• ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.comEnglish
    115·
    6 days ago

    When Dubya is used as the counterexample of a dignified presidential predecessor you’ve probably hit the bottom of the barrel right? Right?

  • Smoogs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    5 days ago

    I don’t know if bush can be really defended in comparison here as after 911 terrorism rhetoric ended up withsevere racism against anyone not white with a beard getting on a plane. He’s the one who kicked that one off.

    • TronBronson@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      5 days ago

      Yea that admin willingly used Fox News to disseminate hate and lies. They are the first admin to directly use private media as a propaganda arm, and the marriage is what made trump so popular. He was an expert in sucking down propaganda, so good they made him king.

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.ukEnglish
    612·
    6 days ago

    Imagine hating a city where people ride 20ft tall bikes. Imagine hating a place where you can get donuts covered in breakfast cereal and bacon, or walk through a bookshop bigger than some towns. Imagine hating a place with more bridges than you’ve had hot meals and shops that will sell a full size burrito for $4.

    Only someone as diagonally opposite to everything good about life as Trump could hate Portland.

      • warm@kbin.earth
        11·
        6 days ago

        Happy people are dangerous to their regime. It’s harder to control people if they have nice things.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          i think you got it reversed, they are much easier to control when they are content, with creature comforts, thats why the protests are somewhat ineffective and not constant or universal. angry people are unpredictable and much harder to control. thats why the RIGHT HAS TO constantly pacify the conservative base, with culture war bs it also helps them not be thier next target too,. thats how putin does, it propaganda keeps russians addled+alcohol.

          • modernangel@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            5 days ago

            There are two schools of thought on this, the Huxleyan “Brave New World” where the masses are controlled via comfort and Orwellian where the masses are controlled via discomfort. Orwell’s dystopia calls for outrage to be deflected onto a scapegoat figure or group (“Emmanuel Goldstein”). Both directions can be effective, currently the path of inflicting mass discomfort is just more in vogue.

          • warm@kbin.earth
            2·
            5 days ago

            Uh, I dont think I do. Its common right wing tactics to prey on peoples misfortune, they use it to push their agenda. The most classic example being “you are suffering because of minorities!”. Why do you think immigration is always the number 1 talked about topic, when its not even remotely whats actually causing problems?

            Its obviously not so cut and dry, obviously people who are content can be influenced in similar ways and people who are angry can be well informed.

            • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
              1·
              4 days ago

              they have to switch to lgbtq+, TRans recently, as they cant go all in on immigrants, then they would have to actually answer for it, like show the progress, with the gop doesnt, because they depend on illegal immigrants to work for slave wages. plus even blue states depend on immigration working in the fields, construction, landscaping

            • TronBronson@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              5 days ago

              You have to remember our class structure, and the perceived hierarchy’s. Plenty of people who oppose trump are too content to protest. Plenty of people who support him are too. You’re speaking about the bottom rung. They are without resources and don’t need much to be content. Some hate and handouts are just fine for them: I don’t think the comfortable liberal and the hateful poor Republican are very different at this stage.I don’t think the comfortable liberal and the hateful. Poor Republican are very different at this stage. A lot of the poor people don’t have the money or resources to effectively revolt, people with resources risk those to revolt. One of them certainly has the means to understand what’s going on. The Republican message is different to each echelon of their supporters.

  • Krono@lemmy.todayEnglish
    403·
    6 days ago

    W Bush is responsible for 1-2 million deaths, depending on how you count the bodies.

    They were killed for political reasons, they were killed for profit. They were labeled “terrorists” in order to justify mass extrajudicial killings.

    We can argue which is worse: Trump or W? Trump has done more damage to institutions, W has more blood on his hands, Trump has 3.5 more years to do damage, etc. But let’s not whitewash the horrific and unjustifiable crimes of the W administration.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      191·
      5 days ago

      Trump has almost as many deaths on his hands just from his cuts to USAID. He also has that many deaths if you count all “excess deaths” during COVID against him.

      • Krono@lemmy.todayEnglish
        41·
        5 days ago

        You’re totally right, but things get a lot murkier when we get into secondary- and third-order effects.

        Bush’s economic policy of bailing out Wall Street while letting Main Street fend for itself lead to 10s or maybe 100s of thousands of excess deaths.

        Bush’s defunding of education created an unknowable number of excess deaths, and this undereducation was a major factor in the election of Trump.

    • drhodl@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      Donny 2 Inches caught up with Bush during Covid, with his negligence and mismanagement. Plus he abandoned long time allies, the Kurds, to Turkish genocide. He abandoned every single Afghan who ever helped or worked with Americans, to Taliban retaliation. He betrayed Lord-knows how many intelligence agents to the foul ruzzians., big noting himself to Pootin and Lavrov. He’s bombed the Iranians a couple of times, and I’ve never seen any evidence of their nuclear ambitions, have you? He’s a strong supporter of Israeli genocide in Gaza. How many of the kids he stole from their parents during tRump 1.0 have never been reunited? Crimes against children are as bad as murder, but the pedo don’t care. He encourages violence in his peon cultists, and is pretty much responsible for inciting all the right wing violence these last 10 years. He’s busy murdering people in small boats right now, but he’ll soon enough realize that’s only contributing rookie numbers to his score…look for an escalation soon. I could go on… By pure negligence, ignorance and ego driven stupidity, Donnies numbers are probably in the same ball park as Hitler, imo. And, there’s no end in sight… At least Hitler wasn’t a kiddy diddler.

  • RustyShackleford@lemmy.zipEnglish
    16·
    5 days ago

    Well, it’s time to rewatch Portlandia. Such a great show that made me discover the dream of the 90’s are alive in Portland.