If Woodrow Wilson were President today

Discussion in 'West Mall' started by zork, May 12, 2015.

  1. zork

    zork 2,500+ Posts

    OK, this pamphlet countering WW in 1918 isn't the whole story but how would he compare with some of the more recent Presidents if in the 24/7 news cycle? You can read some of the point counterpoint of WWilson and his detractors here(for free):



    Edit: took the link out. We can let this thread die.

    What say you on comparisons?
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2015
  2. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    Given that he was an open & unapologetic racist, probably not too favorably.
     
  3. WorsterMan

    WorsterMan SEC here we come!!

    Pretty familiar with WW's cons and pros but I was not able to open the attachment. thanks anyway.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2015
  4. zork

    zork 2,500+ Posts

    sorry. it is a free book from amazon. I was downloading free books last night and ran across it.

    Well, it looks like total fail on my part now as the "free" book has now price changed to $1.95. my bad.
     
  5. chango

    chango 2,500+ Posts

    zork, I didn't respond because I couldn't open the link and thought it was just me. But I liked the topic and this type of discussion.
     
  6. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    True. What would happen if a politician today admitted that he liked "Birth of a Nation?"
     
  7. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    Those who label Obama the "worst president in history" should know more about Wilson, Harding, Coolidge and, from further back, James Buchanan.
     
  8. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    Buchanan kept us out of a civil war for a few months

    Wilson was appalling but TR was worse. I had to go through both of their papers while in grad school and Wilson was bad but TR was insane. Sort of like Nixon; he did some good but was so twisted that it was mind numbing. He most resembles General Ripper.
     
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  9. zork

    zork 2,500+ Posts

    Please go on..... :popcorn:
     
  10. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    Not so sure about Coolidge but it seems to me hardly to debate that the "worst ever" award should go to Warren Harding.
     
  11. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    What exactly is the case against Coolidge? I'm sure one can come up with mistakes his administration did like one could for any politician, but about his administration could put him in a discussion for the worst ever?
     
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  12. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

  13. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    Coolidge was following precedent and besides, he did not know what to do about the eminent problems. And he could not do anything about the drought.

    I judge presidents as failures when they undertake something major that is risky and fails or disastrous in the long run. W comes to mind.

    So do TR and the imperialists of 1896. These people were all under the sway of Admiral Mahan and his theories about projecting power abroad. Of course, doing so was important only if you were inclined to setting up an overseas empire. They all were and TR was the chief cheerleader. He was so bloodthirsty and publicity mad that he organized his own military command, the Rough Riders, which was sort of a Buffalo Bill Wild West Show with real bullets.

    Out of that brief war we got Cuba as a protectorate and Puerto Rico as a colony I like to call it the theft that keeps on stealing. But it was a possession!!!

    And we got the Philipines, which we liberated from the Spaniards and then had to kill a couple of hundred thousand locals who did not like seeing one bunch of imperialists replaced by another who could not even speak Spanish. But it worked out in the long run---we got our coaling stations in the far east so we could partake in the european carving of Indochina and China and our military bases made really cool targets for the Japanese when they needed to take out the Dutch, French and English to get the raw materials they needed to continuing their dismemberment of China. Pearl Harbor got bombed on December 7, 1941 but the ball started rolling when we decided on imperial outreach in the Pacific and TR and friends were the instigators. The anti-Imperialists of 1896 predicted all of this. Look it up.

    Carter was pretty bad.



    Obama? Nothing great but nothing much should have been expected of him. He was like Jack Kennedy in that he was the receptacle for the good intentions of a lot of not especially realistic people. He thought his charisma would win over the political mouthpieces for a bunch of people who had fundamental disagreements with his whole agenda. He was wrong.

    We haven't had a president who knew how the world works, was competent and not a bit deranged since Eisenhower and based on what I have read and seen of the current political class, there are none on the horizon. That people like Huckabee and de Blasio even entertain the idea that they might be up to the job or that there is a sane constituency waiting for them is disheartening to this old fellow who still has great affection for his country but little hope.
     
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  14. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    duh, the war was in 1898, and the anti imperialists were very prescient but not that prescient MY apologies
     
  15. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    Huisache,

    I have travelled to Asia about 40 times in the last 10 years in my job. I have read a lot of books from ex-pats who lived in China in the 1930's. I agree with the points about Teddy and Asian expansion (you didn't mention Commodore Perry). However, what would Asia be without American influence or stabilization? I think for the worse.
     
  16. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    In terms of worse, I was thinking of the red menace. In China, the landlords were replaced with China communist officials who were just as oppressive as the previous local rulers. New boss, same as the old boss. Also, the press at the time in China freely reported the abuses of the Nationalist party, but not of the Communist party.
     
  17. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    call me xenophobic but whether asia would have been worse off is not real big on my list of priorities. Avoiding unnecessary wars is big in my worldview. Playing what if, if the US had not intervened, the Japanese and Chinese would have fought for a long time and the Japanese would ultimately have to leave or commit a lot of ethnic cleansing. My bet would be on the cleansing.
     
  18. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    I don't see how the US would have let the Pacific be ruled by Imperial Japan while they were slaughtering the Chinese. War was likely inevitable, even if we weren't in the Phillipines.
     
  19. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in the phillipines and the Brits killed lots everywhere but you are right that we would probably seen it different if it was yellow people doing it.

    But, if we don't have a presence in the phillipines which the Japanese had to remove then there would be no reason for the attacks on those islands and Pearl Harbor. And if no Pearl Harbor, no war with Japan. Check the attitudes towards war of the American people in 1941. Stay out of them. In the summer of 1941 the US Congress renewed the draft law by a single vote.

    No Pearl Harbor, no war. No bases in the Phillipines, no attack on Pearl Harbor.

    But I could be wrong.
     
  20. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    The aggressors in Japan would have antagonized US and British shipping. Japan would have found a way to attack the U.S., just like they did with China in the Marco Polo bridge incident. Plus, an emboldened Japan would likely have attacked Russia as well. I think we would have ended up where the war ended: US, Britain, and Russia against Japan.
     
  21. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    Both of which they ended up doing anyway.
     
  22. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    This assumes that the Japanese wouldn't have been interested in Pearl Harbor just as they were interested in lots of other islands in the Pacific. I don't think that's a safe assumption. Pearl Harbor may have been valuable to them just as it was and still is valuable to the US.

    Of course, that's what Hitler was hoping for, but Eastern Russia wasn't valuable enough to make an attack worth the use of Japan's resources. I'm not sure that our absence would have changed that.

    If it had been enough and Japan had attacked, there likely wouldn't have been a Russia for us to fight with, because the Germans would probably have won the war. It certainly would have been a lot messier.
     
  23. huisache

    huisache 2,500+ Posts

    Pearl Harbor might have been valuable to them but they were having a hard time chewing up part of China and did not want a war with the US at the time. The decision to attack was based on their need to get a new fuel supply after the US and the other white powers cut off their sources. They had to go south and the BRits, French and Americans were all in place militarily. All had to be removed. That meant the US bases in the Philipines had to go and as the US Pacific fleet was in the Hawaiian islands it had to be maimed to keep us out of the war while they tried to finish off Chinese resistance. Chiang was putting up a much bigger resistance than had been expected.

    I don't think they would have conquered the Chinese but that is just my opinion. The Japanese thought it was doable.
     
  24. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    The Japanese thought a lot of things that were wrong. That was the problem! For example:
    - US would sue for peace after the initial losses
    - US couldn't attack the Western Pacific due to the long supply chain
     
  25. Statalyzer

    Statalyzer 10,000+ Posts

    If Japan had attacked Russia then Russia would kicked their asses just like happened before the war.
     
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  26. Mr. Deez

    Mr. Deez Beer Prophet

    Of course nobody was going to help facilitate Japan screwing with their colonial possessions, so I'm not surprised that their fuel supply was cut off. That surely was a big factor in them attacking Pearl Harbor. However, they had to know that that would certainly heighten tensions with the US and likely bring them into the war. That tells me they were pretty desperate.
     
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  27. mchammer

    mchammer 10,000+ Posts

    It was the Brits, Dutch, and Americans in the way. The Vichy French gave Japan access to Indochina, which Japan used to cut off supplies to Free China via the Hanoi-Kunming railroad. Also, CNAC, which was the China-Pan Am joint venture airline, was flying supplies into Free China from HK. When Japan started harassing the Western powers, then the U.S. didn't see reason to continue to supply oil to Japan.
     

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