[scarface74]

Has any other President - Republican or Democrat - actively tried to make it less effective? Why are we pretending that the current administration is normal?

This isn’t a difference on the margins about whether you believe in supply side or demand side economics.

If you look back on Presidents or politicians on either side of the aisle. We have never seen anything like this during my lifetime (born in 74).

I didn’t agree with all of the policies or proposed policies of Republican or Democratic candidates on either side. But it was more like seeing your favorite sports team win or lose. I didn’t feel like they would or did do long term harm to the country (except for the deficit).

I would say the same about any of the other candidates in 2016. If they had won it wouldn’t have been the end of the world.

[jessaustin]

The orange one has done his share of awful things (like every president), but if this virus hadn't appeared we would very much still be in the "sports team" situation.

We will certainly destroy ourselves by other means before "the deficit" affects us in the least. It never stopped us from buying more weaponry; now that there is obviously something else on which to spend money suddenly we should worry about it?

[scarface74]

No we wouldn’t and by pretending anything Trump has done even pre-Covid is both trying to see “both sides” not to get flagged by HN and to say that all Republicans are just as malicious, corrupt and incompetent as his administration has been and is a lazy argument. I went out of my way not to paint all Republicans since 1980 with the same brush.

Before Trump, a Republican administration supported both the Voting Rights Act - didn’t try to disenfranchise minorities - and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Both Republicans and Democratic Presidents supported the EITC.

Bush didn’t demonize Muslims after 9/11 he went out of his way not to.

No I didn’t agree with all of their policies, but I didn’t feel that they went out of their way to target “others”. They showed a level of decency and poise that you don’t see now.

I still don’t see how this is coming off partisan.

To act as if any other President of either party in modern history has done the same things that he has said and done is a severe case of “whataboutism”.

[jessaustin]

Well, Trump hasn't killed a million Iraqis for no reason.