Judging the Ideology of Presidents Who "Played Their Environment"

[RINO Tom]

I know it's an oddly worded question, but how do you judge the ideology of Presidents whose policies and actions were clearly shaped by the political environment they inherited?  Examples would be Eisenhower inheriting an Ameica that had the New Deal programs staunchly ingrained in the fabric of society or Bill Clinton taking over an America that had grown accustomed to Reaganomics.  Others would be Nixon having a heavily Democratic Congress or (again) Clinton having a GOP-led one.  These types of situations often lead to comments like "Bill Clinton cut welfare!" or "Nixon created the EPA!" in conversations about these Presidents' ideologies.

[Goldwater]

Ideally people should go by the second one, though it can sometimes be hard to determine what exactly that is.

[RINO Tom]

Ideally people should go by the second one, though it can sometimes be hard to determine what exactly that is.

Very true.  I just think it's funny how time oversimplifies politics, which I guess is totally natural.  If George W. Bush does something left of center, a Democratic hack would shrug it off and say he's still right-wing.  When Ike did the same, he'd "be a Democrat today," haha.  Same with JFK and "he cut taxes!"

[OSR stands with Israel]

His ideology of the president's term by what he did, the person who served them selves what they intended to do.

For example, Bill Clinton only did welfare reform, deregulation , and cut domestic spending cause of the fact that the GOP won a rare third term in 1988 a lot in part not only due to reagan policy but the Democrats being to liberal and for the fact that the democrats lost congress in 1994 for him being too liberal. As for his tough on crime policies , it was due to the people demanding it after three decades of crime going up in the country , and the government had no choice but to do something about it.

So I judge Bill Clinton presidency being Center-Right despite him probably himself being center-left.

[bagelman]

By what they did, because that's what directly affects everyone's lives.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

By what they did, because that's what directly affects everyone's lives.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

You should judge a president by their impact, but without context it's rather meaningless.

[Mr. Smith]

You should judge a president by their impact, but without context it's rather meaningless.

This is true.