News flash! Every American president was bad, every single one. Some were marginally worse than others of course; there is certainly a difference between Donald J. Trump and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example.
However, every American president up to this point has contributed their share to the problems associated with neoliberalism: exploitation of the working class, oppression of marginalized groups, brutal imperialism (both military and economic), and preventing radical and necessary change from occurring. Effectively every president in United States history has embraced big business and major corporations, as our system is designed so that these influential firms will line the pockets of those serving in public office, to the detriment of and without the consent of the working class. The federal foreign policy has displayed no significant changes from one administration to the next, as has been evident from the continuing of the Vietnam War and the "War on Terror" throughout several subsequent administrations, both of which needlessly killed millions of innocent civilians with seemingly no concern for human life. Or destabilizing and overthrowing democratically elected governments in the Global South to secure natural resources or defend U.S. hegemony (often phrased by the U.S. as "opposing communism") through means such as state terror, coup d'état, guerrilla warfare, hijacking local media outlets to spew right-wing, capitalist propaganda, or murdering political opponents at will. (i.e. Salvador Allende, Mohammad Mosaddegh)
Still, there is only so much blame to be placed on individual presidential administrations. I certainly don't subscribe to the Great Man theory. The main problem lies within the system itself, which inevitably reproduces these similar administrations one after the next. As long as we are held hostage to the Constitution (a deeply flawed document that I will expound upon in a future article) and neoliberalism, we will continue to elect almost indistinguishable presidential administrations, and elected officials more generally, as we descend towards a late-stage capitalist hellscape. Our undemocratic voting system, which allows the dictatorship of capital to gatekeep who can run for office or vote, is increasingly incompatible with the desires and needs of the people, as well as the stewardship of the planet. Many Americans have understandably given up on the electoral process and system of government, which consistently refuses to pass massively popular legislation such as full legalization of marijuana, a socialized healthcare system, and abortion rights protection. This has resulted in an abysmally low voter participation rate at just 47.5% of the voting-age population in 2018, for example, far lower than other countries in the Global North. In fact, a higher percentage (in fact, a slight majority) of Americans believe that burning down police stations during the George Floyd protests of 2020 was partially or fully justified than the percentage of Americans who voted for Trump or Biden.
Today, we see absurd wealth inequality comparable to the Gilded Age, as most Americans can't afford a mere $500 unexpected expense, while the ultra-wealthy get to take worthless joy rides in rockets while their workers are abused and illegally denied union representation (Jeff Bezos) or make false promises to help end world hunger, only to use over seven times that amount of money to run one of the largest social media networks into the ground (Elon Musk). The average American is far more likely to become homeless or be struck by lightning than to become a billionaire. Climate change is becoming increasingly destructive and threatening to human life, as demonstrated through decades of peer-reviewed meta-analyses documenting phenomena such as the drastic sea-level rise and ozone depletion and specific events, such as the recent wildfires in Australia, the receding of Pacific islands including the Maldives, and the increasing strength of hurricanes over the decades here in the United States. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, better known as IPCC, has warned that humans have gone past the point of "no return" at 1.5 degrees Celsius of global average temperature. We can only hope that tomorrow is not too much worse, but I am afraid that will not be the case if things do not change drastically, especially concerning public policy.
Be on the lookout for this new series, The Horrible Legacy of American Presidents. We can't promise an article about every single president, but certainly the more prominent presidential administrations will be covered: Reagan, FDR, George W. Bush, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Donald Trump to name a few. We look forward to fleshing out the sometimes harsh reality that there were no good American presidents.
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