By peaceful times I mean a time period of low volatility. I would say most volatility during Trumps administration was self inflicted.
I don’t think you’re fully appreciating how much of a cancer Trump is to America. Sure Bush was a failed President and his policy positions were horrible but I think he was a victim of a lot of bad luck. I don’t think he was more incompetent or insane than Trump.
Trump has created a post truth culture in America where the political parties can’t even agree on simple facts, he’s fostered a cult which constitutes at least 35% of America that truly believe that democrats are evil and are hellbent on destroying America. He’s essentially allowed the Russians to completely infiltrate and hijack the Republican Party. The cancer he has bestowed on America will outlive his political career and will create a reckoning that will probably make Jan 6th look like child’s play
Yes bush was horrible for the Middle East but Trumps impact domestically will be felt for the rest of our lives. He’s worse than Bush.
You can only say the time period Trump was inaugurated into was low volatility if you had Brunch Blinkers on. The late Obama years were fukking ass. Black Lives Matter protests were a pretty constant factor with Alton Sterling and Philando Castille being murdered and police being killed in retaliation, the deadliest mass shooting in history occurred months before Trump was inaugurated and was superseded months after he took office, ISIS was committing terrorist attacks, transgender rights was becoming a big cultural and political issue...to say nothing of the underlying, constant din of the post-globalization hollowing out of the middle class and industrial base...this was not a country at peace.
Trump was a reaction to the underlying conditions of American life and politics. There's this false mythology being promoted by anti-Trumpers that before Trump came America was some kumbaya city on a shining hill where Republicans and Democrats may have had their little differences but at the end of the day they all wanted what's best for the country and were all on the same team. It's a complete fallacy designed to launder the evil perpetrated by many of the people who are now being normalized. If Trump never ran in 2016 all the nutcases who love him wouldn't magically be good and normal. Trump didn't create the negative energy, he just channelled and exploited it. All that conspiratorial paranoid pizzagate Q-Anon shyt is as American as apple pie. Trump didn't turn these people, they were always pieces of shyt. He just gave them a vessel.
And to say Bush was a victim of bad luck is fukking insane to me. He was definitely more competent and probably just as insane. He wasn't just horrible for the Middle East, he was godawful domestically. Worse than Trump by far.