What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Zoupa]

[Admiral Yi]

Our debt used to be 30% of GDP. 

[Zoupa]

Our debt used to be 30% of GDP. 

[Maladict]

I have a question: how long do you folks think is a reasonable time that should pass before a useful historical consensus can form concerning the worth of a particular leader?

Obviously, right after they leave office is not a good time, as supporters and enemies alike will tend to exaggerate their virtues and vices. Plus, it is not enough time to see if the choices they made turned out well or not.

The converse could also be true - too much time, and they have values that are simply too alien to modern reviewers, it becomes difficult to judge them. Or they become heavily mythologized and we are judging the myth and not the leader.

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

[Berkut]

I wonder that the emotional reaction is kind of telling as to how the conservative right got to where it is today.

Beebs (as an example of the modern conservative "sane" person who is disgusted with Trump) posted kind of the "Conservative narrative" of Reagan. A story the right loves about their hero. It's not really based on much actual fact, but some. It isn't devoid of history of course, and it isn't even really particularly horrible or anything. It's just kind of a mythology - lord knows the left has their own "stories" about their figures they lionize as well.

People countered with some data that shows the standard right wing narrative is, well, suspect? when it comes to actual objective data about his "accomplishments", and in addition, added in some of the left wing narrative around Reagan.

There is a difference there - refuting the right wing narrative is simply a matter of the factual record. You point out that President don't ACTUALLY control the economy in that way, that Regan didn't ACTUALLY cause the fall of the USSR, nor did he intend to spend the commies into oblivion, etc., etc. These are NOT the left wing narrative, it is just the non-aligned narrative. Then you can bring out the actual left wing narrative - that Reagan was part of a shift in American social ideas about how government works, how he was in part responsible for how the USA reacted to AIDS, etc., etc. Again - this stuff is arguable, part of the debate.

And Beebs kind of loses his mind. If he gives the right wing story, why, that is just part of the discussion. But if you give the left wing story, that is beyond the pale, and some kind of personal attack on him.

I wonder if we are in a moment where otherwise reasonable "conservatives" are really struggling to square their support for a movement that pretty clearly went from Reaganesque small government fanaticism (and that is not meant to be pejorative, but descriptive - it was not long after Reagan that it became a requirement on the right to absolutely swear that under no possible circumstances would you ever support raising any tax ever - that is fanaticism) into the Tea Party into the current GOP identifying as a nationalist, intolerant party of bigotry right on into Trump.

Perhaps that makes any examination of that path rather painful. And you cannot really talk about Reagan outside the glowing, charismatic destroyer of Communism without stepping onto that path and where it (in hindsight) pretty clearly (if not inevitably) led.

The irony is that I firmly believe that if Reagan were alive today, he would be absolutely fucking appalled at where the GOP has gone since he was in office. He would be a McCain/Romney style opponent of modern Trumpism.

[garbon]

I have a question: how long do you folks think is a reasonable time that should pass before a useful historical consensus can form concerning the worth of a particular leader?

Obviously, right after they leave office is not a good time, as supporters and enemies alike will tend to exaggerate their virtues and vices. Plus, it is not enough time to see if the choices they made turned out well or not.

The converse could also be true - too much time, and they have values that are simply too alien to modern reviewers, it becomes difficult to judge them. Or they become heavily mythologized and we are judging the myth and not the leader.

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

[Sheilbh]

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

Yeah I think to form a complete view you probably need them to be dead and most of their key advisers to be dead so all of the papers are available, plus restrictions lifted on sensitive internal documents. I don't think that will allow for an accurate consensus view because that's impossible and history is about the present and very shaped by the sort of framework and theory shaping our understanding of it.

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

I suspect it will generally get worse as more papers are released and memoirs are written etc.

But there'll probably be a revisionist biography in 50-60 years.

[Berkut]

I have a question: how long do you folks think is a reasonable time that should pass before a useful historical consensus can form concerning the worth of a particular leader?

Obviously, right after they leave office is not a good time, as supporters and enemies alike will tend to exaggerate their virtues and vices. Plus, it is not enough time to see if the choices they made turned out well or not.

The converse could also be true - too much time, and they have values that are simply too alien to modern reviewers, it becomes difficult to judge them. Or they become heavily mythologized and we are judging the myth and not the leader.

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

That is actually an interesting question.

The thing about Trump that is kind of interesting is that all the bad stuff about him was known right from the start.

We didn't learn *anything* about Trump throughout his Presidency. He was just as terrible as everyone thought he was at the beginning - his standing as a effective, competent, moral leader could only go up from where he started.

Of course, it did not go up at all. We just learned that he was as ineffective, incompetent, and corrupt as everyone was pretty sure he was right from the start.

To some degree, the evalution can only improve, since it is starting from "Well, he is clearly the worst President anyone could pretty much imagine from his time".

If historians just conclude that he is actually only fucking terrible, rather then absolutely fucking terrible, well...that's an improvement....right?

[Berkut]

But there'll probably be a revisionist biography in 50-60 years.

There will be a dozen or so authors making bank publishing books about the secret, competent, and stand up Trump who saved the world from ISIS.

Seriously....that will definitely be a thing.

[Sheilbh]

My suspcion of where Trump's reputation might grow/the space for a revisionist take would be along the lines of: he was a bad leader, he was bad at the job of President and couldn't administer anything, his administration were incompetent - but he was a shock to the US system that was necessary and that, if we are now entering a period of competition/cold war with China and industrial competition/de-globalisation, he got the big ideas right at a time when they were fairly niche. The other one is possibly if we experience more pandemics (which I think is likely) there's a possibility that sort of border bio-security becomes more of an issue and again Trump is seen as ahead of his time - with all of the caveats above about he actually was as a leader.

I don't think it's particularly convincing but that would probably be the space I think a legitimate/mainstream revisionist take might appear - as opposed to just right wing hagiographies.

[Maladict]

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

Only if it get worse from here on 

But I suppose he really could have had seriously impaired mental faculties during his presidency, because of illness or age.
It wouldn't necessarily improve his reputation, but maybe he couldn't be fully held accountable either.

[Malthus]

I have a question: how long do you folks think is a reasonable time that should pass before a useful historical consensus can form concerning the worth of a particular leader?

Obviously, right after they leave office is not a good time, as supporters and enemies alike will tend to exaggerate their virtues and vices. Plus, it is not enough time to see if the choices they made turned out well or not.

The converse could also be true - too much time, and they have values that are simply too alien to modern reviewers, it becomes difficult to judge them. Or they become heavily mythologized and we are judging the myth and not the leader.

They have to be dead, for one. Whatever they do after leaving office can still influence how their presidency will be judged.
Plus, after they're dead things will be said that couldn't be said before.
And I guess whatever duration is placed on restricting archive records to historians.

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

That is actually an interesting question.

The thing about Trump that is kind of interesting is that all the bad stuff about him was known right from the start.

We didn't learn *anything* about Trump throughout his Presidency. He was just as terrible as everyone thought he was at the beginning - his standing as a effective, competent, moral leader could only go up from where he started.

Of course, it did not go up at all. We just learned that he was as ineffective, incompetent, and corrupt as everyone was pretty sure he was right from the start.

To some degree, the evalution can only improve, since it is starting from "Well, he is clearly the worst President anyone could pretty much imagine from his time".

If historians just conclude that he is actually only fucking terrible, rather then absolutely fucking terrible, well...that's an improvement....right?

The incompetent insurrection ending was a surprise, at least to me.

[The Minsky Moment]

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

Absolutely.  Once the evidence comes out that the Italian satellites conspired with the Jewish orbital lasers to switch ballots from Trump to Biden, and the Dear Leader's 99% landslide victory is confirmed, Trump's reputation will rise.  And his place in history will be cemented when subpoenas to the CDC force them to disgorge their secret studies showing that a combination therapy of hydroxychloroquine and bleach is more effective vs COVID than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

[alfred russel]

Is there any chance that Trump's reputation will improve?

Of course. Recently reading about reconstruction, the path is clear: a modern day William Mahone. In early reconstruction he put together a coalition of poor whites and blacks as part of a populist Readjuster Party which favored using Virginia funds for education rather than paying bondholders (Virginia had a lot of debt after the war--the "readjustment" was on the bond payments, hence the name of the party). The party actually had success and he ended up a senator.

When the redeemers took control and blacks were ultimately disenfranchised, the party collapsed and Mahonism was a watchword in Virginia politics--with very negative implications. His corruption / personal failings were highlighted. The populism was viewed as dangerous. I think most modern historians would say, "yeah he was corrupt, but not necessarily worse than other southern politicians of the era, and he offered a positive path forward for the south that was shut down by the unfortunate early end to reconstruction and black disenfranchisement."

[The Minsky Moment]

Something about that analogy doesn't quite work . . .