5675

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

5676

I read it. But Max hasn’t been a denier since at least 2007. When was he a denier?

Also, too: Do you think prominent deniers are wrong, or lying?

5677

See, I don’t believe that the GOP - in years past - were attempting to actually foster racism. They absolutely attempted to harness racism going back to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in the 60s and continuing in an unbroken line to Bush Sr.'s Willie Horton ads and Palin’s “sekrit muslum” crap. I think they were generally happy (or at least not too upset) to count the Klan and white nationalists/Nazis in their ranks as long as they stayed generally quiet, but I genuinely believe that the GOP would have been even happier to jettison the racists and replace them with equal or greater numbers of minorities, should the opportunity present itself.

At the end of the day, the old GOP cared about their policies of fleecing the poor to enrich the already wealthy and reducing government services so that the wealthy could keep more of the fleeced cash. They would have been overjoyed to welcome black and Hispanics in support of that goal.

I think that HAS changed with Trump and his ilk though. Racism is now an unwritten but core platform of party… mostly because their attempt to harness racists in support of their policy ended up putting people in power for whom racism was the intended goal. When you sow the wind…

5678

Have you ever talked, face to face, with a climate change denier?

They are not lying. They truly don’t believe it.

5680

Yep. Even otherwise intelligent and very analytical people, like a guy I work with. Propaganda isn’t only effective against dumb people.

At least the goalposts have moved a little from “not happening” to “can’t be sure how much is man-made”. Yay? :(

5681

Holy shit people, I can’t believe what I’ve been reading in this thread. I mean seriously, I think a relatively simple statement ended up argued in circles until some pretty astounding stuff was said. Let’s walk it back for a sec…

FACT : GW Bush was a terrible President. The reasons why have all been touched on upthread, including Iraq/Afghanistan, the horrific response to Katrina, crippling the U.S. economy and housing markets, etc…

FACT : GWB was not a one-man show. He accomplished all of this with the full support (and many would say under the control of) career GOP politicians and their allies.

FACT : The Republican Party did not suddenly become the party of racists, science deniers, misogynists and total morons overnight in November of 2016. It’s been happening over a very long time, even well before Obama’s Presidency, though that is when it seemed to accelerate at an exponential rate. Trump is the somewhat shocking yet somehow also not unexpected result of all of this.

ALSO FACT : Trump is WAY worse than GWB, and is, in fact, the worst President in the history of the United States.

Before you say “But Slainte, how can you claim that when Trump hasn’t killed thousands of American servicemen/women, ruined our economy or started a war we’ll fight for two decades?!”, let me explain.

All of those things are terrible, I agree. And yes, on the surface Trump has not done nearly the measurable, tangible damage that GWB or some other Presidents have done to the country in the past. However, Trump has done a different kind of damage, a damage that I would argue is far worse and far more difficult for our country to recover from. Trump has, possibly irreparably, damaged the fundamental tenets of American Democracy.

“Oh, but we can easily recover from that when we elect a Democrat as President in 2020!”. Can we?

  • Take a hard look at Michigan and Wisconsin right now. The GOP has lost those states, so they are actively attempting to sabotage the duly elected government that will take over after them. This is not normal. Do you think for one minute that Trump’s Administration will not attempt the exact same thing when/if they lose in 2020?

  • Look at the way Trump has continued holding campaign rallies around the country since winning the 2016 election. This is not normal.

  • Look at the way Trump, and now many members of the GOP, have directly attacked the media, even urging their constituents to verbally and physically harass the free press. This is not normal.

  • Look at the influence foreign powers have been revealed to have had over the 2016 election, and how much influence they continue to wield over our current President. This is not normal.

  • Look at the personal attacks leveled against Congressmen/women, government officials, media people and other public figures both in the mainstream media and over social media by The President of the United States through official U.S. Government channels. Look at how others in the GOP have picked up on that and begun using the same tactics. This is not normal.

  • Look at how a single media outlet has become both the defender of and the primary advisor to the President of the United States, feeding him an ideology held by a minority of the people he was elected to serve, and thereby making that minority ideology into official policy, circumventing every government agency and official tasked with supplying information and intelligence to the President. This is not normal.

  • Look at the systematic damage being done by Trump Administration officials behind the scenes in government agencies like the Department of Education, HUD, The Department of Energy, the EPA, the State Department, ICE, the FBI and others. Look at the Federal Court system and the lifetime appointees being placed on benches all over America, not to mention the SCOTUS debacle. It’s going to take decades for America to recover from the damage done at these agencies and institutions in just a single Presidential term. This is not normal.

So yes, when @Timex says that he thinks it’s kind of nuts to claim that it’s better to have Trump in office than GW Bush, I have to agree with him. Bush did a lot of damage while in office, of that there is no doubt, but he did it within the structure of the system. The mere fact that we were able to elect Obama and that he and his Administration were able to turn the tide on so many of the issues left behind by GWB is proof that American Democracy was still working as intended. Trump and the GOP he has emboldened are actively working to destroy the rule of law in this country, to tear down the fundamental building blocks of government and democracy, to strip the American people of their power to self-govern, and take that power for themselves, ensuring they remain in control in perpetuity.

This is not normal, and we should all recognize that our country is in imminent and unprecedented danger from these people. Trump and today’s GOP are the biggest threat to America since World War II, hell, maybe since the Civil War. There is simply no convincing me that what’s happening in American right now is somehow “better” than what was happening in America from 2000-2008.

5682

Well said sir

5683

I totally agree. Pence would be one of the worst Presidents in history but he’s still a whole category better than Trump. Trump would immediately weaponize the justice department and lock up all his political opponents if he could manage it, as we’ve seen him try already. This type of stuff is an entirely new ballgame.

5684

This is the lie they told themselves to make themselves feel better, but of course it was only ever a lie. It went something like this:

Nixon 68: Of course I’d like to get more minorities into the party.
Ailes 68: You need the racists to get in.
Nixon 68: Do it.
Reagan 80: Of course I’d like to get more minorities into the party.
Buchanan 80: You’ll need to reach out even more to the racists to get in.
Reagan 80: Do it.
Bush 88: Of course I’d like to get more minorities into the party.
Atwater 88: You’ll need to a media campaign built around racism to keep the Reaganites.
Bush 88: Do it.

People who behave like that time after time after time may tell themselves they’re not responsible for racism. But they are, and they need to be called on it.

5685

I was quite dismayed to stumble into such a conversation with my own brother, who I can attest is very intelligent and has a college degree.

He got stuck on things like the X number of climate scientists whose dissent was being buried or repressed or whatever, and then he randomly said ‘if climate change is such a problem, how come nobody’s talking about reforestation instead of reducing emissions?’ See it wasn’t in the spirit of really looking at the science or evaluating best solutions (for all I know reforestation may be a good piece of a solution, but what research I could found indicated it would take too long for our immediate needs), just groping for skepticism pegs.

Grr, still frustrates me thinking about it.

5686

That doesn’t make it better?

Again, I will have to say that I don’t agree that GWB was worse than Trump, but we won’t know until 2020 (or 2024… or perp walk day) how to characterize what has happened so far. We are currently experiencing it, and it feels bad right now. So it seems really bad.

But I just don’t see a permanent shift in what the entire GOP has been doing since 2008. It isn’t like Trump needed to do much to get Mitch McConnell fired up to take away healthcare from sick people. If anything, he has stood in the way of progress there.

Again, this is in now way a defense of Trump or the horrible stuff he has said. But there haven’t been any permanent changes to our democracy. I dare say Trump is just continuing the trend that Newt Gingrich started in the 90’s.

I mean god rest 41’s soul, but he was the last decent republican president I think we will see under the current GOP.

Just because GWB followed the rules and had the decency to lie to our faces using faulty intelligence to back it up, and got congress to fall in line doesn’t make it any better.

Would you rather be trapped in a house with a Hitman with a gun or a Florida-man on bathsalts with a gun. Both equally terrifying prospects, but at least Florida-man has a decent chance of offing himself first.

5687

Well you must be awfully young. I’m really struggling to find anything that Bush that was much worse than other recent Presidents. In the evil department probably the worse thing Bush did was allow waterboarding.

But waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” was carried out almost exclusively on people who did bad things to Americans. It is no different than the cop/spy/superhero/soldier who beats the crap out of the criminal/bad guy/Nazi in order to get information to save the girl/squad/city/planet in the movies/TV, generally to the applause of the audience. I don’t know how common it still is in real life but I’m sure it happens daily and did happen as matter of course for most of America’s existence. Obama is probably the first President where didn’t happen as semi-official policy.

Let’s contrast that with Trump. His family separation policy inflicts pain on innocent families. In the case of those who apply for asylum properly they have broken no laws. Torture is inflicted in order to extract information. Inflicting pain is the purpose family separation. It is to discourage migration to the country. Torture is a misguide but understandable policy, that is commonly practiced throughout the world and history. Family separation is just plan evil, is something dreamed up by sadist.

5688

I think the distinction is between doing bad things within a (mostly) good system, and dismantling said good system.

Trump is a clear and present danger to American democracy, which I hold more precious than I ever realized until 2016. I don’t think the same can be said about GWB, or LBJ for that matter, despite their incredibly destructive policies.

And again, the truly terrifying thing is not that Trump doesn’t give a shit about our democracy, because why would he?, but that tens of millions of Americans (who with straight faces call themselves ‘patriotic’!) are totally okay with that.

5689

Thank you.

5690

looks at my post

looks at Slainte’s

What he said too.

5691

Yes, Slainte conveyed my thoughts.

I think a big part of the argument was thinking that it was designed as an excuse for the GOP, when in reality is was just “Holy shit, this guy is the worst ever.”

5692

Fully agree. Well said.

5693

I am with Slainthe on this one.

I mean, sure, maybe GW did a pretty bad job, but what is wrong with you people?! Trump has trampled over all norms and decencies.

5694

So I have said, for the most part, Trump is worse, but the fact that he can and had the ability to do these things are on the shoulders of past leadership. He did not give himself the ability to do these things. It’s been a systematic if subtle dismantling that brought us to this point. Hes standing on the shoulders of past efforts by the GOP to do what he is doing and I guess I feel not acknowledging that is giving a pass the others don’t deserve and it also glosses over the ability to analyze the how did we get here approach.

He’s the end of a long road, and while some people might claim they didn’t end to travel that road or didn’t want it to get there evidence shows the GOP is exploiting the hell out of it so those claims mean nothing.

5695

Which is why I mentioned the concept of Net Present Value. Meaning that there is a portion of future results that is attributable to today, however the percentage ‘discount’ on future effects means that, over time, the direct responsibility is diminished. As you move forward in time, the percentage attributable increases because it is more directly linkable.

In this case there is absolutely a percentage of Trump that can be laid at Nixon, and an even greater share heaped at Gingrich. Because Nixon set the stage in certain ways, but the outcome was not certain. But each step, each continuation, adds up.

Which is to say that Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilley have a greater share of responsibilty than Newt Gingrich, who has a greater share than George W Bush, who has more responsibility than his dad, etc. etc. etc. until you get to Eisenhower who I’d hold largely blameless.

You don’t get here without Goldwater and Nixon, but Goldwater and Nixon don’t get you here on their own.