[mullingitover]

> and crazy people which was always true

The experiment with giving the crazy people unchecked power over every lever of government is new, however.

This is perhaps a shrewd move against China: they can't steal technology and scientific advances from the US if there aren't any to steal.

[YZF]

Trump's power is not unchecked. He probably doesn't even win the craziest president award.

Historical US presidents:

Andrew Jackson -> threatened to hang his VP. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/41212/did-andrew...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson had meetings while sitting on the toilet: https://historyfacts.com/famous-figures/fact/lyndon-b-johnso...

Richard Nixon - needs no introductions?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/13yplux/crazies...

Also remember we had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism and the requirement by Truman that all civil service employees be screened for "loyalty".

[the_why_of_y]

There are now "loyalty tests" for those who apply to positions at the FBI, to be hired you have to state that the "patriots" on Jan. 6 2021 were the rioters attempting a coup, not the Capitol Police defending the constitutional transfer of government power.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/08/...

But technically you are correct, of course. Trump never demanded that VP Mike Pence be hanged, the rioters he sent to Congress did.

[spwa4]

I think the parent post is defending what somewhat older people know to be true. Nixon was far worse than Trump, also betrayed US allies for example. And where it hurts: he effectively stole gold from them.

And I'm sure in another 20 years even democrat voters will remember, probably correctly, that Trump was so much better than $us_president_at_that_time.

[mullingitover]

> Nixon was far worse than Trump

Nixon was never credibly accused of sexual assault, never organized a mob of rioters to sack the US capitol, never published tertiary syphilis-coded rants for the world to see in the middle of the night, nearly every night.

Nixon had a competent cabinet, some of them even had principles. Nixon's Attorney General was willing to resign on principle for his refusal to fire the special prosecutor. Nixon didn't put his own attorney at the head of the DOJ.

I could go on. To be clear: Nixon was a corrupt thug. At the same time he was nowhere near as symptomatic of a national malignant political cancer as Trump has been. Plus there was a congress to keep Nixon in check, we don't have a functioning Congress now, just a department of a political party.