How the Three Worst Presidents in History Destroyed the Grand Old Party

The undeniable truth is that neither political party exists today. The Party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is nothing but a memory, and the last Republican president who led the Party of Lincoln was Richard M. Nixon. Yes, Nixon, just check his record.

After Ronald Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984, cowardly Democrats feared losing elections and began moving away from their liberal principles and more to the right. The party of FDR has never been the same.

In that same year, 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan signaled the beginning of the end of the Grand Old Party. Reagan proved that he was a better actor than most people believed. He fooled me and millions of others who were looking for a real leader to take residence in the White House.

Reagan informed the entire Republican Party of what his presidency would involve. He was in charge. There would be no opposing opinions or arguments when he declared the party’s position on any issue. In other words, free thought and alternate ideas opposing Reagan were forbidden.

Next came his goals for the next four years. He declared war on the working class, obviously supporting big business and the super-rich. He excluded minorities from his administration and his plans. His support for Christian ideals confirmed his support for Christianity over all other religions, and over the rights of women, most significantly in the area of their reproductive choices. These matters became a declaration of war. There would be no room for the opinions of others.

When he left the White House in 1989, our nation was one-trillion dollars in debt.

George W. Bush continued the policies of the Reagan administration, most significantly for the working class. His fiscal policy of “trickle-down economics:” take care of the wealthy and they will take care of the majority lowered the quality of life for the majority. This policy failed the previous two Republican administrations, but support for special interests had become the focus of the former Republican Party.

What made “W” an even worse president involved his failure to take warnings about an upcoming attack prior to 9/11, and the resulting illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He left office in 2009 with the nation in the Great Recession, engaged in two unwinnable wars, and our country’s national debt in the trillions of dollars.

No one could have predicted the degree of failure which dominated Donald Trump’s illegitimate administration. After he was declared the victor in a rigged election, he began on a path to divide our nation’s people, and destroy the accomplishments of his predecessor, Barack Obama. The economy began to weaken immediately.

His days were spent spending taxpayer money. His multiple trips to his golf resorts, Mar-a-Lago, and to hold hate rallies used more than six million dollars of your money each month. One of the major costs to taxpayers was the use of Air Force One. The cost of operating the 747 is more than $200,000 per hour.

Trump’s greatest crime began in December of 2019. When one of his advisers delivered an issue reported in the Presidents Daily Brief, which Trump refused to read, about a coming healthcare emergency, he ignored it. In January of 2020, as the press received reports revealing the seriousness of the issue from outside the United States, they questioned Trump about what he would do to protect the American people. His answer was basically “nothing.” He told the American people one of his biggest lies, “It will just go away.”

He did nothing until March when Americans began to lose their lives from Covid-19. As the coronavirus began to lessen, one million lives were lost, and our nation’s economy neared another Great Depression. No man or woman in history will ever fail as badly as Donald John Trump.

You have my reasons for labeling these three presidents as the worst in history. They not only ended the very existence of the Republican Party, they changed the future of our nation. The United States no longer has an economy based on capitalism, it has become a plutocracy. 813 billionaires/oligarchs are in control of the future of 340 million people.

It took just 45 years for the Trump Fascist Party, controlled by oligarchs, to end the dream of our Founding Fathers.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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