Good on Bush for his speech against nativism, bigotry, and Trumpism.
That said, if you aren’t going to name the guy, or at least specifically call out the administration, then why bother?
Because even though the current problem is Trump, we can’t just turn around and let Cardinal Pence and the rest of the merry band of GOP freaks continue the status quo, safe from the blazing spotlight of 5am bathroom twitter storms.
Right, but he didn’t specify anyone. His speech was just a general call against bigotry and divisiveness, which yay in the abstract, but if you don’t actually point a finger, then everyone gets to point at the other side and claim it in their favor. That’s exactly what the GOP and the administration are doing right now. Liberals and Democrats are the dividers. They’re the ones that politicize the NFL and gold star families and try to destroy history.
He might see it as a chicken and egg problem. If Trump was really that horrifying to most Republicans how did he even get past the primaries? Whether they were shutting their eyes and smashing the “R” in the voting booth with a grimace or cheering their team to victory, the willingness of Republican voters to go along for the ride - willingly or not - is a huge problem.
Really becoming a Chris Murphy fan.
I disagree. Both GWB and McCain gave brutally-honest speeches that were incredibly critical of the Trump Administration, and everyone knows it… including Trump.
But – and this is key – Trump can’t really respond to either of them because if he did he would be admitting that the unnamed, dysfunctional, racist and incompetent regime that they are speaking of in the hypothetical is, in fact, his administration and that he recognizes that.
GWB: “Racist, nationalistic idiots with no concept of foreign policy could destroy Western Democracy as an institution.”
Trump: “Hey! You can’t talk about me like that!”
Exactly. McCain and Bush’s attacks are orchestrated to send a clear message without attaching that message to one particular name, mainly because we’ve all seen how calling out Trumps bad behavior by name just seems to embolden his moronic base. Now you won’t see legions of Trump surrogates on television all weekend trying to put their idiotic spin on these comments and doing the dance of deflection and misdirection because to do so would mean they are owning the comments as being directed at Trump.
This is the old school GOP trying to win back it’s party. We’ve heard Steve Bannon for weeks rage about the war that is coming within the party. We’ve seen GOP voters do some mind-bogglingly stupid things in the past year or more. We’ve watched as the worst elements of the party took over the whole thing and brought their clown show first to Congress, and now the White House. It’s most likely too little, too late, but this is McCain, Bush and others trying to wake up moderate Republicans to the fact that they’re losing their party to pure evil, bigotry and stupidity.
Problem is, any moderate Republicans who would have cared have either disappeared or moved further left long ago. The GOP is lost, and all the heartfelt speeches Bush can give won’t bring it back.
And let’s not pretend the people that elected him are SUBSTANTIALLY better than those that elected Trump.
Well, I guess the latter group did prove 2000-era me wrong in that Bush would be our greatest presidential embarrassment ever wrong…
Just wait until President Zuckerberg shows off really spiffy Memorial Service Safaris for fallen soldiers in VR!
I look forward to President Azxthocz’s famous 2049 address memorializing Trump for his contributions to cleansing the Earth of the bipedal endoskeletal vermin and giving rise to the glorious and eternal Cockroachian Empire.
Some will call Azxthocz the Cockroach King, as he was elected with more than 80% of the vote for all four of the three-month cycles in which he was alive before dying in the 11th month of his glorious reign.
I still say we should just cut to the chase.
I’m certainly ready to kneel, if he’s running against Trump. The world will be in much safer hands.
I’m pretty sure that Zod would’ve handled a call to a grieving gold star family better than Trump.
At the very least, if he said something mean, Zod would straight-up admit it instead of clumsily lie and then have his puppet general verify it anyway.
I actually believe that Trump tried to parrot what Kelly told him and intended it to be far more sympathetic and proud than it came across. However, because Trump can’t have any genuine feelings himself, he got the words muddled up as he was simply trying to recite something he’d heard rather than relay something he understood.
I just flew home from Vegas and sat next to a guy who at one point referred to the Philippines as “gookville”. He said Trump has been a disaster. So, maybe even the racists are starting to turn against Trump. Optimism!
Trump hasn’t gotten rid of the brown people yet. Of course he’s a disaster.
You are premature. The Democrats haven’t won the 2020 election just yet. The Republicans could hold onto all three branches for the next few years, and then some. My hunch is that their electoral college advantage will continue to get even bigger, and their base will just get more and more fervent.
He didn’t say they’ve lost, he said they are lost. Small but crucial difference.
What doth it profit a party, if it hold all branches of government, yet lose its soul? A shit-ton of money, as it turns out.
trump is very popular and will expand on his .58% mid west victories.
/s
Sorry for the snark, actually. Given how grotesquely selfish and uninformed voters are you’re probably right. :/