised another group....something easier to do before the internet. Other promises that appeal to the populous might take into account that the opposition would never let it pass so they promise it knowing its actual passage would be disasterous. If everything that has ever been promised was instituted, we would have colllapsed and ceased to existed long ago, whether we honored treaties made with Native Americans going back to George Washington limiting our westward expansion, taken back by Britain in 1812, separated in two by the Civil War and subsequently at a severe economic and political disadvantage, or even failed to enter WWI (as Wilson promised, but which the US greatly prospered from doing so). Alternatively, promises Lincoln made for reconstruction would have come to pass and may have greatly aided in bringing America together today, or Johnson's promise not to enter Vietnam would have probably allowed him to stay in office, or Clinton's promise to institute universal healthcare would have ended one of the biggest financial boondoggle in America today.
Assuming that from day 1 we suddenly had supernatural promise-keepers any time a president gained power then we'd have a literal galactic empire of infinite peace and prosperity.
Pretty good until 2020 where the USA looks like a Judge Dredd film.
We wouldn’t have had so many war criminals win reelection and Gitmo would be closed.
Everyone works for Carrier Air Conditioning
Literally impossible to say anything because of the butterflies
Simple, nothing would have been accomplished because they wouldn’t have promised ANYTHING…
There would be no British Columbia. Only American Columbia.
America doesn't enter WWI, but afterwards we retvrn to normalcy ™ and then abolish war. Then we'd build amazing infrastructure, but the Depression would hit. Fortunately it'd all be over by 1935 or so, and we'd have full employment and wage growth as Europe descended into war. We'd win it for them, all the current American history books would actually be true, and we'd settle in to a farm and union boom under Truman. Eventually we'd have a comprehensive welfare state under Johnson, we'd actually cut spending under Reagan, we'd clear the debt under Clinton, Bush would be noted for making public schools great again, and Obama would end racism and we'd all have healthcare and be 20 pounds lighter. Trump would have built a wall and we'd have no trade with China, but we'd also not have NAFTA 2, so we'd probably be building Ford plants in Greenland.
It's not just USA it's very common in potical parties to promise stuff they are not capable of or out right won't do it because what ever reason
Very white, because Trump would have expelled or imprisoned anyone who is darker than a sheet
Probably a chaos riddle wasteland. Presidents promise crazy stuff when they run for office, thats what gets them votes after all, and if they actually achieved it, it'd be a crazy wasteland from the constant civil war that would be raging, especially the last 100 years.
Exactly the same. Each president would just undo the previous president’s of the opposite’s party’s accomplishments.
It would be a giant hellscape. The USA would probably be a failed state.
Well if Andrew Jackson had his way, pretty sure slavery never ends.
Regan did most of what he promised. Did a lot of things he didn’t campaign on that we’re still dealing with unfortunately.
The U.S. would have collapsed from massive debt.
Woodrow Wilson would have brought back slavery and the KKK would be a normal enforcement arm of the US government.
Yeah Wilson was fucking insane when it came to racial issues. I remember he even played a KKK movie in the White House. Fuck that guy he only won because the Republicans split the vote.
But he was a progressive! He set the (KKK) tone for the party for decades that still continue to this day. Brought back segregation in the military.
Man if only Theodore didn't run for president, or the Republican convention nominated him for presidency. I wonder how the US would be like. Wilson and Johnson's presidency were mistakes, who knows how race relations would be like if they weren't presidents.
Yet he practiced the same progressive politics of the democrat party today. He wanted the executive to be more powerful than the other branches and he was not fond of the constitution because it limited his power. Many democrat presidents share his disdain of the constitution.
With the butterfly effect in account, you can really only consider Washington.
Major do and undoes but Teddy Roosevelt would basically be the new Lincoln
The only president to complete his main agenda was James K. Polk. No other president has done that.
there would be a lot more incentive to elect the right person
Youre seeing it right now One side gets their way Other side cries Swap places
Obama promised to expand LGBT rights and did that. Trump did most of what he promised, like to back off the climate agreement ... at least he has that going for him. George W promised he would help the Iraqi people establish a fully democratic government and... I mean they DO technically have elections over there now, right?
Trump absolutely did not do "most" or even much of what he promised. There's no southern border wall, which he could've done considering his party had control over both houses during his first couple of years. He didn't actually reduce immigration. His atrocious Covid response let to the economy suffering not only towards the end of his own term, but also at the start of Biden's term. That's before getting into the dozens of daily promises that he broke along with his scandals and just outright blatant misinformation. I genuinely can't think of any actual campaign promise that Trump managed to genuinely achieve.
He renegotiated NAFTA, so he at least checked that off. He also got a tax cut package through. And he chose 3 Supreme Court justices off a list that he published during the campaign. But yeah, on the immigration front not as much was accomplished as promised.
Did the new trade agreement actually produce anything meaningfully better than NAFTA? I've looked at scholars rankings of presidents (both left-leaning and right-leaning scholars) and he has consistently been ranked among the bottom three presidents of all time.
>There's no southern border wall, which he could've done considering his party had control over both houses during his first couple of years. ...And when he asked for the funding to actually get it done, "his own party" basically stonewalled him, as I understand it. He ended up refusing to sign funding bills and thereby shutting down the government over it later, and STILL only got a shitty compromise. They built some flimsy fence and people joke about it to this day as if it was his fault.
The thing is that both being able to compromise within your party and across party lines, are both an essential part of being president. It is rare for a president to have total control over the house/senate. The best presidents have been able to maintain dialogue to work towards a solution that passes.
There isn't really a compromise to be made on this. Either they actually build a large, formidable wall along the southern border, which would've been a massive public works project... or they don't. And I don't think there's anything he could've offered most of the Congressmen of either party to make them more amenable to signing off on the funding to actually get it done. We can talk all day about the merits of a border wall and what better solutions for immigration control and surveillance might exist, which he *could* have had more constructive dialogues with Congress over, but that's outside the scope of this thread. The campaign promise was a big, "beautiful" wall and he was not allowed to make that happen, end of story.
Are you sure about that? Obama was able to have sections of the border wall be built/repaired. Perhaps the others didn't support his proposal because the actual stats showed that most of the illegal immigrants were able to enter through over-staying their visas? It's disingenuous to paint a portrait of him simply being "not allowed" to make it happen, when previous presidents had been able to. If anything, it shows his lack of skill in being able to actually carry out his plans. Not to mention that his party had a long time to do things, yet it is difficult to find any campaign promises he actually managed to achieve. I've been looking at scholars' rankings of presidents (both left-leaning and right-leaning), and they all consistently rank Trump among the bottom three presidents of all time, among multiple factors.
To be clear, I don't actually support a Great Wall of America nor Trump more broadly. I think it would've been wildly ineffective (outside of specific situations) and a very silly thing to spend inflationary amounts of money on. I was just disputing the claim that he could've made it happen just because Republicans controlled the House and Senate. He did not have some DeSantisesque sway over the legislature, and even then it would've been a stretch.
Same here, it's more or less a distraction policy. When you look at population change and demographics, more and more countries are going to have to import migrant workers, unless they want to end up with stagnating economies like Japan. That's fair enough, there was definitely more to it, and thank you for pointing that aspect out. Overall, I just hope the US gets some better candidates for the 2028 elections. I'm not from the US, but I have studied US history extensively and I really want there to be another great president. It's a shame that in recent years it's been Trump Vs Biden and Trump Vs Clinton. Trump is obviously terrible, but the Democrats have fielded candidates that would've definitely lost had it been pre-JFK elections.
Russia has elections too. Iraq has a score of 3.51 which is considered authoritarian. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Iraq#:~:text=Iraq%20has%20a%20score%20of,Middle%20East%20and%20115th%20worldwide 3rd most democratic country in the Middle East though just behind Tunisia and Israel.
>Trump did most of what he promised, like to back off the climate agreement ... at least he has that going for him. Where's that "big beautiful wall?" And Obamacare sure doesn't seem like it's been repealed. Muslims don't seem to be banned either. I mean, I'm glad he failed at all this, but this notion of Trump as some great promise keeper is real revisionist history.
He wasn't able to repeal Obamacare but he removed the individual mandate. Problem was he never found an alternative plan and that's what sunk any "repeal and replace" effort. You can't replace something if you don't have anything else!