this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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139
Do you think in 20 years that Dems will pretend Trump is not so bad the same way they're doing to Bush? (hexbear.net)
submitted 9 months ago by Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Assuming America exists in 20 years blah blah blah

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[–] Adkml@hexbear.net 59 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Abso fucking lutely.

Bush was worse than Trump by a long shot, if they'll rehabilitate them they'll do it for anybody.

[–] Vampire@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's not that they think Trump is "worse", he is just a more relevant threat

[–] BurgerPunk@hexbear.net 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I-was-saying I'm pretty sure Libs actually think he's worse

[–] SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Same. The camp who thinks that Afghanistan and Iraq were totally justified, but the Dems would have done them better, thinks that Dubya just wasn't smart enough.

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

TBF some also think that Iraq and Afghanistan were just "regrettable mistakes" or that they might have been crimes, but gee-shucks-oh-well-shrug, that's just how politics go.

And to be "fair" the orders of magnitude might have been different, but if they look too closely at the process of how the war machine ran, they might have to admit that Democratic presidents have also been war criminals. Like, if they get too uptight about "Bush's wars", then right around the corner is the fact that Obama took us from bombing two countries to continuously bombing like seven countries, in the span of a couple years. And similarly for executive authority, domestic spying, deportations, etc.

They can't afford to be too honestly critical. They just have to pretend that what's going on right now is different and exceptional, and no: of course it isn't exactly the same "lesser-evil" choice they've demanded you make (or at least accept) over and over and over again for generations!

So IMO some kind of at least vaguely rehabilitative amnesia is actually pretty necessary. It might take a slightly different form with Trump than with Dubya, but it's still going to have to be there.

[–] Ho_Chi_Chungus@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit, SSJMarx is back? how have you been, man? I haven't seen you in months

[–] SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago

I've been here, on different usernames, but ultimately I couldn't think of anything I liked more than SSJMarx.

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 29 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I once got heavily downvoted when suggesting that Andrew Jackson, Nixon, Reagan or either Bush were all easily worse. I think you’re giving them too much credit.

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 29 points 9 months ago

Imagine thinking Trump is worse than Andrew fucking Jackson

[–] LeZero@hexbear.net 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Every slave owner president is worse than Trump as well but I'd be like speaking to a wall to libs

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Not quite "ownership", but reminder that Bill Clinton (and almost-president Hillary Clinton) used prison slave labor in the Arkansas governor's mansion, and enjoyed it quite thoroughly according to Hillary's own writing....

[–] Hello_Kitty_enjoyer@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

and enjoyed it quite thoroughly according to Hillary's own writing....

Do you have the text where she writes this?

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Nathan Robinson wrote about it. He quotes directly from her book It Takes a Village:

Clinton was, however, generous enough to allow inmates from Arkansas prisons to work as unpaid servants in the Governor’s Mansion. In It Takes a Village, Hillary Clinton writes that the residence was staffed with “African-American men in their thirties,” since “using prison labor at the governor’s mansion was a longstanding tradition, which kept down costs.” It is unclear just how longstanding the tradition of having chained black laborers brought to work as maids and gardeners had been. But one has no doubt that as the white residents of a mansion staffed with unpaid blacks, the Clintons were continuing a certain historic Southern practice. (Hillary Clinton did note, however, that she and Bill were sure not to show undue lenience to the sla…servants, writing that “[w]e enforced rules strictly and sent back to prison any inmate who broke a rule.”

See Current Affairs: The Clintons Had Slaves.

I read about it more extensively somewhere else, and I'll see if I can find it. There was a place where she was also quoted as talking about loving the murderers especially, because they were allegedly even more docile than people who had committed less-violent offenses.

[–] Hello_Kitty_enjoyer@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

were these prisoners all Black? I know Arkansas jails aren't 100% Black lol

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

As far as I can tell. The writing seems to indicate that.

Another quote from her same book furnished by fucking Glenn Beck, if you can stomach that source, with the bit about people convicted of murder:

When we moved in, I was told that using prison labor at the governor’s mansion was a longstanding tradition, which kept down costs, and I was assured that the inmates were carefully screened. I was also told the onetime murders were far the preferred security risks. The crimes of the convicted murderers who worked at the governor’s mansion usually involved a disagreement with someone they knew, often another young man in the neighborhood…

I saw and learned a lot as I got to know them better. We enforced rules strictly and sent back to prison any inmate who broke a rule. I discovered as I had been told I would, that we had far fewer disciplinary problems with inmates who were in for murder than with those who had committed property crimes. In fact, over the years we lived there, we became friendly with a few of them, African-American men in their thirties who had already served twelve to eighteen years of their sentences.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Like, it’s hardly even fair to compare any president pre WW1 to the ones after, the ones before are sooooooo much more evil except maybe Lincoln

[–] Vncredleader@hexbear.net 6 points 9 months ago

I mean the handsome general era was not good but those guys did at least serve the union, more than can be said for Woody who was a full lost causer

[–] Hestia@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago

"They were a product of their time."

20 years later

"Trump was a product of his time."

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You'd think every president who literally owned slaves would be worse, and yet liberals surprise us.