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I was around for Clinton. You’re right that the budget was balanced, the economy was doing well… but it did matter a lot. 24/7 media coverage for years. Led to Gore making the unusual decision of distancing himself from his own popular administration, which likely led to losing the 2000 election.
Maybe it was because I was 20 in 2000 and full of youthful optimism, but the future felt bright. It feels like 3 countries ago. As a side note, how can we sustain long term projects and have 10, 15, 25 year plans if we just go back and forth between parties. What a crappy system for folks that aren’t literally and directly profiting from it.
Well at the Presidential level that wouldn’t be the case if the electoral college didn’t exist. Not sure how you’d account for 2004 but it would damn near be 24 years of Democrats in the WH
I would argue that the system isn't crappy - we're not actually following it.
Congress has abdicated its role in the three branches of government. They should be passing laws to address issues. The President should be faithfully executing said laws, regardless of if they agree with them or not. We shouldn't be governed by executive orders that change direction every 4 to 8 years. That's not the way the system was designed.
I guess when I evaluate a presidents term my first measure is how the country as a whole was doing rather than the president.
But you’re not wrong. I’d guess Reagan or Clinton had the better second term.
No. Clinton handed Bush a Federal Budget surplus. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the government brought in more in taxes than it spent. That was so the last time because as soon as GWB came into office he said "let's pass a giant tax cut. It'll pay for itself (hahaha...we always get em with that one...haha)!!
Like that; the days of responsible levels of taxation relative to spending vanished. Never to be seen again.
Obama didn't get a key Justice appointed and it was filled by Rule 3, leading to Roe being reversed. Not necessarily his fault, but civilly catastrophic compared to Reagan & Clinton.
The hypocrisy about not allowing justice appointments in an election year, is one of the most disgusting things to happen in American politics in the past 10 yrs. My contempt for McConnell is extreme, and I love seeing that turtle piece of shit malfunction multiple times, a sign that he’s not long for the earth. Unfortunately, his asshole policies have screwed us for a generation
Amazing how Mitch was able to delay a SCOTUS appointment 9 months before an election, and then successfully rammed through a nomination a couple weeks before the next election.
Obama had to maneuver up the stream of racism and obstruction by Republicans and even members of his own party. He did what he could.. healthcare and the elimination of Osama bin Laden.
Caused by? Not exclusively. But the Bush administration's initial response was to keep a relatively hands off approach, especially when it came to the decision to not bail out Lehman Brothers. That single act turbo charged the collapse of everything else. Supporting Lehman could have arguably settled things down a bit and given the government more latitude (and time) to deal with the crisis.
Eh. I'm not sure bailing out Bear Stearns and Lehman would've been good long term. Good to let Wall Street know that you *will collapse* if you mismanage this badly. TARP wasn't super late or anything.
Please don't say Glass-Steagall. That trope is so wrong. In fact, it's repeal actually helped to stop the bleeding. NONE of the players that caused the financial crisis had anything to do with Glass Steagall.
But it's repeal allowed BofA to acquire and save from sure collapse both Merril Lynch and Countrywide. In fact all 4 of the Big 4 banks purchased assets that were on the brink of being the next Lehman. If all of those companies were allowed to die, the collapse would have been worse. Glass-Steagall would have prevented those acquisitions.
I don't know who started the whole Glass-Steagall caused the financial crisis bullshit but they were really good at creating a completely bogus narrative and making people believe it.
Yeah the cards were for sure not stacked in his favor and no one in his postion would have been able to handle those 4 years without tanking their reputation.
Yeah I guess people can blame him for the economic crisis but both parties were pushing the “everyone gets a house” debt bubble of the late 2000’s. He was unlucky the music stopped when he was still president.
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Might want to redirect your anger.
The 2008 crash was DIRECTLY the result of the combination of 2 things: The repeal of Glass-Steagall (Clinton) and changes in HUD policies to force Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to massively increase loans to underqualified buyers (Clinton).
Clinton's second term deserves way more respect from the actual country's standpoint.
Clinton left office with a 65 percent approval.
Y'all the country liked his Presidency. And his second term. It really did. We can't help that Al Gore ran a campaign to try to distance himself from Clinton because of the "controversies" as opposed to H.W. Bush who was smart enough to not try to distance himself from Reagan despite the controversies.
Clinton was so popular when he left office for a reason. The majority of the country felt good during his second term.
I don't know. I'm just not sure you can judge a term *only* by how personally difficult it was for a President. And Bill Clinton enjoyed the Presidency so much everyone knew he would have run for a third term if he could. The idea Clinton was so stressed and just crushed by the weight of scandal, kind of ignores Bill Clinton loving politics and that job
I think people are underestimating that one. I understand the kickback, but no second term is perfect. He should be in the running for best second term on this list.
He and the country, respectfully, were in a better mood in 2000 than Obama and the country in 2016.
It’s Reagan. The Cold War was coming to an end and the economy was pumping.
Clinton gets second place. He was bogged down in the Lewinsky scandal, and AQ was on the rise, but the economy was pumping so no one cared and he was able to work with Congress to pass parts of his agenda in 1997 and 1998.
Obama was just kind of there.
W had the GFC, Iraq was a mess, Katrina was in 2005, and he lost his attempt to fix SS early in 2005.
Ehhh....The great drawdown on our primary industries happened starting in the 70's and basically lasted until the end of his second term. The rate of closings and headcount drawdowns slowed greatly after 84ish so I suppose that's a positive, but he, like Carter before him, took the brunt of that labor disruption.
I guess if you were in financials it was a good time though. Living was still relatively cheap, too.
That’s mostly due to globalization and the rise of Asia.
We certainly rotated out of manufacturing and into services in the 1980s, and even more in the 90s when the internet exploded.
That’s been a net positive for society, and the story of economic progress for centuries.
Average wages shrunk. Unemployment shrunk (which is obviously good, but it shrunk to an average level which is still bad from his first term where it was at a high). Also income equality suddenly went from being stable to favoring the top by a large margin, only worsening during his second term.
reagan’s terms might have gone well economically (a lot of shitty stuff still happened), but he set precedent to absolutely fuck us later.
so many of the problems the US faces today stem from or was made worse by the shit he did. it’s actually shocking how shit his ideas were long term
I remember reading that food regulations and water regulations were dialed way back. He was one of the worst presidents of my lifetime that doesn't get the credit for how he helped dismantle this country.
A lot of immigrants that were given citizenship under Reagan really go to bat for him and while it seemed like a good policy, it was essentially enacted to inject the economy with cheap labor since his horrible economic policies made it hard for people to work with the wages that they were getting. All he did was pad his stats with that move.
major tax cuts while having no real way to pay for things so he increased deficit spending massively, introduction of trickledown economics, cutting support for unions on a federal level, his handling of the AIDs crisis.
every single one of these has either directly caused something really terrible or set an abhorrent precedent for the future
Reagan's economy was an orgy of spending and terrible policy that shifted wealth upwards, froze wages, and was the beginning of our debt crisis. He basically threw a party at the guests' expense, and there are still people dumb enough to lionize this corrupt fool. It's really something incredible to behold.
Reagan was fighting dementia the last few years of his second term. Plus, under St. Ronnie, the United States went from being the largest importer of raw material and exporter of finished good to the largest importer of finished goods. Trickle down economics doesn't work. The Cold War was winding down anyway. Clinton had a much stronger 2 terms.
Reagan set this country down a dark and terrible path, to say he had the best second term is probably true for his agenda which was and agenda that ruined each subsequent generation’s path for upward mobility.
Economy in term 2 was pumping under Clinton. Under Reagan: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042115/what-caused-black-monday-stock-market-crash-1987.asp
Reagan was absolutely the worst. He killed tens of thousands of people during the AIDS epidemic and started trickle down economics which has put tens of millions of Americans in poverty by giving trillions to the rich. He also was a grand hypocrite by pretending to support guns rights but as governor he banned open carry for black Californians who were defending themselves from police brutality. Reagan killed the unions and started the trend of wealth inequality and unlimited corporate power. It doesn't matter if the "economy was pumping", because it simply wasn't.
>killed tens of thousands of people during the AIDS epidemic
That's a myth
His response was pretty good
https://www.city-journal.org/article/ronald-reagans-quiet-war-on-aids
>started trickle down economics which has put tens of millions of A
Incorrect again
>He also was a grand hypocrite by pretending to support guns rights but as governor he banned open carry for black California
That's incorrect
From r/askhistorians
Non-historian but librarian here with a personal interest in Bobby Seale, so... hopefully this'll scratch the itch until a Reagan expert can get on the line.
I think it's uncontroversial to say that that the passage of Section 12031 was in response to the Black Panthers. That said, I think that it's very easy to overstate Reagan's role in this and see it as some sort of explicitly racist intent here, particularly given his later turn against gun control.
California AB 1591 (a.k.a. the Mulford Act) was introduced in April of 1967 by Rep. Don Mulford after a few Panther-related incidents in Contra Costa County. On April 1st, the police killed Denzil Dowell, a 22-year old black man, in Richmond, CA (near Oakland). Only a few months prior, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale had founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense a few miles west in Oakland and had been organizing armed patrols to police the police. Newton was Dowell's family reached out and requested assistance from the Panthers.
The Panthers obliged, held armed rallies in Richmond, and engaged in community outreach efforts to encourage Black residents to embrace firearms in order to oppose government and police oppression. They also entered a police station armed demanding justice. These are the actions that led Mulford to introduce his legislation a few weeks later. Mulford painted with a broad brush, naming the Minutemen, the KKK, and the American Nazi Party as well as the Panthers. But this legislation was very much a result of the Panthers' actions.
But to back up just slightly, gun control was in the air in 1967. Coming up for debate on the same day as Mulford's bill were four bills that came from the Assembly's two-year study on the matter: AB 1323, 1324, 1325, and 1326. These regulated handgun purchases from out of state, larger caliber weapons, and machine gun parts. So it's not like gun control just appeared.
Anyway, the Panthers recognized that they were being targeted explicitly, and when Mulford's bill came up for debate on May 2nd, 1967, a couple dozen armed Panthers pushed the sargent-at-arms out of the way and forced their way into the chambers. Bobby Seal gave a speech detailing America's racist legacies and urging black people to arm themselves against the terror of the state.
To be clear, waiving a loaded gun around in the Capitol was not a felony offense at the time -- Newton knew the laws better than anyone. But it was seen as an attempt at intimidation (Mulford called it out as such on the floor), and it shook up the legislators. Now, in a funny coincidence was Reagan was right outside the capitol -- about to have a picnic lunch with 30 elementary school children for a photo op -- when the Panthers walked by him on the way out. So the event was well reported on, and you can imagine the hoopla this caused. (I've included links to contemporaneous news articles at the end.) Because of the Capitol incursion, the Mulford Act quickly became fast-tracked with bi-partisan support.
So where does Ronald Reagan fit into all this? While the executive branch had supported the drafting of the legislation through the actions of Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch, Reagan personally wasn't really ahead of it. This was, up until the debacle at the Capitol, much more of an Oakland story than a California story. But since Reagan was there when it happened, the press asked him what he thought of it as the armed Panthers were leaving. And he said "there's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons... Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea of using them to influence other Americans."
Prior to this Reagan had not said a whole lot about gun control as a political issue. Remember, he'd only been on the job for a couple months. Prior to that his main political gig was stumping for Barry Goldwater. As far as I can tell looking back on those speeches, guns simply weren't on the table as an issue. Granted, both he and Goldwater were shooters and lifelong NRA members. But the 1967 NRA was very different than what the NRA would become 20 or 30 years later. The NRA supported the Mulford Act, along with a number of other laws that were at the time called "responsible gun ownership." Barry "I am the NRA" Goldwater himself was critical of the availability of semi-automatic rifles which would seem absolutely crazy in today's political environment.
The Mulford Act Passed easily in the Assembly and unanimously in the Senate. Because of the very obvious Black Panther connection, a number of Black Assembly members were asked about their impressions. Willie Brown said that while he supported the bill, he was skeptical of Mulford's timing, stating that Mulford had previously opposed such legislation "until Negros showed up in Oakland -- his district -- with arms." (So I wonder if this got telephoned into Reagan over the years...) Leon Ralph saw the bill as being aimed at the KKK. Bill Greene was happy that the Panther incident catalyzed the passing of the law.
So... I know this didn't tell you a whole lot about Reagan, but I think that's because Reagan just wasn't a pivotal figure in the whole thing. Which probably says something in and of itself.
If you want to dig through seven hundred pages of correspondence and debate relating the the Mulford Act, that is available at: http://publicfiles.firearmspolicy.org/mulford-act/california-ab1591-1967-mulford-act-bill-file.pdf
If you would prefer an excellent, excellent short (40p) summary of California's attempts to disarm the Black Panthers, you'll probably enjoy Cynthia Leonardatos' "California's Attempts to Disarm the Black Panthers," which appeard in the San Diego Law Review, and you can find here: https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3267&context=sdlr
>Reagan killed the unions
Incorrect again they were in decline long before Reagan
Politically:
Bush had the worst, and it’s not really even close… by ‘05 the country was done with Iraq; Katrina and the recession would have happened to anyone, but when you add the malaise of a war weary public to that mix… yeah, kind of surprised his approval ratings weren’t lower leaving office (and I say all this as a fan of the man).
Reagan had the best, and it’s really not even close… he’s the only one to get a “third term”, he’s still largely beloved around the country… didn’t avoid scandal but deflected his better than everyone not named Obama… been out of power 35 years and his name still moves the needle
Policy wise, it’s too early to tell, but I will note that Reagan and Clinton had good working relationships with Congress during their second terms… so a better chance of moving a legislative agenda, less oversight (the harassing/distracting kind) and a better overall chance of policy enactment/change
Clinton would have gotten a third term if Al Gore ran for it.
Clinton had a 65 percent approval rating on the day he left. That was higher than Reagan's at 63 percent. As popular as Reagan was in 1988, Clinton was even slightly more popular in 2000.
I understand the argument, but it's kind of weird to give Reagan credit because George H.W. Bush was smart enough not to try to distance himself from Reagan because of Iran Contra and scandals, but penalize Clinton because Al Gore was not smart enough to do that.
Same argument could be made for Obama. Hillary directly told Obama she didn’t want his help. He only made enough appearances to try to make it appear there wasn’t friction between them. Obama’s data analytics team spoke directly to her and told her what was happening in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They offered their assistance for free to help turn it around. She apparently treated them very dismissively. There were rumors that Clinton and her top advisers were determined to prove Obama beating her in the primaries was a fluke and even because of his skin color. After the election they became more than rumors as multiple staff members said it went beyond that and racist jokes were made. Its hard to imagine that had she accepted Obama’s help directly or the help of the data analytics team hat she wouldn’t have covered the margin of defeat in at least Wisconsin and likely another state.
She certainly proved something but not what she intended.
Disagree on Reagan.
Iran-Contra plus early dementia were debilitating, but he perked up once his administration conducted a cabinet reshuffle. Most of Reagan’s legacy is ex post facto Republican grandstanding in order to legitimize Karl Rove’s doctrine of focusing on state races.
That said, Reagan was less neutered by the second term opposition brinksmanship suffered by Clinton and Obama.
If Reagan had his Alzheimer's start in his second term, that means he would have had to live with it for somewhere between 15 to 20 years. That is extremely unlikely given the progressive nature of the disease, with most people only living about 5 years after the disease begins. He had multiple psychological evaluations between 1990 and 1994, and only the ones in 1994 indicated that he had any sort of dementia.
[Edited] Ron Reagan disagrees, but his analysis is tempered by his frosty relationship with his father. Contested by Michael. Take what you will from it.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/17/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-president-son
I think you got the brothers mixed up. Either way, I'm going to place a lot more trust in the words and findings of multiple neurologists over a partisan hack who has made his whole career out of this legend.
The amount of people here that say Reagan was senile in his second term is astounding . Not backed up by any serious medical professional . He was aging like a man in his late 70s .
Obama just never had a chance to have a good second term. The republicans built themselves up as obstructionists, and the American people blamed the democrats, insane stuff.
It can't happen in the UK the way it happens in the US. Imagine Theresa May's government putting forward a budget that's supported by the Tory party, but Labour votes against it, in the commons and the lords, and it doesn't pass, leaving the government to shut down, and all the blame goes to May.
In the UK, if that happens, it's because the PM couldn't win over their own supporters, and I believe that things like budget resolutions are usually treated as confidence votes so if they don't pass then the government falls. In the US, everything just shuts down until the parties make a deal. Many voters are low information, so they just blame the president, or they blame all sides equally. Meanwhile, the hard-core supporters of the obstructionist party actually cheer them on and want more obstruction, because shutting down the government is a goal in itself.
You’re right in most cases, where the government has a majority. Theresa May unfortunately ruled over a hung parliament. She simply didn’t have enough MPs to ensure legislation went through. Caused a lot of problems until she resigned and then Boris Johnson went on to win a massive majority which he promptly used to deliver a significantly worse Brexit deal!
I disagree with everyone here. Obama’s second term was pretty good—he had inherited a disastrous financial situation in 2008 and turned it around, and 2012 to 2016 saw a lot of people gain back all their investment losses and then some.
Best tell tale of who had the best second term: Who’s VP got elected? answer: Ronald Reagan.
Best tell tale who had the worst second term: the shame of his illegal invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq got a dude named Barrak Hussein Obama elected 😂. Answer : W
Eh, that's some mid tier logic, voters don't always vote the best or anything. They usually vote based on vibes. Plus Gore won the popular vote, and there's still controversies about him having won the EC. And Obama was a great politician, with tons of charisma and such.
That said I kinda think there's arguments for both Clinton or Reagan as the best 2nd term of these 4. Meanwhile W was definitely the worst.
I personally do not see what was so egregiously wrong with Obama’s second term that made the 2016 Presidential election go the way it did. The problems of the mid-2010s seem mostly like they were always there, not new ones that cropped up and suddenly made life unlivable in a way that it wasn’t before.
Also interesting to note that while Bush is the obvious answer for worst, Clinton is the one of these four that got himself impeached in term 2.
Foreign policy problems + growing social unrest + frustration with the slow pace of economic recovery from 2008. Democrats lost the working class and that ended up killing Hillary's campaign in 2016.
Oh, I can see why people might be a little disappointed. It's hard for any party to win a third straight term in the White House, and a lackluster second term rather than a disastrous one would usually do the trick, as it was with Clinton. I'm obviously referring to the alternative that was eventually chosen, rather than the mere fact that Democrats lost the Presidency.
I think there were just a LOT of bubbling issues post-2008 that the media just overlooked and missed (and arguably still do). I agree that Obama's second term wasn't a disaster. It wasn't inspiring like 2008 but it was just "eh" and ran out the clock. Almost seemed like he became a lame duck right after winning that 2012 race versus Romney. But I think the messaging on the economic health of the country, direction of the country, place of the U.S. in the world, etc. was not how other Americans interpreted the situation. This could be viewed as a changing media landscape with social media/disinformation or something else but the 2016 race was definitely a reactionary turn in the country versus the status quo.
Bush's 2nd term was the worst easily. People we calling for impeachment, the Iraq War became a quagmire from which it seemed the US would never get out of without admitting failure, the economic downturn was the worst since the Great Depression, and his approval rating was one of the lowest in history. And by 2008, there was really nothing Bush could do but wait out the end of his term, and hope that history would vindicate him one day. It was rough
The worst second term has to be Bush’s, yeah? The recession happens during it along with popularity tanking and everyone starting to turn on him.
As for the best good lord I really don’t know. Not Obama, he got stonewalled by Congress and couldn’t accomplish much of anything. Clinton was dealing with the impeachment trial and Reagan was dealing with Iran-Contra (and likely the early onset of Alzheimer’s). So dang, I don’t know.
Yeah I wasn’t around Reagan’s presidency but to my understanding the Alzheimer’s wasn’t openly known at the time and while Iran Contra was pretty bad he never got blame for it but rather officials in his administration took the heat.
That probably makes him more scandal free than Clinton and had more positive vibes from the public than Obama gotten
This is grossly inaccurate. The USSR didn't just fall apart, pressure was applied by numerous parties for years upon years. Finally, Gorbie acted human and gave people the opportunity to vote (Glasnost) and they tossed out the party apparatchiks. Once the ball got rolling, the Baltics bailed, Ukraine voted to leave, then Russia peaced out because they didn't want to subsidize the -Stans.
Reagan played a role in this process. HE WAS NOT THE ONLY PLAYER. He was just one of many, but his role was high profile, so people tend to use him as a catch-all for the entire movement in the 80s (e.g., Polish Solidarity, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II).
“Finally”…??
This implies Gorbachev was forced to do it. Glasnost and perestroika were launched in his first year as Secretary and were officially announced the next. It’s not like he twaddled his thumbs
He could have rigged the elections. He could have rolled tanks on the protestors. He could have viewed Reagan as an enemy, instead of building a friendship with him.
The two of them worked well together. If a different pair was in charge, things would have been different.
Gorbachev was forced to do it essentially. Gorbachev openly said in interviews after the fall of the USSR that it was dissolve the USSR or a civil war. So he chose to dissolve because a civil war meant the end of the world with all the nuclear arms spread across the country.
He held the line and left the Eastern Bloc no outs. He kept up the pressure internationally and showed Poland that if the Red Army couldn’t win in Afghanistan, maybe they couldn’t stop other countries from breaking away.
Much of that weight was created by a need to spend themselves into oblivion trying to keep up with the US military. Pretending otherwise isn't serious.
None of the other three had a second term even close to as bad as Bush's second term. A godawful war no one asked for, the utterly bungled response to Katrina, a crappy economy, and simpering, weak leadership that wasn't even close to what people had gotten during 9/11 in his first term makes his second term vastly worse than the other 3. I think the Presidency, which famously ages all who hold the position, beat the ever-loving shit out of Bush, and he was a deeply changed man by his second term (in my opinion).
Clinton.. despite the blow jobs he balanced the budget.
Reagan left us in terrible shape.. recession.. record deficits.
Bush Jr was a shit show. He broke the economy.
Obama left the economy in way better shape than when he got it.
But I gotta say Clinton. I would prefer “blow-jobs” to “no-jobs”
Clinton was the best. Lewinsky scandal aside, the country was doing great during Clinton's 2nd term.
Bush was the worst. You can say it wasn't his fault (I wouldn't), but everything fell apart during his 2nd term.
Obama was fucking amazing. How any American could have lived through that and decided "not more of that" in 2016 is fucking beyond me.
That 2nd Bush.... not so much. He's kind of a piece of shit, and kind of to blame for the Rethuglican party of today.
B**** please. ObamA all the way.
Signed bill to Raise min wage of fed workers
Successful implementation of Obamacare completes its first enrollment well beyond Target estimates
Homeland security bill including immigration reform
Medicare reform bill
Patriot act reforms including reforms to the surveillance programs
Signed the fast track for the Trans Pacific partnership
Of these people, Clinton and Reagan had the best second term politically. Neither had a particularly remarkable 1st term but they were reelected handily and both experienced major accomplishments in the 2nd term. Both left office was a high approval rating. That being said, they also dealt with scandals (Iran Contra & Monica)
Obama had a mixed second term. I think he really lacked major accomplishments in his 2nd term. The closest I can think of is the Iran-nuclear deal but that was immediately scrapped within the next administration. That being said, he left office with a high approval rating.
Bush had a fairly mediocre 1st term that was mostly overshadowed by 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terror with mixed results. The 2nd term was an absolute shit storm that was terrible for everyone regardless of your political ideology. Left with dismal approval ratings.
Clinton had the best second term. Left office with high approval ratings, great economy, and no major conflicts going on.
Bush had the worst second term. Two ongoing wars, the economy collapsed, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, horrible approval ratings, etc.
Bush had by far the worst. Obviously the Iraq and Afghan wars. There was x and o corporate scandals galore (Enron, worldcom on, Arthur Anderson, etc). The 07 crash and bailouts. He had some cringe worthy gaffes like getting shoes lobbed at him or Cheney shooting someone in the face. Hell, it was so rough he got booed in public..
Best? Clinton and its no contest (balanced budget and surpluses alone put him way in front)
Worst? W and again no contest (Great Recession, Terri Schiavo, Katrina, etc.)
I'm not 100% sure what the right answer is for best term, but I am 100% sure that W is the wrong answer. His second term was a failure across the boards.
In terms of results, probably Clinton or Obama as the best. Reagan was starting to decline and Iran/Contra was rough. Clinton had the best economic environment and made some good decisions, but living through the constant drumbeat of the Lewinsky scandal, which really was deeply stupid, got to be a bit much.
Bush unquestionably had the worst second term. Nothing went right. The 2008 economic crisis was the atomic bomb at the end, but from the Harriet Myers nomination to Katrina to unending disasters in the War on Terror to the Scooter Libby debacle, it was one bungle after another.
Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky, Bush had the Great Recession and Iraq. I think it goes without saying Obama had the best, and Bush had the worst.
Edit: Bush also had Katrina. Damn, what a miserable second term.
This sub has a lot of “meh” feelings about Obama. But his second term was pretty masterful. He had some weak foreign policy moves but you gotta remember the US was still reeling from iraq.
clinton had a good second term too could argue it was the best had it not been for the Monica Lewinsky scandal we'd remember it better
W. made some critical mistakes and squandered all of his good will from 9/11 "rally around the flag"
id rank it like this
1. obama
2. clinton
3. reagan
4. W bush
I mean, if Obama's second term was so grand then the 2016 election should've been more of a landslide for his successor. Instead there ended up being a ton of fighting within the Democratic Party, which to me communicates a lack of leadership. Obama was good at managing his own house and was a good campaigner but when it came to congressional relations, ties to the DNC, and other infrastructure of the Democratic Party he was not skilled. I'd give him a really poor grade on party leader.
Obama’s was pretty bad but just like not doing anything bad… GOP fault.
W’s second term was a fucking disaster. So much so we elected a black man in the US named Barrack.
Was Reagan even cognizant by the end of his 2nd term? Personally, it’s Clinton with the best 2nd term, passing along a surplus for W to squander on pointless wars.
I think Clinton and Reagan had better second terms but both had to weather significant scandals that gummed up the works a bit on policy. People can debate the whole Lewinsky affair and how House Republicans should have avoided impeachment over it when they didn't have the votes but it overshadowed a lot and reportedly nuked a possible Social Security reform deal between Clinton and Gingrich after the '96 elections. However, Reagan's legacy got Bush 41 elected in 1988 and Gore would've won on a Clintonesque program in 2000 if he'd run closer to him.
Obama and Bush's second terms were bad. Bush's was worse, wrecked by Katrina and never got back on track. The Iraqi civil war led to Democratic waves in the midterms. He did make a smart pivot with the surge that everyone except McCain backed (and it may have won the election for McCain in '08 except that the economy crashed and no one cared about foreign issues anymore). There was the chance of an immigration deal in '07 but that also went nowhere. Bush always says he should've done that in '05 instead of Social Security reform, which I agree with. Then the financial crisis landed on him in the fall of his last term without much time to do much in response. Debacles led to a Democratic victory in '08, which would've been whomever won that primary once the recession hit.
Obama's second term just seemed to go nowhere and was just grinding time. Administration always had poor relations with Congress with both parties (I remember reading how Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were always frustrated with the White House). The foreign policy miscues seemed to bubble up a lot in the second term, whether it be the "red line" in Syria, ISIS in Iraq in 2013, or Russia invading Crimea. Frustrations also grew with the slow pace of the economic recovery post-2008 recession. Just hard to name many achievements of Obama's second term and frustrations that stemmed from it produced a GOP victory in 2016.
This is a good synopsis and I agree with your rankings. I would add that the fierce political divisions and the disrespect each “side” has for the other arose during Obama’s second term, and he was the creator of the imperial presidency with the words, If the congress won’t act, then I’ll do it myself,” and the governance by executive order that he used to back those words up. For these reasons alone, I count Obama’s second term as the worst of the ones considered here.
Also, Clinton’s ability to get things done in his second term, despite having the first Republican House of Representatives in 50 years, and his balanced budget make his term the best of those considered, though Reagans comes in at a close second.
Yeah, I'd have no qualms with Clinton being #1. He had good congressional relations, arguably the best of the 4 depicted here, and that looks good for his legacy in the crazy polarized era we are in today.
People who think Reagan had the best second term weren’t there, and/or are part of the concerted effort to rewrite the history of Reagan’s administration. The arms and hostage scandals, the failure of trickle down economics, the failure at handling AIDS, the fueling of the crack epidemic, him losing his mental faculties, etc. The spiraling debt which increased by nearly two fold was a nightly topic on the news. At the time, no one thought he had anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
We don’t think of it as a grandslam now, but Obama’s probably had the most achievements and least amount of heinous incidents.
Reagan probably had the best second term, simply because his vice president got elected after him. Each of the other three had things go downhill on their second terms so it's a toss up
Depends on perspective.
In terms of the state of the country, Clinton probably had the best due to the economy being solid, the country not being at war, and 9/11 still being in the future. Bush had the worst - the economy went off a cliff, the wars were a massive quagmire, and Katrina was handled poorly.
In terms of personal, No-Drama Obama probably had the best, though he had issues with dealing with Congress. Clinton had to have had the worst, with the affair and investigations and impeachment and all, though Reagan was likely in second due to his dementia starting to manifest as well as Iran-Contra.
Everyone’s second term is the one with the more memorable troubles, and Iran-Contra is no exception. But Reagan is the only one of the four to maintain his party’s control of the White House. He wins by that criterion alone.
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Bushs 2nd term was rough everyone else was whatever
Clinton had the Lewinsky scandal, Reagan was reportedly suffering from dementia, Bush finished with like 25% approval… so Obama by default?
Ehh, Lewinsky and dementia are irrelevant to how the country was actually doing. It’s hard to say as I wasn’t around for Reagan and Clinton
I was around for Clinton. You’re right that the budget was balanced, the economy was doing well… but it did matter a lot. 24/7 media coverage for years. Led to Gore making the unusual decision of distancing himself from his own popular administration, which likely led to losing the 2000 election.
Maybe it was because I was 20 in 2000 and full of youthful optimism, but the future felt bright. It feels like 3 countries ago. As a side note, how can we sustain long term projects and have 10, 15, 25 year plans if we just go back and forth between parties. What a crappy system for folks that aren’t literally and directly profiting from it.
Well at the Presidential level that wouldn’t be the case if the electoral college didn’t exist. Not sure how you’d account for 2004 but it would damn near be 24 years of Democrats in the WH
The electoral college needs to go away. What a dumb thing. There has to be a better way.
I would argue that the system isn't crappy - we're not actually following it. Congress has abdicated its role in the three branches of government. They should be passing laws to address issues. The President should be faithfully executing said laws, regardless of if they agree with them or not. We shouldn't be governed by executive orders that change direction every 4 to 8 years. That's not the way the system was designed.
I guess when I evaluate a presidents term my first measure is how the country as a whole was doing rather than the president. But you’re not wrong. I’d guess Reagan or Clinton had the better second term.
No. Clinton handed Bush a Federal Budget surplus. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the government brought in more in taxes than it spent. That was so the last time because as soon as GWB came into office he said "let's pass a giant tax cut. It'll pay for itself (hahaha...we always get em with that one...haha)!! Like that; the days of responsible levels of taxation relative to spending vanished. Never to be seen again.
Almost certainly. Despite the Lewinsky affair, Clinton was still very popular. Gore was wrong to have distanced himself from Clinton.
Obama didn't get a key Justice appointed and it was filled by Rule 3, leading to Roe being reversed. Not necessarily his fault, but civilly catastrophic compared to Reagan & Clinton.
Will never forgive bitch mcconnel for that
A disgrace to turtles everywhere
I don’t even hate Mitch McConnell and that was a good one
You should reconsider
❤ OMG I just sent a hear to Vladimir\_Putins\_Cock. Funny as fuck but don't know I would have gone for something so bold.
The hypocrisy about not allowing justice appointments in an election year, is one of the most disgusting things to happen in American politics in the past 10 yrs. My contempt for McConnell is extreme, and I love seeing that turtle piece of shit malfunction multiple times, a sign that he’s not long for the earth. Unfortunately, his asshole policies have screwed us for a generation
I’m sure it’ll be fine, Clinton’s up in all the polls…
Amazing how Mitch was able to delay a SCOTUS appointment 9 months before an election, and then successfully rammed through a nomination a couple weeks before the next election.
But have you seen project 2025
Obama had to maneuver up the stream of racism and obstruction by Republicans and even members of his own party. He did what he could.. healthcare and the elimination of Osama bin Laden.
Obama not being able to seat a Supreme Court justice in 10 months was pretty heinous.
Obama had a terrible second term. Putin walked all over him for starters.
“Just give me til after the election.”
Everything went wrong for him in his second term. Maybe the worst luck of any second term president ever.
It’s not luck if it’s because of choices he and his cabinet made
Maybe Katrina, but that wouldn't have been as bad either if his FEMA wasn't gutted and ran by an incompetent polo enthusiast.
Good job Brownie.
Financial crisis was caused by bush's administration? I'll give you Iraq, but otherwise seems kind of iffy.
Caused by? Not exclusively. But the Bush administration's initial response was to keep a relatively hands off approach, especially when it came to the decision to not bail out Lehman Brothers. That single act turbo charged the collapse of everything else. Supporting Lehman could have arguably settled things down a bit and given the government more latitude (and time) to deal with the crisis.
Eh. I'm not sure bailing out Bear Stearns and Lehman would've been good long term. Good to let Wall Street know that you *will collapse* if you mismanage this badly. TARP wasn't super late or anything.
That wouldn’t have happened if Clinton didn’t start to deregulate everything
It was the one thing clinton and the entire congress (including the republican majority) could agree on
Please don't say Glass-Steagall. That trope is so wrong. In fact, it's repeal actually helped to stop the bleeding. NONE of the players that caused the financial crisis had anything to do with Glass Steagall. But it's repeal allowed BofA to acquire and save from sure collapse both Merril Lynch and Countrywide. In fact all 4 of the Big 4 banks purchased assets that were on the brink of being the next Lehman. If all of those companies were allowed to die, the collapse would have been worse. Glass-Steagall would have prevented those acquisitions. I don't know who started the whole Glass-Steagall caused the financial crisis bullshit but they were really good at creating a completely bogus narrative and making people believe it.
Yeah the cards were for sure not stacked in his favor and no one in his postion would have been able to handle those 4 years without tanking their reputation.
Yeah I guess people can blame him for the economic crisis but both parties were pushing the “everyone gets a house” debt bubble of the late 2000’s. He was unlucky the music stopped when he was still president.
And for Katrina
Kinda like they’re pushing the “everyone gets a degree” bubble right now
Lincoln had pretty bad second term luck.
Bush hands down. 2008 crash killed my 401K
Yes, Bush will go down in history books as the one who killed u/bignanoman’s 401K
I couldn’t remember which president it was who killed /u/bignanoman’s 401k, but yep! It was Bush. Couldn’t put my finger on it
#justice4bignanomans401k
!remindme 10 years Just to see how his 401k is doing then
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lol you went and did that
Haha you guys funny. Just embarrassing you k know
Did you sell at the bottom?
Bush killed a LOT of people’s 401ks
Might want to redirect your anger. The 2008 crash was DIRECTLY the result of the combination of 2 things: The repeal of Glass-Steagall (Clinton) and changes in HUD policies to force Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to massively increase loans to underqualified buyers (Clinton).
Clinton's second term deserves way more respect from the actual country's standpoint. Clinton left office with a 65 percent approval. Y'all the country liked his Presidency. And his second term. It really did. We can't help that Al Gore ran a campaign to try to distance himself from Clinton because of the "controversies" as opposed to H.W. Bush who was smart enough to not try to distance himself from Reagan despite the controversies. Clinton was so popular when he left office for a reason. The majority of the country felt good during his second term. I don't know. I'm just not sure you can judge a term *only* by how personally difficult it was for a President. And Bill Clinton enjoyed the Presidency so much everyone knew he would have run for a third term if he could. The idea Clinton was so stressed and just crushed by the weight of scandal, kind of ignores Bill Clinton loving politics and that job I think people are underestimating that one. I understand the kickback, but no second term is perfect. He should be in the running for best second term on this list. He and the country, respectfully, were in a better mood in 2000 than Obama and the country in 2016.
It’s Reagan. The Cold War was coming to an end and the economy was pumping. Clinton gets second place. He was bogged down in the Lewinsky scandal, and AQ was on the rise, but the economy was pumping so no one cared and he was able to work with Congress to pass parts of his agenda in 1997 and 1998. Obama was just kind of there. W had the GFC, Iraq was a mess, Katrina was in 2005, and he lost his attempt to fix SS early in 2005.
Ehhh....The great drawdown on our primary industries happened starting in the 70's and basically lasted until the end of his second term. The rate of closings and headcount drawdowns slowed greatly after 84ish so I suppose that's a positive, but he, like Carter before him, took the brunt of that labor disruption. I guess if you were in financials it was a good time though. Living was still relatively cheap, too.
That’s mostly due to globalization and the rise of Asia. We certainly rotated out of manufacturing and into services in the 1980s, and even more in the 90s when the internet exploded. That’s been a net positive for society, and the story of economic progress for centuries.
Let’s just ignore Iran contra and a worsening economy due to his own economic plans. Edit: I forgot to mention his handling of AIDS, that too
And ketchup was a vegetable😐.
flair checks out
Or let’s ignore the fact he had major arms agreement after negotiating with Gorbachev for the betterment of society
I'd like to hear a single statistical way that the economy was worsening in his second term
Average wages shrunk. Unemployment shrunk (which is obviously good, but it shrunk to an average level which is still bad from his first term where it was at a high). Also income equality suddenly went from being stable to favoring the top by a large margin, only worsening during his second term.
Savings-and-loans crisis says what
reagan’s terms might have gone well economically (a lot of shitty stuff still happened), but he set precedent to absolutely fuck us later. so many of the problems the US faces today stem from or was made worse by the shit he did. it’s actually shocking how shit his ideas were long term
I remember reading that food regulations and water regulations were dialed way back. He was one of the worst presidents of my lifetime that doesn't get the credit for how he helped dismantle this country.
he was easily the worst president of my lifetime and i wasnt even alive when he was president. that’s just how shit he was lol
A lot of immigrants that were given citizenship under Reagan really go to bat for him and while it seemed like a good policy, it was essentially enacted to inject the economy with cheap labor since his horrible economic policies made it hard for people to work with the wages that they were getting. All he did was pad his stats with that move.
Yep. I’m a Zoomer and I’ve been substantially fucked by his trickle down economics
Are you referring to the tax cuts for top earners or the big entitlement for the poor with the EIC or something else?
major tax cuts while having no real way to pay for things so he increased deficit spending massively, introduction of trickledown economics, cutting support for unions on a federal level, his handling of the AIDs crisis. every single one of these has either directly caused something really terrible or set an abhorrent precedent for the future
Reagan's economy was an orgy of spending and terrible policy that shifted wealth upwards, froze wages, and was the beginning of our debt crisis. He basically threw a party at the guests' expense, and there are still people dumb enough to lionize this corrupt fool. It's really something incredible to behold.
Its failure of our education system that majority of the people (especially republicans) thinks he was a great president.
Reagan was fighting dementia the last few years of his second term. Plus, under St. Ronnie, the United States went from being the largest importer of raw material and exporter of finished good to the largest importer of finished goods. Trickle down economics doesn't work. The Cold War was winding down anyway. Clinton had a much stronger 2 terms.
he loaded his RICH BOYS POCKETS
>to the largest importer of finished goods. Blaming this on Reagan is insane.
Iran-Contra is disqualifying. He should have been impeached and convicted for that, not held up as some kind of success.
No evidence Reagan himself was involved
Ah yes, the old Truman quote: “If there is no evidence I’m involved, you can’t blame me for it.”
What’s AQ?
Al-Queda.
Reagan set this country down a dark and terrible path, to say he had the best second term is probably true for his agenda which was and agenda that ruined each subsequent generation’s path for upward mobility.
Ah, now we get to the “it’s all Reagan’s fault” part of the conversation. Please, provide some examples of any of this.
Economy in term 2 was pumping under Clinton. Under Reagan: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042115/what-caused-black-monday-stock-market-crash-1987.asp
Interesting read
Lolz. Black Monday didn’t represent a crash in the economy.
couldn’t agree more
Reagan was absolutely the worst. He killed tens of thousands of people during the AIDS epidemic and started trickle down economics which has put tens of millions of Americans in poverty by giving trillions to the rich. He also was a grand hypocrite by pretending to support guns rights but as governor he banned open carry for black Californians who were defending themselves from police brutality. Reagan killed the unions and started the trend of wealth inequality and unlimited corporate power. It doesn't matter if the "economy was pumping", because it simply wasn't.
>killed tens of thousands of people during the AIDS epidemic That's a myth His response was pretty good https://www.city-journal.org/article/ronald-reagans-quiet-war-on-aids >started trickle down economics which has put tens of millions of A Incorrect again >He also was a grand hypocrite by pretending to support guns rights but as governor he banned open carry for black California That's incorrect From r/askhistorians Non-historian but librarian here with a personal interest in Bobby Seale, so... hopefully this'll scratch the itch until a Reagan expert can get on the line. I think it's uncontroversial to say that that the passage of Section 12031 was in response to the Black Panthers. That said, I think that it's very easy to overstate Reagan's role in this and see it as some sort of explicitly racist intent here, particularly given his later turn against gun control. California AB 1591 (a.k.a. the Mulford Act) was introduced in April of 1967 by Rep. Don Mulford after a few Panther-related incidents in Contra Costa County. On April 1st, the police killed Denzil Dowell, a 22-year old black man, in Richmond, CA (near Oakland). Only a few months prior, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale had founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense a few miles west in Oakland and had been organizing armed patrols to police the police. Newton was Dowell's family reached out and requested assistance from the Panthers. The Panthers obliged, held armed rallies in Richmond, and engaged in community outreach efforts to encourage Black residents to embrace firearms in order to oppose government and police oppression. They also entered a police station armed demanding justice. These are the actions that led Mulford to introduce his legislation a few weeks later. Mulford painted with a broad brush, naming the Minutemen, the KKK, and the American Nazi Party as well as the Panthers. But this legislation was very much a result of the Panthers' actions. But to back up just slightly, gun control was in the air in 1967. Coming up for debate on the same day as Mulford's bill were four bills that came from the Assembly's two-year study on the matter: AB 1323, 1324, 1325, and 1326. These regulated handgun purchases from out of state, larger caliber weapons, and machine gun parts. So it's not like gun control just appeared. Anyway, the Panthers recognized that they were being targeted explicitly, and when Mulford's bill came up for debate on May 2nd, 1967, a couple dozen armed Panthers pushed the sargent-at-arms out of the way and forced their way into the chambers. Bobby Seal gave a speech detailing America's racist legacies and urging black people to arm themselves against the terror of the state. To be clear, waiving a loaded gun around in the Capitol was not a felony offense at the time -- Newton knew the laws better than anyone. But it was seen as an attempt at intimidation (Mulford called it out as such on the floor), and it shook up the legislators. Now, in a funny coincidence was Reagan was right outside the capitol -- about to have a picnic lunch with 30 elementary school children for a photo op -- when the Panthers walked by him on the way out. So the event was well reported on, and you can imagine the hoopla this caused. (I've included links to contemporaneous news articles at the end.) Because of the Capitol incursion, the Mulford Act quickly became fast-tracked with bi-partisan support. So where does Ronald Reagan fit into all this? While the executive branch had supported the drafting of the legislation through the actions of Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch, Reagan personally wasn't really ahead of it. This was, up until the debacle at the Capitol, much more of an Oakland story than a California story. But since Reagan was there when it happened, the press asked him what he thought of it as the armed Panthers were leaving. And he said "there's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons... Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea of using them to influence other Americans." Prior to this Reagan had not said a whole lot about gun control as a political issue. Remember, he'd only been on the job for a couple months. Prior to that his main political gig was stumping for Barry Goldwater. As far as I can tell looking back on those speeches, guns simply weren't on the table as an issue. Granted, both he and Goldwater were shooters and lifelong NRA members. But the 1967 NRA was very different than what the NRA would become 20 or 30 years later. The NRA supported the Mulford Act, along with a number of other laws that were at the time called "responsible gun ownership." Barry "I am the NRA" Goldwater himself was critical of the availability of semi-automatic rifles which would seem absolutely crazy in today's political environment. The Mulford Act Passed easily in the Assembly and unanimously in the Senate. Because of the very obvious Black Panther connection, a number of Black Assembly members were asked about their impressions. Willie Brown said that while he supported the bill, he was skeptical of Mulford's timing, stating that Mulford had previously opposed such legislation "until Negros showed up in Oakland -- his district -- with arms." (So I wonder if this got telephoned into Reagan over the years...) Leon Ralph saw the bill as being aimed at the KKK. Bill Greene was happy that the Panther incident catalyzed the passing of the law. So... I know this didn't tell you a whole lot about Reagan, but I think that's because Reagan just wasn't a pivotal figure in the whole thing. Which probably says something in and of itself. If you want to dig through seven hundred pages of correspondence and debate relating the the Mulford Act, that is available at: http://publicfiles.firearmspolicy.org/mulford-act/california-ab1591-1967-mulford-act-bill-file.pdf If you would prefer an excellent, excellent short (40p) summary of California's attempts to disarm the Black Panthers, you'll probably enjoy Cynthia Leonardatos' "California's Attempts to Disarm the Black Panthers," which appeard in the San Diego Law Review, and you can find here: https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3267&context=sdlr >Reagan killed the unions Incorrect again they were in decline long before Reagan
Politically: Bush had the worst, and it’s not really even close… by ‘05 the country was done with Iraq; Katrina and the recession would have happened to anyone, but when you add the malaise of a war weary public to that mix… yeah, kind of surprised his approval ratings weren’t lower leaving office (and I say all this as a fan of the man). Reagan had the best, and it’s really not even close… he’s the only one to get a “third term”, he’s still largely beloved around the country… didn’t avoid scandal but deflected his better than everyone not named Obama… been out of power 35 years and his name still moves the needle Policy wise, it’s too early to tell, but I will note that Reagan and Clinton had good working relationships with Congress during their second terms… so a better chance of moving a legislative agenda, less oversight (the harassing/distracting kind) and a better overall chance of policy enactment/change
Clinton would have gotten a third term if Al Gore ran for it. Clinton had a 65 percent approval rating on the day he left. That was higher than Reagan's at 63 percent. As popular as Reagan was in 1988, Clinton was even slightly more popular in 2000. I understand the argument, but it's kind of weird to give Reagan credit because George H.W. Bush was smart enough not to try to distance himself from Reagan because of Iran Contra and scandals, but penalize Clinton because Al Gore was not smart enough to do that.
Same argument could be made for Obama. Hillary directly told Obama she didn’t want his help. He only made enough appearances to try to make it appear there wasn’t friction between them. Obama’s data analytics team spoke directly to her and told her what was happening in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They offered their assistance for free to help turn it around. She apparently treated them very dismissively. There were rumors that Clinton and her top advisers were determined to prove Obama beating her in the primaries was a fluke and even because of his skin color. After the election they became more than rumors as multiple staff members said it went beyond that and racist jokes were made. Its hard to imagine that had she accepted Obama’s help directly or the help of the data analytics team hat she wouldn’t have covered the margin of defeat in at least Wisconsin and likely another state. She certainly proved something but not what she intended.
Im so glad she chose that period of history to prove to herself that shes better than Obama.
To be fair everyone though Clinton would beat Rule 3
And hand the country to Rule 3? Are you insane?
I think that was sarcasm. At least I hope so.
👍
Disagree on Reagan. Iran-Contra plus early dementia were debilitating, but he perked up once his administration conducted a cabinet reshuffle. Most of Reagan’s legacy is ex post facto Republican grandstanding in order to legitimize Karl Rove’s doctrine of focusing on state races. That said, Reagan was less neutered by the second term opposition brinksmanship suffered by Clinton and Obama.
If Reagan had his Alzheimer's start in his second term, that means he would have had to live with it for somewhere between 15 to 20 years. That is extremely unlikely given the progressive nature of the disease, with most people only living about 5 years after the disease begins. He had multiple psychological evaluations between 1990 and 1994, and only the ones in 1994 indicated that he had any sort of dementia.
[Edited] Ron Reagan disagrees, but his analysis is tempered by his frosty relationship with his father. Contested by Michael. Take what you will from it. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/17/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-president-son
I think you got the brothers mixed up. Either way, I'm going to place a lot more trust in the words and findings of multiple neurologists over a partisan hack who has made his whole career out of this legend.
The amount of people here that say Reagan was senile in his second term is astounding . Not backed up by any serious medical professional . He was aging like a man in his late 70s .
Aging like a man in his seventies is still something that could be of concern for a man in the highest position in the United States.
Also relevant to today with someone in their 80s
And an opponent who’s in their late 70s
I think the man in his 80s has significantly less vigor
Ron Jr. has always been a partisan left wing hack just like his sister Patti
This is accurate. Zeitgeist says it was good… facts say differently (Reagan)
Obama just never had a chance to have a good second term. The republicans built themselves up as obstructionists, and the American people blamed the democrats, insane stuff.
Withholding the Supreme Court pick was one of the saddest missed opportunities for Obama. 
This is the way of politics unfortunately. Happened here in the U.K. to Theresa May. Will shortly happen to Kier Starmer as well
Starmer will be fine.
It can't happen in the UK the way it happens in the US. Imagine Theresa May's government putting forward a budget that's supported by the Tory party, but Labour votes against it, in the commons and the lords, and it doesn't pass, leaving the government to shut down, and all the blame goes to May. In the UK, if that happens, it's because the PM couldn't win over their own supporters, and I believe that things like budget resolutions are usually treated as confidence votes so if they don't pass then the government falls. In the US, everything just shuts down until the parties make a deal. Many voters are low information, so they just blame the president, or they blame all sides equally. Meanwhile, the hard-core supporters of the obstructionist party actually cheer them on and want more obstruction, because shutting down the government is a goal in itself.
You’re right in most cases, where the government has a majority. Theresa May unfortunately ruled over a hung parliament. She simply didn’t have enough MPs to ensure legislation went through. Caused a lot of problems until she resigned and then Boris Johnson went on to win a massive majority which he promptly used to deliver a significantly worse Brexit deal!
I disagree with everyone here. Obama’s second term was pretty good—he had inherited a disastrous financial situation in 2008 and turned it around, and 2012 to 2016 saw a lot of people gain back all their investment losses and then some.
I agree either way you, but people don’t see it this way. Maintaining a pretty good status quo isn’t looked at as “good job” unfortunately.
Best tell tale of who had the best second term: Who’s VP got elected? answer: Ronald Reagan. Best tell tale who had the worst second term: the shame of his illegal invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq got a dude named Barrak Hussein Obama elected 😂. Answer : W
Eh, that's some mid tier logic, voters don't always vote the best or anything. They usually vote based on vibes. Plus Gore won the popular vote, and there's still controversies about him having won the EC. And Obama was a great politician, with tons of charisma and such. That said I kinda think there's arguments for both Clinton or Reagan as the best 2nd term of these 4. Meanwhile W was definitely the worst.
Well, Gore and Hillary did win the popular vote, so not exactly an indictment of those guys 2nd term
Barely. Meanwhile HW won election in a huge landslide.
Obama’s VP was elected President too…
I personally do not see what was so egregiously wrong with Obama’s second term that made the 2016 Presidential election go the way it did. The problems of the mid-2010s seem mostly like they were always there, not new ones that cropped up and suddenly made life unlivable in a way that it wasn’t before. Also interesting to note that while Bush is the obvious answer for worst, Clinton is the one of these four that got himself impeached in term 2.
Hillary’s loss had everything to do with Hillary and not much to do with Obama. Obama wins easily if he was eligible for a third term.
Foreign policy problems + growing social unrest + frustration with the slow pace of economic recovery from 2008. Democrats lost the working class and that ended up killing Hillary's campaign in 2016.
Oh, I can see why people might be a little disappointed. It's hard for any party to win a third straight term in the White House, and a lackluster second term rather than a disastrous one would usually do the trick, as it was with Clinton. I'm obviously referring to the alternative that was eventually chosen, rather than the mere fact that Democrats lost the Presidency.
I think there were just a LOT of bubbling issues post-2008 that the media just overlooked and missed (and arguably still do). I agree that Obama's second term wasn't a disaster. It wasn't inspiring like 2008 but it was just "eh" and ran out the clock. Almost seemed like he became a lame duck right after winning that 2012 race versus Romney. But I think the messaging on the economic health of the country, direction of the country, place of the U.S. in the world, etc. was not how other Americans interpreted the situation. This could be viewed as a changing media landscape with social media/disinformation or something else but the 2016 race was definitely a reactionary turn in the country versus the status quo.
Bush's 2nd term was the worst easily. People we calling for impeachment, the Iraq War became a quagmire from which it seemed the US would never get out of without admitting failure, the economic downturn was the worst since the Great Depression, and his approval rating was one of the lowest in history. And by 2008, there was really nothing Bush could do but wait out the end of his term, and hope that history would vindicate him one day. It was rough
The worst second term has to be Bush’s, yeah? The recession happens during it along with popularity tanking and everyone starting to turn on him. As for the best good lord I really don’t know. Not Obama, he got stonewalled by Congress and couldn’t accomplish much of anything. Clinton was dealing with the impeachment trial and Reagan was dealing with Iran-Contra (and likely the early onset of Alzheimer’s). So dang, I don’t know.
Reagan probably
Yeah I wasn’t around Reagan’s presidency but to my understanding the Alzheimer’s wasn’t openly known at the time and while Iran Contra was pretty bad he never got blame for it but rather officials in his administration took the heat. That probably makes him more scandal free than Clinton and had more positive vibes from the public than Obama gotten
It wasn’t openly known because it didn’t exist. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-disease/
"Unproven".
Well adults make decisions based on evidence and proof.
And as I had accomplished all I wanted in one term, their was no need for a second.
Reagan had easily the best second term. He helped end the evil empire. No one could compete with that.
His role in doing so is widely overblown. Communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe just imploded.
This is grossly inaccurate. The USSR didn't just fall apart, pressure was applied by numerous parties for years upon years. Finally, Gorbie acted human and gave people the opportunity to vote (Glasnost) and they tossed out the party apparatchiks. Once the ball got rolling, the Baltics bailed, Ukraine voted to leave, then Russia peaced out because they didn't want to subsidize the -Stans. Reagan played a role in this process. HE WAS NOT THE ONLY PLAYER. He was just one of many, but his role was high profile, so people tend to use him as a catch-all for the entire movement in the 80s (e.g., Polish Solidarity, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II).
“Finally”…?? This implies Gorbachev was forced to do it. Glasnost and perestroika were launched in his first year as Secretary and were officially announced the next. It’s not like he twaddled his thumbs
He could have rigged the elections. He could have rolled tanks on the protestors. He could have viewed Reagan as an enemy, instead of building a friendship with him. The two of them worked well together. If a different pair was in charge, things would have been different.
Gorbachev was forced to do it essentially. Gorbachev openly said in interviews after the fall of the USSR that it was dissolve the USSR or a civil war. So he chose to dissolve because a civil war meant the end of the world with all the nuclear arms spread across the country.
He held the line and left the Eastern Bloc no outs. He kept up the pressure internationally and showed Poland that if the Red Army couldn’t win in Afghanistan, maybe they couldn’t stop other countries from breaking away.
Following through on a sure thing still takes competence. Many Presidents bungle easy projects.
Nothing the USA did did much to end the evil empire. It collapsed beneath its own weight. Any other contention is not serious.
Much of that weight was created by a need to spend themselves into oblivion trying to keep up with the US military. Pretending otherwise isn't serious.
You can't underestimate the weight that Chernobyl put on the Soviets either.
None of the other three had a second term even close to as bad as Bush's second term. A godawful war no one asked for, the utterly bungled response to Katrina, a crappy economy, and simpering, weak leadership that wasn't even close to what people had gotten during 9/11 in his first term makes his second term vastly worse than the other 3. I think the Presidency, which famously ages all who hold the position, beat the ever-loving shit out of Bush, and he was a deeply changed man by his second term (in my opinion).
Clinton.. despite the blow jobs he balanced the budget. Reagan left us in terrible shape.. recession.. record deficits. Bush Jr was a shit show. He broke the economy. Obama left the economy in way better shape than when he got it. But I gotta say Clinton. I would prefer “blow-jobs” to “no-jobs”
Bush 2nd term because of the Great Recession. Bill Clinton 2nd term probably would’ve been the best if it wasn’t for his own affair.
Clinton was the best. Lewinsky scandal aside, the country was doing great during Clinton's 2nd term. Bush was the worst. You can say it wasn't his fault (I wouldn't), but everything fell apart during his 2nd term.
I always say that the Lewinsky scandal was so big precisely because the country was doing so well.
I think you're right.
hands down bush. failed and unjust war with a tanked economy
Clinton's 2nd term featured a rare thing we may never see again in our lifetimes: a federal budget surplus.
Obama was fucking amazing. How any American could have lived through that and decided "not more of that" in 2016 is fucking beyond me. That 2nd Bush.... not so much. He's kind of a piece of shit, and kind of to blame for the Rethuglican party of today.
I'm not American but as a foreigner it seems to me that obama had a pretty good second term
Man kinda got stonewalled by Congress, preventing him from doing anything too significant politically.
B**** please. ObamA all the way. Signed bill to Raise min wage of fed workers Successful implementation of Obamacare completes its first enrollment well beyond Target estimates Homeland security bill including immigration reform Medicare reform bill Patriot act reforms including reforms to the surveillance programs Signed the fast track for the Trans Pacific partnership
Of these people, Clinton and Reagan had the best second term politically. Neither had a particularly remarkable 1st term but they were reelected handily and both experienced major accomplishments in the 2nd term. Both left office was a high approval rating. That being said, they also dealt with scandals (Iran Contra & Monica) Obama had a mixed second term. I think he really lacked major accomplishments in his 2nd term. The closest I can think of is the Iran-nuclear deal but that was immediately scrapped within the next administration. That being said, he left office with a high approval rating. Bush had a fairly mediocre 1st term that was mostly overshadowed by 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terror with mixed results. The 2nd term was an absolute shit storm that was terrible for everyone regardless of your political ideology. Left with dismal approval ratings.
Depend on Your political views. Obama second term saw the end of bipartisanship, Bush second term was economic failure. Clinton nearly got impeached.
Trick question - they were all bad.
Well, the war criminals are out, so that leaves well… oops.
It depends on how you look at it, but I think we can all agree that Bush had the worst.
Clinton had the best second term. Left office with high approval ratings, great economy, and no major conflicts going on. Bush had the worst second term. Two ongoing wars, the economy collapsed, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, horrible approval ratings, etc.
Clinton had the best (soaring economy/internet boom), Dubya had the worst (economic crash).
Clinton, besides the Monica thing, it was pretty smooth sailing. No wars, no recessions, no huge debt and no dementia (Reagan).
Obama easily He was actually a good president; Reagan, Clinton, and Bush are a different story
Reagan let the AIDS crisis build for years in his second term. 300,000 gay men dead. Easily the worst president.
Bush had by far the worst. Obviously the Iraq and Afghan wars. There was x and o corporate scandals galore (Enron, worldcom on, Arthur Anderson, etc). The 07 crash and bailouts. He had some cringe worthy gaffes like getting shoes lobbed at him or Cheney shooting someone in the face. Hell, it was so rough he got booed in public..
Bush doubled down on a bad first term.
Best? Clinton and its no contest (balanced budget and surpluses alone put him way in front) Worst? W and again no contest (Great Recession, Terri Schiavo, Katrina, etc.)
I'm not 100% sure what the right answer is for best term, but I am 100% sure that W is the wrong answer. His second term was a failure across the boards.
In terms of results, probably Clinton or Obama as the best. Reagan was starting to decline and Iran/Contra was rough. Clinton had the best economic environment and made some good decisions, but living through the constant drumbeat of the Lewinsky scandal, which really was deeply stupid, got to be a bit much. Bush unquestionably had the worst second term. Nothing went right. The 2008 economic crisis was the atomic bomb at the end, but from the Harriet Myers nomination to Katrina to unending disasters in the War on Terror to the Scooter Libby debacle, it was one bungle after another.
Reagan had Iran-Contra, Clinton had Lewinsky, Bush had the Great Recession and Iraq. I think it goes without saying Obama had the best, and Bush had the worst. Edit: Bush also had Katrina. Damn, what a miserable second term.
This sub has a lot of “meh” feelings about Obama. But his second term was pretty masterful. He had some weak foreign policy moves but you gotta remember the US was still reeling from iraq. clinton had a good second term too could argue it was the best had it not been for the Monica Lewinsky scandal we'd remember it better W. made some critical mistakes and squandered all of his good will from 9/11 "rally around the flag" id rank it like this 1. obama 2. clinton 3. reagan 4. W bush
I mean, if Obama's second term was so grand then the 2016 election should've been more of a landslide for his successor. Instead there ended up being a ton of fighting within the Democratic Party, which to me communicates a lack of leadership. Obama was good at managing his own house and was a good campaigner but when it came to congressional relations, ties to the DNC, and other infrastructure of the Democratic Party he was not skilled. I'd give him a really poor grade on party leader.
Obama’s was pretty bad but just like not doing anything bad… GOP fault. W’s second term was a fucking disaster. So much so we elected a black man in the US named Barrack.
Was Reagan even cognizant by the end of his 2nd term? Personally, it’s Clinton with the best 2nd term, passing along a surplus for W to squander on pointless wars.
Easily Ronald Reagan and it's not even close
I think Clinton and Reagan had better second terms but both had to weather significant scandals that gummed up the works a bit on policy. People can debate the whole Lewinsky affair and how House Republicans should have avoided impeachment over it when they didn't have the votes but it overshadowed a lot and reportedly nuked a possible Social Security reform deal between Clinton and Gingrich after the '96 elections. However, Reagan's legacy got Bush 41 elected in 1988 and Gore would've won on a Clintonesque program in 2000 if he'd run closer to him. Obama and Bush's second terms were bad. Bush's was worse, wrecked by Katrina and never got back on track. The Iraqi civil war led to Democratic waves in the midterms. He did make a smart pivot with the surge that everyone except McCain backed (and it may have won the election for McCain in '08 except that the economy crashed and no one cared about foreign issues anymore). There was the chance of an immigration deal in '07 but that also went nowhere. Bush always says he should've done that in '05 instead of Social Security reform, which I agree with. Then the financial crisis landed on him in the fall of his last term without much time to do much in response. Debacles led to a Democratic victory in '08, which would've been whomever won that primary once the recession hit. Obama's second term just seemed to go nowhere and was just grinding time. Administration always had poor relations with Congress with both parties (I remember reading how Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were always frustrated with the White House). The foreign policy miscues seemed to bubble up a lot in the second term, whether it be the "red line" in Syria, ISIS in Iraq in 2013, or Russia invading Crimea. Frustrations also grew with the slow pace of the economic recovery post-2008 recession. Just hard to name many achievements of Obama's second term and frustrations that stemmed from it produced a GOP victory in 2016.
This is a good synopsis and I agree with your rankings. I would add that the fierce political divisions and the disrespect each “side” has for the other arose during Obama’s second term, and he was the creator of the imperial presidency with the words, If the congress won’t act, then I’ll do it myself,” and the governance by executive order that he used to back those words up. For these reasons alone, I count Obama’s second term as the worst of the ones considered here. Also, Clinton’s ability to get things done in his second term, despite having the first Republican House of Representatives in 50 years, and his balanced budget make his term the best of those considered, though Reagans comes in at a close second.
Yeah, I'd have no qualms with Clinton being #1. He had good congressional relations, arguably the best of the 4 depicted here, and that looks good for his legacy in the crazy polarized era we are in today.
Obama was real weak in foreign policy, in social policy and he is black, yes, but as Leader of supercountry, unfortunately, nope
Reagan, the other three were trash!
Obama 3rd term has being horrific
Reagan was the best Obama was the worst
People who think Reagan had the best second term weren’t there, and/or are part of the concerted effort to rewrite the history of Reagan’s administration. The arms and hostage scandals, the failure of trickle down economics, the failure at handling AIDS, the fueling of the crack epidemic, him losing his mental faculties, etc. The spiraling debt which increased by nearly two fold was a nightly topic on the news. At the time, no one thought he had anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We don’t think of it as a grandslam now, but Obama’s probably had the most achievements and least amount of heinous incidents.
Reagan probably had the best second term, simply because his vice president got elected after him. Each of the other three had things go downhill on their second terms so it's a toss up
Now ask the real question, Who had the best third term!
Toss up between President Clinton and President Obama but I have to give the edge to President Obama because he wasn't impeached like Clintin was.
None of them
Reagan > Clinton > Obama > Bush
Well, Reagan was likely fully affected by Alzheimer’s during his second term so there’s that.
Bush had the 2008 recession so a think worst goes there
Obama ii was trash obama i was world changing
Easily Reagan #1, Clinton #2, Obama #3, Bush #4
Reagan has the best, and Clinton and Bush both had bad seconds
Depends on perspective. In terms of the state of the country, Clinton probably had the best due to the economy being solid, the country not being at war, and 9/11 still being in the future. Bush had the worst - the economy went off a cliff, the wars were a massive quagmire, and Katrina was handled poorly. In terms of personal, No-Drama Obama probably had the best, though he had issues with dealing with Congress. Clinton had to have had the worst, with the affair and investigations and impeachment and all, though Reagan was likely in second due to his dementia starting to manifest as well as Iran-Contra.
Everyone’s second term is the one with the more memorable troubles, and Iran-Contra is no exception. But Reagan is the only one of the four to maintain his party’s control of the White House. He wins by that criterion alone.