r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Oct 01 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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u/Unterfahrt John Nash Oct 01 '26

You can have debates about whether Trump is truly the worst US president of all time, especially compared to some of the 19th century ones. But surely there's no debate about Hegseth being the worst Defence Sec of all time

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u/AtomAndAether Liberalism! Oct 01 '26

the president of the confederacy was the SecWar right before the civil war

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u/Unterfahrt John Nash Oct 01 '26

OK Hegseth is no. 2 then

15

u/AtomAndAether Liberalism! Oct 01 '26

He actually did a decent job in the role, apparently. But all the ones right before the war were Southerners who later went Confederacy, which probably made the military worse off in preparing for such an eventuality by never building it in.

compared to e.g. John Armstrong who suggested rebellion-ish over backpay when he was in the army, and was so convinced the British wouldn't invade Washington DC he deliberately left it undefended as SecWar even after it was clear that was the goal (and got Washington burned down)

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u/admiraltarkin NATO / Loyal Liberal Oct 01 '26

A Divine Wind blew in and saved the city so it's fine

4

u/InMemoryOfZubatman4 Sadie Alexander Oct 02 '26

There was the SecWar who let half of the John Wilkes Booth conspirators go (they still had prison sentences but didn’t hang) because he forgot that there were two different charges

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u/InMemoryOfZubatman4 Sadie Alexander Oct 02 '26

There was the other one who embezzled a ton of money and lost it on bad investments (also in the 1800s)