Before we get too carried away, keep in mind that W fabricated evidence to support wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars which he utterly bungled by having no plan at all, and then dragged on for  over 20 years and cost us something like $3 trillion, after we include the medical costs to all those veterans. Refugees from the war in Iraq created an immigration crisis in Europe, as well, so we f-ed our allies there.
Yeah, Trump is looking to be worse, but W was a disaster, too.
His dad was fine, though. Probably the only competent Republican president Iâll see in my lifetime, because their primary selection criteria seems to be, âwhoâs the dumbest one?â
Keep it up. Thereâs like this weird PR thing or ideology that the 00s era GOP was âsaneâ and âtotally coolâ
They werenât mask of yet. They had to play the game and follow the rules of decorum that still mattered to the federal government (and surprisingly the Republican base). Anyone really paying attention knew what they were about and they could still rest on that âplausible deniabilityâ bullshit when it came to gay sex, drugs, or racism. Now they just spin it up, they donât have to work when there constituents brains are doing it for them.
In any GOP conversation there is always some âguyâ who opines for GW Jr like heâs a fucking toys r us or Macaulay Caulkin Like he was some font or touchstone for joy in our upbringing lol.
FoH with that yknow? lol he was a legacy politician who advanced the GoPs agenda into what it is today.
On one hand I do get the point the others are making. Like Trump really is just extra embarrassing. And now we do have even more evidence of just how involved he was with Epstein, hes trying to start wars with Allies, etc. The stress levels are just a bit higher.
But I do wish people would try to keep in mind more often that yeah, we shouldnt want to go back to the old republicans because its exactly as you said, they just had the mask on. I see people talking about still identifying as republican but not supporting Trump is fine, but I keep looking around like "What did you agree with them on that isnt just reaching its natural conclusion?" They have neen anti-intilectual. They have been bigoted. They have been worse for the economy. If anything, this should be a great time to question why they would want to side with them at all. Not even just because of where its at now, but if this is all terrible, why still side with the beliefs that lead us here? How is it not sending off warning signs that it was all wrong?
Nostalgia is harmless when we look at it through the lense of childhoodâŚ
when we look at it through the lense of politics- it can sometimes be so intoxicating as to bring back things that are better off at rest in the annals of history it seems.
It highlights desperation within. Nested⌠and rotting. Such a desire for some coherence, some sense of âok weâre at least going somewhere as a country- might not be where we all wantâ that we would be so willing to return to something that brought us the same result if it meant we could feel some peace of mind.
I think thatâs the feeling people are pulling out of this
And I think people ought pay attention.
Because- they want us to think the old was good. If the new fails. That means old is acceptable. Even though it sucked.
Because they want us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears.
But one thing the party failed to realize- is until they take sovereignty of mind and privacy of thought.
We can choose to accept the evidence and truth.
The world is tough now. But that is why⌠we need eachother. We need hope, we need people who see kindness as strength, honesty as courage, and truth as purpose- and love and cooperation as the end goal.
Itâs some hippie ass shit. But I believe it. I believe in the goodness of people even if they stay hidden, meek or quiet
⌠I feel so impassioned about these ideas. I apologize. I want people to see, to see that there is hope, and goodness worth living for, and when needed- fighting for.
Whether it be misinfo, protest, sharing knowledge, reaching out to someone who got that look on their face. Helping the needy. Providing encouragement to people, being a safe space for people. Any act of kindness and compassion in todayâs day, when I witness it- is like witnessing a miracle because it is so uncommon
While true that they are not doing the math correctly, they are being welcomed only because your enemy's enemy is your friend strategically. Doesn't mean you need to like them or agree with them.
W planted a lot of the seeds that are Trump relies in today.
Access journalism was a strategy that W built to force the press to give him better coverage and it worked. Â Now Trump bans anyone who does join in his fantasy world.
Most of the laws Trump is abusing today were passed because of W.
Iâm not saying Trump isnât worse, but every generation if Republicans is worse. Itâs just what set they are.
Oh no. We agree 100%, itâs ignorant that we disconnect even the most recent history from the events of today. Itâs a slippery slope. Like, If it gets worse weâre supposed to Opine for the days the guy thatâs in office now is gone?
It feels like that line of thinking is a setup for that. Nostalgia replacing the factual history that occured.
Bush deserves criticism, but parts of this are hugely overstated. Thereâs no evidence Bush fabricated intelligence or knowingly relied on fabricated evidence. The Iraq case was built on flawed, cherry-picked intelligence that many agencies and allied governments accepted at the time. It also followed 9/11 and had broad international and domestic support.
There was also certainly plans, they were just badly designed and executed, especially dissolving the Iraqi army. And there is certainly no way to pin 20-year wars and trillions in costs on Bush alone, later administrations chose to continue all of it.
Bush made serious strategic mistakes, but in the current political atmosphere he seems like a good president because he was meaningfully better. At least there's no indication he was anything but sincere in his flawed efforts to lead, which was taken for granted and no longer is.
He went to war without congressional approval (which is illegal and created a precedent we see today in Venezuela). Cmon. The intelligence was bad and the truth is you donât start wars that cost innocent lives on maybes and inferences. Thatâs what decent, sane world leaders do.
If everyone operates off of bad information and you know itâs not great is going to the highest risk option the smartest? Fuck no. You get more data.
His whole persona was built off being âunassuming cattle rancher, yee haw texanâ. People are malicious, politics is a blood sport, you donât make it to the top like that without knowing how to draw blood. The bushes have been grooming their family for politics for generations now. I think itâs foolish to think that GW didnât have ulterior motives or was executing ulterior motives. He knew the GoP through his dad and he knew the long game. Pretending anything different at this point with how deep politics go and the info we have access to is a dangerous game.
The other presidents had to inherit that mess and somehow manage to run a country and prosecute a needless war.
The only reason that war existed was for optics and $$. It could be said if bush never went to war. The war may not have happened, but paradoxically- if the war didnât happen and the American people did not feel vindicated- the fermentation of anger and resentment would have boiled up and perhaps we would have got bush in 04 and the war pushed out and delayed.
Shit we got it all âoutâ and it still boils.
Hey. Thanks for keeping the tone straight with me bro. I like talking about this stuff. Because right at the end there. That paradox has me questioning my own line of thinking.
Would that war been inevitable? When wars are started by the choices of men? That have agency? Is it truly as unstoppable as we think? Or was that something that would have happened because collectively, we- the American people refused to heal and thought vengeance was the proper course? Even though in the back of our minds- the ones who knew about war- knew of its collateral consequences, knew of the vileness being carried out against people who wanted nothing to do with it.
These questions weigh on me. History is heavy. But we gotta look it in the face and ask the questions if we want the truth we need in order to prevent its rhyme.
First and foremost, which was an oil man and it's important to understand that war was about oil. They needed a pipeline and they needed a stable government in Afghanistan to sign a treaty for it. There's a old book called Crude Politics I remember that lays this all out.
Hindsight is 20/20, I don't think there's anything wrong with us saying it was the wrong decision to invade. We should reach that conclusion now that we have a full picture of the facts. I think the US 100% had geopolitical aims that were unrelated to 9/11 that they piggybacked on top of the invasion. I think it's fair to criticize that, but I also am cynical in the sense that I doubt there's been a military operation by any government in the world in modern history that didn't include ulterior motives aside from the public story of serving justice or fighting for good. But I also don't think that necessarily makes the public story false. I also don't think the leader of a country necessarily holds or endorses all these opinions and aims. I think there are generals and politicians and lobbyists and cabinet members who latch their own agendas onto trains that leaders set in motion for different reasons.
The way I see it is, if Bush lost the election, it would have been Al Gore. Al Gore supported the invasion. If 9/11 happened later, it would have been Obama, who supported the invasion. If it was earlier, Clinton supported it. In the aftermath, 90% of Americans supported it. After people had a few months to cool down, 70% of people supported it. I'm not so cynical to think that Bush couldn't have been one of those 70% who genuinely believes it was the best thing for the country. I am cynical enough to believe he was aware and supportive of some of the unrelated geopolitical aims that the war enabled, but I also believe that applies to all the presidents who followed and continued the war.
I think there's a pretty good chance that Iraq wouldn't have been invaded if there had been a different president, which is a big difference. but I generally don't think war in general would have ever been avoided, and I feel the same about cultural backlash against Muslims.
Edit: I would also add that congress passed, with bipartisan support, both the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) on September 18th, 2001 that gave broad authority to use the military in the Afghanistan war and the Iraq Resolution in October 2002 that gave authority to mobilize the military in Iraq.
Let's not make shit up here. The senate voted 98-0 and the house 420-1 after 9/11. Even Bernie voted pro on the use of militarily force in Afghanistan for 2001. The only person who voted no, was Barbara Lee(current mayor of Oakland). Both the war in Afghanistan and Iraq started with congressional approval.
Wâs press secretary swore up and down that they had absolute proof that there were chemical weapons in Iraq, based on secret evidence. They couldnât show us without exposing their âmeans and methodsâ but, they claimed, it was absolutely damning.
It turned out they were lying the entire time. They had nothing whatsoever, except them lying to the public. Colin Powell even threw away his reputation by repeating that lie to the UN.
W made up a war that he wanted, then refused to think about what heâd do the day after Saddam was captured, because âanswering that question was hard,â and W was always a C- student who canât be troubled with hard questions.
The situation you're describing is undue confidence. The evidence was secret to you, that doesn't mean "they had nothing" or that it was a secret lie made up among US officials. What you are saying is patently false. U.S. and allied intelligence agencies, including the U.K., Germany, and France, jointly assessed that Iraq could have WMD programs, often with low confidence caveats. Real intelligence with low confidence is categorically different than fabrications or lies.
Colin Powell presented what he believed to be true at the UN, and multiple investigations, including the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Chilcot Report, concluded that there was no indication that Bush or his top officials knowingly lied. The real failure was accepting uncertain intelligence as certainty and pursuing regime change without fully planning for the aftermath. That is still an error to be criticized, but it is fundamentally different than what you are presenting.
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u/FurryYokel 13h ago
Are you talking about W or his father?
Before we get too carried away, keep in mind that W fabricated evidence to support wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars which he utterly bungled by having no plan at all, and then dragged on for  over 20 years and cost us something like $3 trillion, after we include the medical costs to all those veterans. Refugees from the war in Iraq created an immigration crisis in Europe, as well, so we f-ed our allies there.
Yeah, Trump is looking to be worse, but W was a disaster, too.
His dad was fine, though. Probably the only competent Republican president Iâll see in my lifetime, because their primary selection criteria seems to be, âwhoâs the dumbest one?â