Bill Clinton

For many people, the presidency of Bill Clinton and the era over which it presided is a symbol of blissful nostalgia. Bill Clinton is seen as one of the many relics of the 1990s, being irreversibly linked to the decade and all the economic prosperity, innovation, and brilliant media that came with it. For people with this perception of Clinton, it can be hard to describe him as anything other than a wonderful president who instituted some of the greatest policies of any leader in America's recent history. However, this view is rarely rooted in anything other than love for 90s culture and memories. Any serious study of the Clinton Administration shows that he was nothing particularly impressive. While he wasn't the James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce of his day, he also wasn't a stellar leader. Like Martin Van Buren, he is confined to the prison of average.

Clinton replaced George HW Bush as president on January 20, 1993. Later that year, he, Clinton, would famously unveil a policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Prior to 1993, gay Americans had no legal ability to serve in the military. Obviously, this is a horrible thing. No one should be denied the freedom to work in the military, if that's what they so desire, on the basis of what gender they love. More pragmatically, it actively reduces the number of people who can enlist in the military, which isn't ideal in wartime. However, Clinton's solution to this issue was just barely better.

In 1992, the year in which he won the presidency, Clinton campaigned on a promise to act as a centrist and to be a Democrat who compromised with Republicans. As a result, Clinton wasn't eager to dismantle these restrictions on queer presence in the military entirely. Instead, he created Don't Ask, Don't Tell as a mixture of conservative interests and progressive interests. In essence, DADT allowed gay people to serve in the military so long as they kept their sexuality a secret. Now, this is technically a step in the right direction. Because of Clinton's policy, gay people, on paper, now reserved the right to join the military. However, being unable to be honest about who they were likely made the idea of military service unappealing to most gay Americans. As a result, it really didn't change very much. Ironically, it was Barack Obama's repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell that gave gay people the right to just serve in the military, no caveats attached.

While Clinton doesn't deserve very much credit for DADT, he does deserve praise for certain elements of his foreign policy. Clinton played a pivotal role in the creation of the Dayton Accords and Good Friday Accords, which ended the Bosnian Civil War and the Troubles respectively. However, Clinton also did nothing to address the Rwandan Genocide.

Now, generally, I don't criticize presidents for a lack of action in foreign crises. For example, part of the reason I consider George W. Bush a bottom 10 president is his unnecessary intervention in Iraq in pursuit of toppling Saddam Hussein. However, prior to 2003 and the start of the Iraq War, Bush didn't take a very interventionist approach to foreign policy. The only other instance of interventionism in the Bush Administration was the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but that was because the Taliban, which ruled the country back then, was harboring Osama bin Laden. Unlike Bush, however, Clinton had a very interventionist foreign policy. And yet, when a literal genocide broke out, he sat on his hands. That was the one area in which he denied America's supposed need to expand and mediate.

And while Clinton didn't intervene during an actual genocide, he did intervene in 1998 to bomb Iraq. Not only was this violent, spontaneous, and unnecessary, it actually contributed to the tensions between Iraq and the US that eventually culminated in the Iraq War. Clinton conducted a similar bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.

Soon after entering office, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. This document abolished all trade restrictions between the US, Canada, and Mexico, and required the 3 countries to no longer place tariffs on items imported from the other countries listed in the text. For example, the US could no longer institute tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico. Clinton instated a similar trade with China. As a protectionist, I'm strongly opposed to these decisions.

Returning to domestic affairs, another thing Clinton should receive credit for is the Violence Against Women Act, which established a network of support for women being abused by their spouses. The economic prosperity during the 1990s that contributes to people's love of Clinton is another thing that prevents him from being lower on the list. However, Clinton also signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, an authoritarian omnibus bill that instituted various new restrictions on American lives.

The Clinton years, as previously mentioned, were marked by a healthy economy. However, Clinton's policies also hurt the economy in the long run. In 1999, Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. Signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 16, 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act was an economic reform implemented as part of the New Deal that sought to reduce the chance of another Great Depression-esque crisis in the future. The law required banks to register as either commercial banks, i.e. banks that stored deposits and loaned out money, or investment banks, i.e. banks that assist people with stocks and related issues. From there, it prohibited commercial and investment banks from working with one another. It also founded the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation, which worked to make sure banks handled people's deposits responsibly. Though, to his credit, in repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, Clinton abstained from abolishing the FDIC.

But while Clinton was right to not dissolve the FDIC, it was incredibly irresponsible to dismantle the rest of the Glass-Steagall Act. By setting up a wall between commercial and investment banks, Roosevelt made sure investment banks wouldn't make stock purchases with money deposited by people into commercial banks. This meant that if that stock purchase was unwise, an uninvolved depositor wouldn't lose their money. In fact, some people believed that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act contributed to the Great Recession.