General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's worst fear is that he will be compared to Herbert Hoover...
Or so he has said.
But if Hoover had possessed Trump's authoritarian tendencies and had been willing to manipulate the stock market and the oil supply, he may have been spared some of the criticism from the Great Depression.
Trump is on thin ice. Both get to deal with the tariff issue. Hoover had the Smoot/Hawley Act to work with and Trump has his worldwide tariffs. There is no reason to believe the tariffs will work any differently this time around. Prices have gone up and there are shortages, especially fruits and vegetables. How long before people are selling apples on the street corner for $2 each?
I have not seen many economists that are gung ho about the future economy. The AI "revolution" is driving the present economy, in my opinion, and it is just a matter of time until that bubble bursts. It will not be pretty.
Trump may actually accomplish something? He may make Hoover look brilliant before it is all over?
ITAL
(1,473 posts)Hoover's presidency may have been near the bottom, but he was arguably the greatest humanitarian in US History. He's still beloved in parts of Europe. I used to have a Belgian friend who couldn't believe how Hoover was still crapped on here.
rampartd
(5,867 posts)but he did adhere to a lassiez faire economic model that did not work then or now. a model that will be locked in hard if we allow him to define and outlaw "communists."
as far as humanitarian, hoover was in charge of the 1927 flood. an excellent book is barry's "rising tide." might give a little more perspective.
https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022
ITAL
(1,473 posts)During after WWI, helped stave off famine in Russia during their civil war, and then fed Europe again after WWII. But yeah, he was also heavily involved in disaster relief in the States as well. One of the greatest humanitarians we ever produced. I kind of feel sorry he got swept into the presidency, because that really sullied his name here.
PatSeg
(54,241 posts)humanitarian accomplishments in Europe after World War I. He was a remarkable man. It is a shame that today, people only remember him in regards to the Stock Market crash and the Great Depression.
RazorbackExpat
(1,007 posts)and put down farmer revolts in the Midwest. Not to mention the "Hooverville" homeless camps.
I've got some newspapers from the summer of 1932. Things were getting hairy, and Hoover was already toast by then.
PatSeg
(54,241 posts)but a hero in Europe. What a sad legacy to leave. Some people just aren't cut out to be president. "Hooverville" is one of the first things that pops to my mind when I hear his name.
RazorbackExpat
(1,007 posts)"Hooverville" became "Hooterville" in 1960s sitcoms
PatSeg
(54,241 posts)Intentionally?
Retrograde
(11,490 posts)he translated a medieval Latin mining treatise on mining into English. He was a self- made man, a mining engineer by training who worked all over the world. In his old age, he worked with President Truman im streamlining the federal government. A remarkable person, but the wrong man to be president when he was
PufPuf23
(10,064 posts)Hoover was a bad POTUS captive to wealth. Hoover was imperfect but also a man of empathy and integrity.
Hoover should not be compared with Trump nor Bush nor Reagan nor Nixon as far as evil,
kentuck
(116,309 posts)To which one of FDR's trusted advisors advised him that people do not eat every once in a while - they eat every day.
FDR inherited a mess, leftover from the wild binge of the Republicans in the 1920's. The stock market crash of 1929 was like the final nail in the coffin. FDR then proposed that they pass his New Deal to help the people.
Raftergirl
(2,026 posts)where they think the are doing great.
But very few of them are in the top 10-20% - the ones that do well, regardless of which party is in control.
canetoad
(21,296 posts)Because tsf tells them they are. Go figure.
fargone
(691 posts)Ponietz
(4,734 posts)Mussolini, the Italian, seems to be his role model. He fears a similar outcome.
fargone
(691 posts)Raven123
(8,086 posts)ananda
(35,941 posts)No comparisons necessary.
Easterncedar
(6,742 posts)He was driving past us protesters yesterday. We laughed and laughed. (Because it makes them madder.)
But it definitely points to serious deficiencies in our education system.
Our simple 'Trump Sucks' sign continues to get applause and beeps
some_of_us_are_sane
(3,934 posts)ananda
(35,941 posts)gets just as much or more attention as the best...
like being the best worst.
some_of_us_are_sane
(3,934 posts)Easterncedar
(6,742 posts)Not buying it.
agingdem
(9,074 posts)Old age, descending into /languishing in Alzheimers hell like his father, witnessing the purging of his existence, irrelevance ..and the prosecutions of he and his family..but definitely not Hoover..
kentuck
(116,309 posts)The way he hustled to get out of Turkey seemed like he was fearful for his life.
IA8IT
(6,478 posts)no_hypocrisy
(55,888 posts)Teapot Dome Scandal
Jilly_in_VA
(14,821 posts)Yes, his economic policies sucked, but personally he was a very decent man. His organization fed much of Europe followiing WWI (how many of you know there was widespread famine after that so-called "Great War"?). He was a Quaker and pretty much a pacifist and I understand he anguished over the problems of the American people following the Crash of 1929 but really didn't know what to do about it all.
Shitler ought to be afraid of being compared to Warren G. Harding! Now there was a guy whose level of corruption almost got there,......
rurallib
(64,965 posts)ITAL
(1,473 posts)He wasn't really on the ball though and basically surrounded by a bunch of corrupt advisors. His quote:
I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!
...is instructive. Of course, being unaware of most of your lieutenants be running around looting the treasury isn't a whole lot better than was doing it yourself.
***His sex scandals were legit on him though!
Jilly_in_VA
(14,821 posts)which is probably something Shitler hasn't done! But I think he was in on some of the corruption too.
ITAL
(1,473 posts)(And I've read two or three bios of him through the years)
Harding seemed more of a well meaning doofus than a crook. Most people said he wasn't the most intelligent guy, but he was great at retail politics and the back slapping sorta thing that was big a century ago. He could give a good speech without really saying anything ("I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election." ) And it's not like he didn't have some noteworthy accomplishments in the White House. Along with his Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, the US under Harding spearheaded a disarmament treaty that tried to limit the sizes of the largest Navies in the world. It was a great coup for his administration, though about a decade later most of the signatories were again building up their battle fleets thanks to Germany and Japan.
On the domestic front, Harding successfully steered the country out of the postwar recession. The steel industry had lagged behind the adoption of an 8 hour work day that the railroad industry had gotten the ball rolling on, but a harsh letter from the President to the chairman of US Steel was printed in the press and caused such an outcry, "big steel" finally came along. He at least tried to help African Americans as Harding openly called for more to be done to help them, especially in regard to allowing them to be able to vote. Obviously that went nowhere, but it at least showed his heart was in the right place (he also criticized the Tulsa Race Massacre in multiple speeches).
He was actually quite popular while he was alive since most of the scandals broke AFTER he died.
The Wizard
(13,994 posts)Jilly_in_VA
(14,821 posts)"No man ever looked more like a president, or acted less like one." My grandparents all remembered him well...and with a shudder, though they were old school Republicans.
Shitler is more in Nixon's camp, although in the end, Nixon at least respected the Constitution.
AnotherMother4Peace
(5,279 posts)sarisataka
(23,239 posts)He is surpassing them all setting high standards for new lows.
dem4decades
(14,755 posts)Janbdwl72
(334 posts)Says a lot for how misinformed, uninformed, misled and easily deceived so many of the American voting public are.
It also reveals just how apathetic the huge number of non-voters are.
dem4decades
(14,755 posts)Jilly_in_VA
(14,821 posts)MILLARD FILLMORE. Up until Shitler, he was reputedly the dumbest president ever.
Gore1FL
(23,017 posts)Mysterian
(6,795 posts)Hoover was a good and decent man.
Sogo
(7,368 posts)nt.
31j20b3
(245 posts)The terminal president of the Whigs?
Millard was a xenophobe, just like Trump.
Millard was a "know nothing" and so is TRump but not in the way those words mean on their face. Millard didn't know anything but love for America and loyalty to America, and the need to put REAL Americans first. VERY VERY much like Trump Millard hated Irish and mediterranean immigrants.
Millard was a lover of tariffs and protectionism for US business very much like Trump
Where Millard and Trump fall out is that Millard promoted an active Federal government meaning a productive and powerful Congress.. What Trump promotes is an exceptionally powerful authoritarian Executive Branch
Fil1957
(995 posts)Janbdwl72
(334 posts)Who did nothing to prevent what wound up being a war dividing the country, whose after effects are still felt to this day.
0rganism
(25,800 posts)Thanks to F47, the next decade is going to suck miserably for the entire biosphere. We can only hope that his unrivaled incompetence blunts the effects of his malicious criminality.
swong19104
(689 posts)Hes going to make the next Dem prez look like FDR on steroids.
twodogsbarking
(20,043 posts)BaronChocula
(5,066 posts)Nixon and Charles Manson. No joke.
usonian
(27,480 posts)Polybius
(22,373 posts)Calvin Coolidge was more like Ronald Reagan.
FullySupportDems
(535 posts)Who was very popular, until he wasn't. The country turned on him and called him a crook, Tricky Dicky. We can turn on the orange menace too.
Aristus
(72,833 posts)Hoover: Brilliant engineer, savvy businessman, loving husband, spoke more than one language, etc.
President? Not so good, but it's a tough job for even the best.
And Hoover, like Eisenhower, ended up being a treasured adviser to Democratic Presidents like Kennedy. That points to goodness of heart, and love of country.
Trump is garbage in a vaguely human form...
0rganism
(25,800 posts)We passed Hoover levels of awful halfway into his first term, not economically but in something more basic: human decency. The damage F47 has done to the world cannot be measured in dollars. (Well, okay, maybe it could be, but it'd be a really big number.)
This time around, F47's poised to preside over the onset of climate catastrophe (which he encourages), water wars (with broligarch-owned data centers already buying up water rights everywhere), and starvation-caused mass migrations (where he enables the cause and rejects the refugees). Stephen Miller's talked openly about "deporting" 2/3 of the American population. Obviously that's impossible, so what does "deporting" really mean? What if such a cull were implemented globally? We have the tools for that, and F47 is dumb enough to use them.
If he died today, F47 would already have established his legacy as not only the worst president but as one of the worst world leaders to have existed in history. As he continues, he'll rack up a score landing him as the single worst human to have ever lived. Ever. That is some freaking genius-caliber work, a master class in criminal incompetence. Just fucking amazing.
Hoover seems a saint by comparison.
Vogon_Glory
(10,457 posts)While I was born long after Herbert Hoovers presidency, I would say that he was a decent, honorable, patriotic individual who put love of country over love of self. Hoover was also an engineer: many of the things he had built are still there 90 years after his presidency. We can look and be. Proud that Hoover was an American.
As for Orange Julius: Meh (And Im pulling my bunches).
LetMyPeopleVote
(184,717 posts)trump may cause another recession/depression with his stupid war. trump is doing his best to follow in Hoover's footsteps
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(139,315 posts)Ohio Joe
(21,905 posts)AI (I put that in quotes because there is no actual AI, but that will be an upcoming post) is not driving the economy, it is driving the stock market. The economy is in the shitter.
Music Man
(1,693 posts)thebigidea
(13,599 posts)Gore1FL
(23,017 posts)Trump is long past Herbert Hoover. He's more comparable the Hoover vacuum cleaner for sheer sucking power.
Bluetus
(3,420 posts)And Trump would love to have a dam named after him.
Trump's brain is not capable of even imagining how he might compare to Hoover or any other President. He believes he is widely regarded as the greatest President, other than maybe Washington. He most certainly does not fear a comparison with Hoover. He fears not being able to get his arch erected or the new ballroom completed. Not much room in his brain for much else.
Orrex
(67,628 posts)And we know that nature abhors a vacuum.
Emile
(44,332 posts)economic plan. Hoover started out by enacting tariffs too.
Kid Berwyn
(25,687 posts)Trump is a Traitor.
