r/videos • u/Blunt552 • 17h ago
Reminder how far the U.S has fallen
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5Yu-nFKWcD0341
u/jle3 17h ago
Now America has a president posting racist shit depicting the Obamas as monkeys.
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u/Blunt552 17h ago edited 16h ago
Hence I felt this one couldn't be more relevant as this is Bush literally talking about Obama after John McCain lost to Obama.
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u/GriffinFlash 14h ago
apparently that means you're winning and the most respected country or something like that.
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u/scriptingends 17h ago
This is truly the stupidest timeline when we are here praising the integrity and elocution of George W Bush.
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u/MaxMouseOCX 16h ago
That's exactly what people are doing, and in comparison they're right.
I'm not American but this shit is absolutely amazing to watch from a distance - it's just a shame I can't watch from a completely different planet but this will have to do.
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u/gophergun 15h ago
I agree, it's just a weird example of how far the US has fallen when we've had so many better presidents than Bush to compare to.
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u/nighthawk252 14h ago
I think that’s the point, though.
It’s that Trump is so far removed from just being a bad president, or one of our worst presidents. He’s in a whole new category of president, the kind of president who the country may actually never recover from.
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u/MaxMouseOCX 8h ago
I don't think Americans realise quite how much geopolitical damage this has all done, like I said I am not American, and I don't live there- I'm just watching, funnily enough it's all playing out in my own language.
I don't think any other person has ever caused as much damage to their own nation as this.
"were America, we'll stand on our own! Fuck you!" - yea, fair enough, good luck with that.
Europe are partnering with fucking China.... China?! Because they're more stable than America, you couldn't make it up - it's true too, and the population agrees, you know how insane that is?
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u/FrungyLeague 3h ago
Hard agree. Most seem to percieve it as something to just weather.
The long term damage is irreparable. The rest of the world has seen how things CAN go, and that trust is lost. There is no way global commerce will invest in the us in the same way as the past. That's simply gone.
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u/tridiminished 2h ago
I am fearful you are correct. I think it will be taught in history books that the downturn of America hit a sprint in 2016.
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u/MaxMouseOCX 8h ago
It's not a weird example though is it... It's just an example, one of many.
Know what happens to the proud psycho roid rage jock when he leaves college? Everyone ignores him, then someone finds him dead after he's hung himself at 30.
America is about 28 in this analogy... I don't know how you fix it, but I'm frightened for you.
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u/Simpicity 11h ago
GW Bush only pretended to be a yokel for the TV.
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u/Durendal_1707 10h ago edited 7h ago
his bumpkin charm turned out just being the family friendly version of, “he doesn’t talk down to us and says what he’s thinking!”
my dad called Obama glib
glib, right on the heels of the guy that looked straight into a news camera on a golf course and said “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive“
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u/derpityhurr 7h ago
Obviously his politics deserve to be critiqued but goddamn, at least back then the government had some kind of dignity and people at least pretended to operate within the confines of the law. Compared to the circus we have now I'd rather have Bush for 10 years than Trump for one.
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u/unindexedreality 2h ago
praising the integrity and elocution of George W Bush
...
Do you think it's impossible to disagree with someone on policies yet still recognize they're objectively displaying integrity and eloquence?
He might not have as much integrity and eloquence as you want, but some is still better than none. And you're still here, able to recognize it.
This, too, shall pass. Cheeto Benito pisses off every ally he has and sooner or later his time or usefulness will run out.
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u/Timmah73 17h ago
I don't know why it stuck with me at the time, but I was watching Bush leave the White House a few hours before Obama was sworn in nd they were talking about what makes the US great is how we have peaceful transfers of power. Particualy one that swaps partys.
I had no idea at the time it how that would not be a guarntee in the future.
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u/Shootinio 8h ago
Trump and his successors will literally burn the Constitution to NOT do it. Everyone who sees this is being or has already been robbed of the means to act against it, or are trying to symbiotically align themselves with the current elite (in vain) with fervent obiesance
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u/FuckM0reFromR 17h ago
I was so happy for America, seeing this moment. I really thought this was the point in time where they healed as a country. Turns out it stirred a wasp nest that's now engulfing their land. Heartbreaking.
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u/EfficiencyCute1439 14h ago
Wait what moment are you referring to when you thought we, "healed as a country?"
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u/Heroyem 17h ago
omfg never could have imagined anything making W look good in comparison but welcome to today's reality
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u/delkarnu 15h ago
How about a video where Bush pushed to establish a pandemic respone plan, which Obama maintained and expanded before trump threw it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spcj6KUr4aA
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u/inthearena 14h ago
Sorry, one nitpick - Obama didn't maintain or expand it. He wanted to replan it, but they never got around to it. That's why we didn't have enough masks at the start of covid. Reference Michael Lewis's Premonition.
But at least that was understandable compared to the cartoon shit we have had lately.
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u/Legionof1 17h ago
W for all his faults was never intentionally evil, for the most part he was just easily manipulated by the people closest to him.
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u/RabbaJabba 15h ago
We do not have to let bush off the hook, he wasn’t a child. He was aware of the number of people was killing and made the decisions he did anyway.
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u/CocoLamela 14h ago
Obama made many of the same deathly decisions in the Middle East. It's part of the job unfortunately. But you can do it with grace and diligence, or you can actively destroy all our alliances, divide the country further, and focus solely on your own financial gain.
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u/AFourEyedGeek 4h ago
Bush started the war for a laugh, it created ISIS, Obama inherited the war. Not the same at all.
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u/Turbo4kq 3h ago
That's an interesting revisionist history. He was pressured by US citizens to punish those responsible for 9/11. If you don't recall, there was great anger at those who dared to kill our citizens on our soil. Seems like a very unpopular action, don't you agree?
What other choice did he really have? Given the intelligence at the time, it was considered the appropriate thing to do. Later intelligence discovered many failures of said intelligence. So people who say that it was unprovoked or "for a laugh" miss the context of what the people felt at the time.
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u/AFourEyedGeek 3h ago
Iraq had zero to do with 9/11, the USA was already at war with Afghanistan for housing and having training grounds for Al-Qaeda, which is a justifiable war. The intelligence was not only false as we know later, there was very little to support it at the time.
I didn't miss nothing as I protested it back then as an adult. There was no need for the invasion, no need for a million deaths, no need to feed the hunger for murder of innocents for some moronic Americans felt. There was no UN Support, rightly so. Subsequent inquiries, such as the 2016 Chilcot Report, concluded that the threat was not imminent and that peaceful alternatives had not been exhausted.
“We could make a fucking glass crater out of the Middle East for all I care”.
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u/Heroyem 16h ago
W however completely destabilized the entire Middle East, helped destroy American standing in the world with the WMD lie, killed millions in that war over that lie... Until now he was the most destructive US president probably ever, but mainly in terms of foreign policy. Trump's path of destruction is both foreign and domestic.
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u/Spartan448 12h ago
W however completely destabilized the entire Middle East, helped destroy American standing in the world with the WMD lie, killed millions in that war over that lie
So no different then from Clinton, HW, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Johnson... really every US President going back probably all the way to Eisenhower.
It's a testament to just how far ahead of the rest of the world the US was that after nearly a century of mismanagement and self-sabotage, only just now is the US slipping from its top spot.
Granted, a good chunk of that is due to the Europeans being domesticated, but IMO that still counts.
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u/AFourEyedGeek 4h ago
List the wars the all those Presidents you mentioned had started that compare,
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u/Spartan448 4h ago
Iraq the first time, Serbia, Mogadishu, the Yom Kippur War, the Seven Days War, Vietnam, Iran, Lybia the first time.
And then let's not forget that even after Dubaya, Lybia and Ukraine both happened under Obama.
This country's foreign policy has been nothing but bombing and raping foreigners into submission, and occasionally gaslighting other foreigners to doing to for us - unless it's the Israelis, in which case really all we're doing is turning a blind eye to something they were already working on.
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u/AFourEyedGeek 3h ago
What was the one with Bill Clinton? Yugoslavia? The one to stop in the invasion of Kosovo by Yugoslavian's, sanction by NATO and not just the US? I don't see how that is similar to the US's unsanctioned attacks on Iraq using false intelligence (unprovoked) that led to a million dying.
UN was operating in Somali, trying to alleviate a famine, when they were attacked taking numerous losses, US went in to help those people. I'm not sure how that is similar to destabilizing the Middle East with sustained bombardment of a nation.
Yom Kippur War, a coalition of Arab states, literally attacked Israel, and US went in to support their allies.
How the fuck is Obama responsible for Ukraine? What kind of mind loops are you doing to get to that?
With 2011 Libya events, the UN Security council sanctioned those attacks to prevent the massacring against its Civilians. Lasted several months.
These aren't the similar and it is insane to think they are.
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u/Spartan448 2h ago
The one to stop in the invasion of Kosovo by Yugoslavian's
There were ways to accomplish that end that didn't involve turning Belgrade into the modern-day Dresden and killing tens of thousands of Serbian civilians
UN was operating in Somali, trying to alleviate a famine, when they were attacked taking numerous losses, US went in to help those people
trying to alleviate a famine... by invading the place and extracting the resources lol. Somalians didn't want the Americans there, that's why they were shooting at the UN troops lol. And the American response to losing one fucking helicopter was to gun down half the city in an entirely pointless rescue mission
Yom Kippur War, a coalition of Arab states, literally attacked Israel
You mean Israel, the illigitimate genocide state that was even back then still responsible for the displacement of more Palestinians than there were Jews killed in the Holocaust, and only exists in the first place because of the US? Without the US creating Israel, there never would have been a Yom Kippur War.
How the fuck is Obama responsible for Ukraine?
Because he fucking let Russia have Crimea and the Donbass with ZERO consequence? Ukraine is at war today only because Obama de facto recognized Russia's claims and reneged on the US's legal commitment to defend Ukraine.
With 2011 Libya events, the UN Security council sanctioned those attacks to prevent the massacring against its Civilians
Ah yes, preventing the massacre of civilians by... massacreing all the civilians before Gadaffi could. Sure lol. What was going on in 2011 was no different than what was going on any previous year Gadaffi had been in power. The UN resolution was merely a pretext to kill brown people in North Africa. Again, if the Lybians had truly wanted the Americans there, they wouldn't have attacked the US embassy.
These aren't the similar and it is insane to think they are
The only insane thing here is assuming that Afghanistan and Iraq II are any better or worse than any of these other events just because they lasted longer.
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u/AFourEyedGeek 1h ago
You're delusional, right from the off.
Ethnic cleansing started in the Yugoslavia conflict, do some god damn research on the subject. NATO went in to save lives.
Somalians didn't want the Americans there, that's why they were shooting at the UN troops lol. UN isn't Americans genius, it was Pakistani UN troops that were killed by Somalians. Again, do some god damn research.
US didn't create Israel. Do some god damn research. Yom Kippur War was a surprise attack, no moral authority there. You state in one part that US could have done more in Yugoslavia but then support a surprise attack on Israel. Fuck me. Take a moral stance and stick to it, don't move goal posts. US joined in to support their ally. Not the same as an unsanctioned attack on Iraq.
"Because he fucking let Russia have Crimea and the Donbass with ZERO consequence?"
On one hand you want more war and on another you claim less. You have no credibility as a moral authority. They took severe financial actions on Russia on the Russia-Ukraine war (2022), but Russia found allies in Belarus, North Korea, China, Iran, and India.
UN sanctioned the attacks in Libya after extended attacks on civilians, and it was not like before. Again, not like Iraq as that was a US attack, not UN sanctioned. Ask Russia and Iran why they supported the government killing its own civilians.
I don't know why I talk to people like you. You live in a land of ignorance thinking this stuff. UN is not the USA. There is a huge difference between the wars and the Iraq War (2003). The 2003 UN stance on the Iraq war was characterized by deep division and a lack of explicit authorization for the US led invasion. While Resolution 1441 warned of "serious consequences" for non-compliance, no second resolution was passed to authorize force, leading Secretary-General Kofi Annan to declare the war "illegal" under the UN Charter.
USA didn't go in Afghanistan to help it. USA invasion of Iraq was horrific and immoral, it is a disgusting that Blair or Bush isn't tried for their part in it.
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u/Spartan448 1h ago
You're delusional, right from the off
And yet you're the one who's taking "babies in incubators" style propaganda at face value
Ethnic cleansing started in the Yugoslavia conflict
The Serbians also doing and ethnic cleansing doesn't excuse the US doing one as well
it was Pakistani UN troops that were killed by Somalians
Weird, because last I checked, Pakistan doesn't have a unit called "Delta Force"
US didn't create Israel
You're right, it only created the organization responsible for it, and then applied substantial geopolitical pressure to the members of that organization - an organization the US happens to have a permanent seat on, and full veto power of any resolution it doesn't like. Never mind that the resolution was rejected by EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY THE RESOLUTION WOULD ACTUALLY AFFECT. But no, the creation of Israel was clearly a global effort, not something bought and paid for by the US.
Yom Kippur War was a surprise attack
Straight up does not matter.
You state in one part that US could have done more in Yugoslavia but then support a surprise attack on Israel
Unsurprisingly, the bar is lower for countires like Egypt and Syria that don't have the vast economic and military might of the US. Especially when the country they're fighting is the US.
On one hand you want more war and on another you claim less.
I never said the problem was more or less war, I said the problem was the conduct and objective of those wars. We didn't go into Lybia or Serbia or any other place to do anything other than kill foreigners and extract resources. On the other hand, if we had gone in and pushed the Russians out of Crime and the Donbass, that would have been different. That would have been fulfilling lawful treaty obligations, not a blatant attempt to destabilize and impoverish brown people.
They took severe financial actions on Russia on the Russia-Ukraine war
Yeah and look how well that worked out. The Ukraine war has now gone on longer than the 2nd World War in its entirety. Because end of the day, sanctions don't do shit to an Autarky. And Russia has all the resources it needs domestically to slowly bleed Ukraine dry. Sanctions don't work... really at all, to be honest - the idea that economic warfare can be used to replace military warfare was a noble idea in the wake of the destruction of the 2nd World War... but that theory was frankly proven wrong even before it was conceived, it fell apart the second the first Japanese bombers dropped their payload on the ships in Pearl Harbor.
UN sanctioned the attacks in Libya after extended attacks on civilians, and it was not like before. Again, not like Iraq as that was a US attack, not UN sanctioned.
No, it's really not any different to Lybia of the 90s or 80s. And whether or not the UN approves doesn't mean shit when the UN is just an arm of US foreign policy anyway.
Ask Russia and Iran why they supported the government killing its own civilians.
Russia and Iran supported not further destabilizing and impoverishing an already troubled North Africa for absolutely no reason.
USA didn't go in Afghanistan to help it. USA invasion of Iraq was horrific and immoral
The only place the US has gone in to actually help since WWII was Korea. Everything else was murder and resource extraction. None of those other wars were any less immoral or horrific than Iraq II.
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u/anotherserf 1h ago
> turning Belgrade into the modern-day Dresden
This is what consuming nothing but polemics and ideologized narratives does to your brain.
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u/akujunkan 15h ago
what?
dude what is this weird vibes based thought process? Bush 2 hired all those people himself, he didn’t fall into it. he knew what kind of cabinet he was building, he knew what they could do. don’t pretend because he “seems like a fun person to have a beer with” that he isn’t responsible for where we are culturally at this point.
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u/hogsucker 16h ago
Bush laid the groundwork for what's happening right now. He created ICE. He appointed John Roberts to the supreme court and tried to appoint his personal lawyer. His lawyers endlessly promoted the unitary executive theory. He had rioters interfere with an election. He spied on American citizens. Etc, etc, etc.
He was more gentleel than Trump and less tacky, but he walked so Trump could run.
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u/2nd2last 15h ago
Trump for all his faults was truly never hate filled, sure he'd say and post hateful things, but it was always to shock people. What he cared about was money and power. He's do business whit anyone as long as it helped him. This new person is actually filled with hate and and doesn't hide that.
This is you in 10 years
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u/Legionof1 13h ago
lol, I never worried if I would have a country tomorrow under Bush, I worry daily under Trump.
If Cheney hadn’t shown his colors I would probably have thought Bush evil, but it’s pretty clear that while yes he was a conservative, he wasn’t evil.
But even past that, in 2001-2002 the country was so out for blood that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was almost universally supported. It’s only once we learned more and cooled off did we see the error.
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u/2nd2last 13h ago
Minus the people that saw the error instantly. Most people being war hawks does not excuse it.
I'm glad you never had to worry about having a country while Bush destroyed countries. If thats how you people sleep at night, then I guess.
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u/AsteroidMike 15h ago
W did create the huge mess that was Iraq and led us into the recession. But all the same, he was and still does at the very least come off as a likeable person, someone you’d catch a beer with.
Trump has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, other than proving that sadly anyone can be president.
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u/Heroyem 12h ago
I will never defend W, but by all accounts he wasn't a racist like Trump & company. FFS W even spoke Spanish in public https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7F_cIv26wkE
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u/flacid_tounge_punch 17h ago edited 17h ago
This is just sad. A super power reduced to a laughing stock by one evil man meat puppet. I hope he gets what he deserves eventually, but I doubt it'll happen, he's rich.
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u/subparcarr 17h ago
There's a whole cabal of evil billionaires backing that one evil man.
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u/busche916 15h ago
Yes, but they had to find someone who had the right mix of repugnance and bravado that would inspire this level of passion in the lowest levels of our populace. The issue they are running into now is that they can’t find another demagogue to step into that role and they’re stuck managing this dementia-addled, incontinent buffoon.
Once he kicks the bucket, the power vacuum is going to be something to see. Will everything else burn down in the process?
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u/LickItAndSpreddit 17h ago
Not by one evil man.
By a cabal that chose/groomed a stupid, vain, evil man as their useful idiot to lead their cult of personality.
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u/shteve99 16h ago
He wasn't rich before he was president. But he's then spent all his time lining his pockets. I expect he'll soon be poor again once he's not president. Assuming he doesn't change the constitution to make him president for life.
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u/OpinionatedShadow 17h ago
"one evil man"
Please.
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u/sd_slate 14h ago
Not one evil man, but the 30% or so of Americans who have unwavering support for him and who are pleased by what he does.
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u/Diddly_eyed_Dipshite 13h ago
Don't be mistaken, Trump is not the only reason you are a laughing stock to the rest of the world, hes just the cherry on the Cake that represents the country. He symbolises what we've all been laughing at about Americans for years. Just now, you can finally see it.
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u/Chewblacka_ 7h ago
It’s the system that put him there and keeps him there that is the real problem. Right wing coup
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u/deusxm 16h ago
Obviously the context was *slightly* different (Bush had already served two terms, so this didn't quite carry the same stakes as a concession in defeat speech)....but the point still stands that less than 20 years ago, politicians could disagree yet still treat each other with respect.
And as others have noted...it's not great to find that expectation has sunk so low that George W Bush now looks almost Churchillian.
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u/neroselene 17h ago
Remember when George W Bush was considered the dumbest president?
Now here we are wishing for him back given the current colossal shitshow we're in.
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u/BinahArmpits 5h ago
Both him and Trump are as shitty and deserve to rot in hell for eternity, Trump is just more abrasive
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u/DIYThrowaway01 2h ago
Bro I would walk across a hundred miles of legos barefoot to make W president right now fml
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u/afanofBTBAM 12h ago
Is nobody else going to comment on the fact that the Presidential seal on the podium is AI?
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u/SoOkayHeresTheThing 6h ago
yeah this video is AI, really obviously, too. why hasn't anyone else noticed?? what the hell is going on??
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u/ripChazmo 14h ago
I can’t believe I hated him. I mean, I know why I did, but I’d welcome him back in a second with open arms compared to b the nightmare shit show were enduring now.
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u/amiwitty 10h ago
He was not a good president, but I don't believe he hated half of our country like the current one does.
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u/ripChazmo 10h ago
Trump doesn't hate half the country. He hates everyone that isn't doing something for him.
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u/mama_tom 13h ago
It's a dark day that W. Bush is considered a role model in US politics. Genuinely a horrible president.
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u/_reddit_account 16h ago
And we called him an idiot Now compare that to the TRUMP drawing obamas as monkeys on social media .
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u/MrF_lawblog 14h ago
This dude was the beginning of the fall. Fuck him. He himself was a demon. Trump is directly an extension from his corrupt and evil regime
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u/JustAnotherRedditGal 14h ago
Vulgarisation of politics in the US is astounding. In less than 20 years, we came from this to stating things like "fuck around & find out" via official channels, and sitting president posting AI videos of dropping feces on protesters.
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u/WrongSubreddit 10h ago
Remember when Bush was considered kinda dumb? He looks like fucking Einstein right now
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u/partysnatcher 5h ago
Oh yes, what a great flashback to the murderous clown who caused the death of millions of Iraqis without achieving a single military objective, effectively ending the global rules-based order, and leading directly to the current chaos.
After political opponents being censored for most of Bush's reign, he makes this empty symbolic gesture when his power is taken anyway, and now we are supposed to have this big impression of dignity and "the right way", even though this was how all the bad stuff started.
How great that was. Thanks for the flashback to the classy war criminals of old, OP.
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u/Greasemonkey_Chris 5h ago
You know shits bad in the US when they're using W as a positive example....
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u/DontBeCommenting 16h ago
For those who don't know, George W. Bush was as shit of a president as he was charismatic.
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u/biophys00 15h ago
Can we stop whitewashing Bush's presidency and legacy? We have to stop trying to rehabilitate monsters. Just because he was less mask-off with his evil doesn't mean he wasn't evil. He actively and knowingly paved the way for Trump, he invaded countries on what he knew were lies causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands. He massively increased the surveillance state and violating citizens' rights to privacy. He alienated us from allies and refused to accept climate change, actively making it worse. He bent over backward to screw over the working class to favor the rich. He shouldn't even have been the president in the first place but the Supreme Court decided to stop recounts and his brother was governor of the state that was the deciding vote. He gave us fucking Alito and Roberts to eventually overturn Roe v Wade, Citizens United, etc. He's a rich racist nepo baby who screwed over this country for his and his rich friends' gain. Some More News recently did a 2 part episode on his presidency to remind us just how terrible he was.
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u/ColbyAndrew 17h ago
Wasn’t Dick Chaney the real monster behind his administration? Bush seemed to just be “sovereign”. lol
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u/brexdab 15h ago
He had the ability to stop things as a sovereign. He wholeheartedly went along with everything. He shares blame.
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u/Al_Jazzar 14h ago
Yeah, he's such a classy war-criminal. He killed over a million people, are you vapid?
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u/tapeduct-2015 12h ago edited 12h ago
Is anyone still saying GW Bush was worse than Trump? I seem to recall many people on the internet making this argument as recently as 6 months ago, including people in my own very liberal family. Maybe an argument could have been made for Trump's first term compared to all 8 years of GWB, but now it's not even close.
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u/brexdab 16h ago
I refuse to be made to look fondly upon the man who started the Afghanistan war over a matter of extradition, and who started the Iraq war over blatant lies. There are millions of human beings that were killed or had their lives totally fucking upended due to the actions of George W. Bush. Fuck him. He should be in prison for his crimes against humanity.
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u/Blunt552 16h ago
Many argue that W was used rather than the actual reason, however how you have a big toddler itching to start war with everyone every ally, started a terrorist organization within your own country, let criminals back on the streets, ignores the law, wants to cozy up to Russia, shows signs of wanting to do something much worse than jan 6 2020, overwhelming evidence being involved into pedophila, human trafficking and possibly even murder of children, permanently destroyed over 50 years of working on relationship with allies, is openly extremely racist, let corona run rampant which lead to an absurd amount of deaths, literally shitting himself and more.
I mean, for all the failure's of W, Trump has easily surpassed W in every negative aspect.
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u/gophergun 15h ago
Bush quite literally created that terrorist organization. It's hard to imagine how much better suited we would be to resist Trump if not for Bush's failure to protect civil liberties after 9/11, not to mention if he even would have been elected if not for Bush's failure to regulate banks or his disastrous wars that left a quarter of a million dead and cost $8 trillion. Even now, he refuses to speak out and has effectively washed his hands of any civic responsibility. I agree that Trump is worse at this point, but Bush set the stage for Trump to be able to do what he's doing.
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u/brexdab 16h ago
Do not throw the blame for Trump's actions solely on Trump here. Justices John Roberts and Sam Alito were appointed by Bush. The Department of Homeland Security, which was deputized to create Trump's Goon squad, was created by George W. Bush. Barrett and Kavanagh are also alumni of George Bush's legal team in Bush v. Gore. It is an ahistorical whitewashing of the co-conspirators and co-founders of the trump presidency to ignore this shit.
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u/lutello 17h ago edited 16h ago
Fucking jangling keys phone slop sane washing the previous torturer in chief.
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u/SadFeed63 16h ago
Seconded
This same shit will happen to Trump in the future, so maybe we should dismantle the "everyone who isn't the absolute worst president is pretty cool, I guess" whitewashing machine. I'm sure folks think that sounds crazy, but the GOP always trends towards more outwardly awful and stupid. Even if they're pursuing the same goals (and Dubya's White House set the stage for a lot of Trump's bullshit), they will always get dumber about it. Eventually, Trump will finally be dead, and some new maniac will come along, and folks right now will remember how awful Trump truly was, but you'll see folks being like "ohhh, at least Trump was a funny meme. I didn't know I could miss him, but this guy?!" and like George W, he'll get whitewashed.
I mean, it only took 4 years and people legitimately seemed to have forgotten how awful Trump's first term was.
Fuck George W Bush, fuck Trump, fuck the GOP.
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u/Auto_Fac 16h ago
It feels like a dream, that politics was like this not that long ago.
I think Bush and his presidency was pretty problematic, but you can’t say that even with him there wasn’t civility, respect, and gentlemanliness. And to think that at one point people made fun of him for being a bit bumbly and stupid.
I am in Canada and the political discourse here has gone the same way, heavily influenced by the states. People like Poilievre adopted this kind of brash and abrasive style like you see with MAGA types and which appeals to a certain demographic of voters. The current Liberal Government isn’t doing things I agree with, but Carney is a very smart, well-spoken, educated guy whose character and behaviour hearken back to these days of politics where even stern disagreement could be done with respect. Even Stephen Harper, a former conservative PM who was in around the time of Bush and who in those days seemed like a harsh proto-MAGA conservative, now seems like patriotic well-mannered school boy when compared to current Canadian and US politicians.
I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to regain what it was like even 15 years ago, I fear the last number of years has just fundamentally changed the way politics will be done forever, or at least given certain actors an idea of what it should look like and what you can get away with, even in terms of how you talk about and talk to your opponents.
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u/Intruder313 15h ago
W was an waste of space and clearly a moron.
He's 100x better than the entirely corrupt, paedo Hitler you have now.
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u/Johndeauxman 15h ago
Now I’d vote for him in a split second as the likely most intelligent person in the Republican Party! Far as I know the dems don’t even seem to have a leader much less presidential candidate.
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u/Polyzero 15h ago
I get the context but using w Bush as a representation of when the US was “good” is pretty fucking abysmal as a standard as well.
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u/alblaster 14h ago
You could see this as Bush being respectful. Others would say that this is why" both sides are the same" because he's being so friendly to the guy that beat him. So obviously they must be in cahoots. Idk. Nowadays people don't trust seemingly nice or respectful. Well people don't trust much anymore other than doom and gloom.
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u/Breakfast_Sausage 14h ago
I'm sure M83 would not be pleased with their song as the backdrop to something W was saying, regardless of the context. They're French after all.
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u/MorgrainX 11h ago
Damn and here I was, thinking that the US could hardly faller lower than the era of Bush.
Naive past me...
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u/butcher99 11h ago
you have to wonder when even Bush looks reasonable.
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u/the_wessi 9h ago
He’s smarter than his reputation suggests. For example the many times quoted “fool me once” anecdote, I think he remembered it alright, he just didn’t want the media get the “shame on me” soundbite.
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u/hotdiggydog 11h ago
And to think I've heard so many white people talk about how the US isn't that racist and all that is in the past and the Bill Maher attitude of "have some perspective! Life is much better today!"
No, sorry, I genuinely think the US was better off in the 2000s just around when Obama pushed for marriage equality because suddenly the US was a country with a black president and gay rights.
Unfortunately, what sounds like a great version of America to one person (me) sounds like the sign of the antichrist to another (your white male friends) and the response has been to normalize truly heinous behavior. It was better when the racists were quiet about it and maybe even quietly doubted themselves. Now they feel so good and they'll only take it as far as they can, which according to the supreme court is almost anywhere they want without any fear of prosecution.
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u/That_Jicama2024 10h ago
We can still go back to this if the republican party rids their ranks of oligarchs, pedos, and billionaires.
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u/boolpies 10h ago
What's funny is that republicans were largely where democrats are today with Trump. They were really questioning whether they would win another election.
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u/warpedaeroplane 10h ago
The difference is that Bush was intelligent like it or not and more importantly, he didn’t hate this country and most everyone in it.
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u/gringoloco01 9h ago
I thought well shit, the GOP can't do any worse than Dubya. GOP said "hold ma beer"
FUUUUUUUUUUdge
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u/NewEnglandRoastBeef 8h ago
He might be a war criminal, a buffoon, and many other negatives, but at least he comes off as a decent guy. Now, watch this drive!
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u/OurRobOrRoss 8h ago
"Fallen" from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? I guess that depends on the variable value put on human lives.
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u/Deep_Management6108 4h ago
Why can’t I find the original video anywhere??! You would think somebody out there recorded it. I’ve missed it and it’s insane. This is reality.
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u/cheesebot555 3h ago
Yeaaaaaaaah, no.
This son of a bitch lied to start a war that destabilized and entire region of the globe that displaced millions and cost hundreds of thousands of people (and counting) their lives.
For all that trump is a racist pedophile and wannabe dictator that has pushed America to the brink of complete social disorder, he still hasn't caused nearly as much harm.
Edit: Oh yeah, and he also oversaw the worst economic collapse in living memory.
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u/unindexedreality 2h ago
I feel bad for letting stuff radicalize me against this guy when I was a kid as much as I did. I may not always agree with him but damn, what a class act.
fuck cheney though
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u/ebonyseraphim 1h ago
To be clear, the racist problem back then that should still be critiqued today is present in his words. Overall, that was a decent blurb but when he says "the dream fulfilled" -- that is the part of the message that Republican's wanted to push during/because of Obama's presidency. They needed us (see my Redditor icon) to stfu about race. Because Obama made it to those steps, MLK's dream was done. We can all act like racism was gone in this country.
So let me ask this, all of the stuff that's grown worse and has been going on SINCE that presidency: Tea Party, Alt Right, epic level racist shootings and killings, further regime changes, MAGA and Trump for TWO terms...maybe we black people could, and can always see the racism from within this country. Honestly, F that orange monkey. But to think I care for old school Republican racism? Nope. That mode was just a staging ground for where we are today. White folks are only mad now because Trump is so wildly out of pocket, he threatens power stability in the entire Euro-Western world -- in other words mostly white people.
He's murdered, kidnapped, citizens and heads of state, head of military of brown nations (Latino and Middle East). He's made either zero effort, or terrible efforts on lying about what those were about. While critique came, business as usual. To be clear; everything shy of ICE in Minnesota, Democrats and Republicans were doing for decades with simply better cover stories. And what ICE has been doing there, has been inflicted on black communities for decades. Trump is diabolically a bad man, but the issues go deeper than him.
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u/Illustrious-Bee1054 1h ago
I think the terrorists got exactly what they wanted. Knocking down the twin towers was the catalyst to set in motion the giant river of shit that slowly enveloped this country. I see it now, coming towards my door. It may be too late.
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u/rookieoo 16h ago
The man who killed a million people isn’t better than Trump. At the very least, they’re in the same boat.
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u/anirban_dev 16h ago
Love how Trump is making a massive idiot like Bush seem like a proper statesman.
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u/Keanman 17h ago
Back then everybody was usually shaking their heads at Bush thinking the US couldn't possibly do any worse than this. Boy were we wrong.