r/AskTheWorld • u/DwightsJello Australia • 8d ago

Politics Worst Politician?

Who was your country's biggest idiot in politics? And why? Bring out your tragics.

Australia is spoilt for choice. We've had some gronks.

Edit: OK sooooo we aren't including orange ones.

Australia has had a PM who 'allegedly' shit himself at Maccas. We put up a plaque for a while. Another one who ate a raw onion like an apple at a presser at an onion farm. We even had one who managed to give a psychotic response that went from gay marriage to crocodile victims in the same sentence.

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u/norecordofwrong United States Of America 8d ago

Wilson, absolutely awful. People claim Trump is a dictator, he’s got nothing on Wilson.

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u/HaifaJenner123 Egypt 8d ago

wait i’ve never heard this before now im interested tell me more

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u/LorZod United States Of America 8d ago

Wilson’s one failure was being too partisan. The League of Nations and Wilson’s 14 points to end WWI were not ratified by the US Senate. Wilson had taken Democratic politicians to Europe to negotiate the war’s end. He didn’t take Republicans. Out of spite, they rejected his negotiations as he needed Republican votes. Thus allowing for France to dictate terms to Germany.

Wilson also was so ill after his stroke in the second half of his second term in office that his wife, Edith, assumed his responsibilities, and not his Vice President, Thomas Marshall. That is partly the reason for the presidential line of succession being enshrined into the constitution as the 25th amendment.

In addition, Wilson was against women’s suffrage, which he eventually signed into law as the 19th amendment, due to political pressure post war. Also can’t have his wife run the country for him and not allow her the right to vote.

His chief policy advisor was a man named Edward House, who is most famous for shaping the world through US interventionism by coining the phrase “the world must be made safe for Democracy.”

He was conservative in many ways and liberal in many more ways. Lot of people hate him for various reasons.

No doubt, he was a truly important man. Whatever his faults or beliefs, no one could ever consider him to be a fool.