God, what is WRONG with our presidents?

[First Crusader]

In the U.S., we have had many one term presidents. Since Eisenhower, we have had 5 two term presidents.

My question: WHY DO OUR TWO-TERM PRESIDENTS ALWAYS SUFFER POLITICAL DESTRUCTION?

All five of these presidents had strong first terms, clear victories in their reelelection, and then their administrations consistently blow apart.

Here are those five presidents and their crisises of the second term.

Johnson: Reputation destroyed by Vietnam War

Nixon: Raises popularity of Vietnam War by ending the draft, but is forced to resign by WaterGate Scandal.

Reagan: Brilliant first term, but his administration falls apart in the second term. This may have had to do with his burgeoning old age.

Clinton: Does fine in the first term. Huge host of scandals and conspiracy theories surrounding his second term, and he escapes impeachment by the skin of his teeth.

Bush Jr.: Does fine in first term, wins clear victory in reelection. But due to the poor results of the Iraq war, his popularity is sliding and his own party members are starting to turn against him.

All of these men suffered from different crisises in their second term, but there was/is always a crisis of some sort. This never happened to FDR or Eisenhower, or most of the other previous two-termers, so it is a mystery to me why this is happening.

[Tiwaz]

Since you can't become president for third time in USA presidents no longer care. For first term they are careful to give as good picture of themselves to voters as possible (others not so much which is why Bush Jr. has managed to direct so much hatred towards his nation) but on the second term there is really nothing left to do.

[First Crusader]

Since you can't become president for third time in USA presidents no longer care. For first term they are careful to give as good picture of themselves to voters as possible (others not so much which is why Bush Jr. has managed to direct so much hatred towards his nation) but on the second term there is really nothing left to do.

Maybe you're right. But that sounds like a really stupid thing to do. Hurting your own rep. also hurts the party rep.

I think America was already hated looong before Jr. came into the Oval Office.

[Marshal Qin]

Maybe you're right. But that sounds like a really stupid thing to do. Hurting your own rep. also hurts the party rep.

I think America was already hated looong before Jr. came into the Oval Office.

Dislike to a certain degree, yes, hatred, no. Jr. did that all by himself. Clinton actually started to make the US, if not popular, then at least acceptable after the Bush Snr and Reagan eras. Its odd, in the US people seem to hate Clinton, yet the rest of the world thinks he did a good job and were starting to develop some respect for the country...now all the ground he gained has been lost, and then some.

[First Crusader]

Dislike to a certain degree, yes, hatred, no. Jr. did that all by himself. Clinton actually started to make the US, if not popular, then at least acceptable after the Bush Snr and Reagan eras. Its odd, in the US people seem to hate Clinton, yet the rest of the world thinks he did a good job and were starting to develop some respect for the country...now all the ground he gained has been lost, and then some.

Lets stay on topic.

If you want to talk about how much you hate and despise Bush, start your OWN thread on it.

[Bwaho]

If we critizise Bush the terrorists win

[Bovril]

Its a pretty consistantly aplicable rule of politics that the longer you've been in power, the less pople like you. Also,during a second term, everyone knows that the President's days are numbered. This means two things: the president cares less about popularity and the party becomes internally divided in preperation for the next power struggle.

[Tiwaz]

Well, it in the end doesn't matter. US presidents tend to pull to the side from active politics after retirement so their party is more or less irrelevant to them. But the deals they can arrange to their corporate buddies can guarantee money coming to former president for the end of their years. (not that your presidents wouldn't have money, but who rich man thinks that he doesn't need more)

Greed, oldest reason ever.

Oh yes and not just corporate buddies but arrange nice things to come to other supporters. Such arrangements often are less liked since they show certain favourism but at second term you can afford to take the PR-hit and just let buddies get part of the cake.


By the way, at the end of Clinton days USA was rather high on reputation. It's actually amusing in Europe to watch how bad Clinton has been considered when he, despire his preference of ugly women, was 10 times the statesman and diplomat as your current president.

But guess we do not care about our politicians having affairs as long as they get the job done. I think in France it's almost required from politician to have few lovers. :laughing:

[Tom Paine]

You really want to know? its directly because of the second term: scandals get longer to come to light (it doesn't matter if the last incumbent had scandals on him, so you simply cut off investigations); more scandals have time to develope; and of course, simply, as has been stated, they can slip and allow scandals to come out: they can't serve a third term...

[First Crusader]

You really want to know? its directly because of the second term: scandals get longer to come to light (it doesn't matter if the last incumbent had scandals on him, so you simply cut off investigations); more scandals have time to develope; and of course, simply, as has been stated, they can slip and allow scandals to come out: they can't serve a third term...

Maybe you are right...

Ack! I screwed up my post while trying to edit it!

[Tom Paine]

Yes, that is what I thought at first, too. But why is it only affecting modern presidents? This didn't happen to Eisenhower, or FDR, or most of their predecessors.

Some matters didn't... matter... as much then as they do now, however, and scandals weren't an accepted political tool to use.

[ExcaliburFIN]

The problem with your presidents is that you vote them.

[Zuwxiv]

The problem with your presidents is that you vote them.

Hey, only 51% of us are idiots.

Okay, maybe 51% of those who voted... That should put the intelligent rate at somewhere near 20%.

[Tom Paine]

So you'd prefer a single ruler with absolute power and dictatorial status?

[Tiwaz]

So you'd prefer a single ruler with absolute power and dictatorial status?

Well, benevolent dictator is pretty much the best method of goverment. But since people who have the required attributes rarely end up in such places of power it's rare occurance.

I myself would prefer to see voting taken out of choosing leader. It should instead be extremely tight personalitytest where attributes voted (yes they can vote these things) by population as preferred in the leader would be analysed. If you have the attributes you can get the position, if not... Well, no amount of babykissing would get you your spot.

Of course this would require use of multiple teams to analyze every candidate separately under anonymity to prevent abuse of the system and so on.

[Empyrean]

Because it is not possible to be elected for a third term, maintaining the illusion of integrity isn't very important. It's not that presidents go bad once their second term starts, it's just that the smoke and mirrors get neglected once they are no longer absolutely necessary.

If we critizise Bush the terrorists win

Also, if we ever stop never forgetting, the terrorists win.

[Tom Paine]

Well they are pretty expensive.

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

It's not all scandals and conspiracies. That puts an unnecessarily negative spin on the matter. It's quite simply a case of who to please.

In the first term, the president pleases the voters. He does what makes them happy, and thereby wins reelection. In the second term, the president pleases the party and his other supporters. He's not as restrained by populist considerations, so he can focus on his actual agenda rather than a watered-down version that's palatable to the maximum amount of people. If that ends up being unpopular, it may not hurt the party because a subsequent candidate can disavow their predecessor (see Al Gore ref. Bill Clinton).

The reason it's been occuring so often lately is because we're due for another major political realignment. We haven't had a huge one since 1932, and the one in 1966 was just a precursor to what may come next. It'll be a bit off for those unfamiliar with the process, but it will come out fine. It'll be interesting, though, to see what ends up happening.

[Tom Paine]

Surely we are well overdue one? I mean a political realignment with if anything a jump to the left is what I'd have expected after the end of the "Threat of communism" in 1991.

[Iaius Statius Laurentius]

It doesn't have to necessarily be a shift in any particular direction--but yes, there will be some sort of radical shift to accompany the recent surge in reactionism. The complete dominance of reactionary theory means that the majority (content to sit in the middle) will have to push hard to the left to dislodge this dominance, and that will result in an overall shift to the left. Using the left/right scheme here, however, is purely for the ease of demonstration and doesn't guarentee any particular results.

We are overdue, though, and the signs are showing. Remember the Republican dominance up to the '20s that lead to the last major shift? Recall the New Deal dominance that eventually lead to Reaganism?

I imagine it'll still take a good five or so years, since these things don't happen on a time, but the signs do show that it's coming. It's going to be interesting to see what form this change actually takes though. Will the parties themselves shift ideologies? Will regions shift? Will parties shift between regions? Or a combination of the above?

The end of the Cold War is just one important element. Also to be considered is the consequences of a world that isn't so strictly divided--and that sort of thing is independant of partisan Cold War theory, so there's no telling where that'll go.