Last night and today are the days to talk about how Donald Trump is the scariest politician in American history. Trump is monstrous, but unlikely to be elected. And, more, he’s not even worse than our previous president, George W. Bush. How have you all forgotten this stuff already?I'm generally skeptical of the leftist take on how bad George Bush was. Their attitudes seem hysterical, which prompts my skepticism of their ability to assess reality.
But after reading the post, which was essentially a big list of George Bush's mistakes, I've moved closer to their side. It's not like I agree with everything on the list. For example I'm not so sure Bush's lack of response to Hurricane Katrina was real, or wasn't appropriate if it was.
But here's my pop quiz for liberals:
- On the list of Bush's failures, how many of them were of the federal government doing something, and how many were government's lack of doing something?
- If most were of the federal government doing something, how has this changed your view of how useful government action is?
My view is that no matter how badly government performs in real life, liberals never undergo an adjustment in their priors over how useful government action is. Bush was awful primarily because of the things he did with federal powers, but this never shakes the faith liberals have in government power. The federal government can kill 10s of thousands of innocent people, but if a private company releases a product that kills 10, liberals have a fit.
