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Who was worse, George W. Bush or Donald Trump?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Bush is objectively worse on every level. They’re both terrible and the people in their administrations were both soulless gouls. However, Bush’s administration was far more effective in carrying out their repugnant agenda.
People will say Trump tried to steal an election. That’s true. But Bush ACTUALLY stole the election in 2000. Bush also gave us 2 wars which killed in total over a million people and led to the rise of ISIS. Trump’s admin tried it’s best to get the US into a war with Iran but couldn’t make it happen. Bush’s administration also helped get the US into the Great Recession from which the American working class has never truly recovered. Trump doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of damage Bush inflicted on the US and world.
How did bush steal the election?
Bush's campaign asked the Supreme Court to stop the Florida recount that Gore likely would have won (winning him the overall election). The conservative SCOTUS did what they asked.
I was pretty young at the time, so my memory is hazy, but I thought there was more to this. Didn't they recount several times? What was going on that made it so difficult for them to count?
The ballots had "hanging chads" which are basically hole punches that failed to completely tear away from the ballot. Bush tried to claim that these ballots that weren't fully punched were invalid, his brother Jeb was governor of Florida of the time and agreed, so they basically 'recounted' until the got the winner that they wanted.
Thank you for such a clear explanation. As a non-American I've always been confused by the "hanging chad" thing. This has put so much context around it and made it super understandable.
Adding to the other guy's answer: Roger Stone staged a riot that stopped the final recount. Continuing violence and threats against election workers are more of the same shit from the exact same assholes.
Having lived through those times, there were questions about recounts, and it went to the supreme court, which called it a state issue (how a state handles its electors is a purely state issue), and the state courts ruled the counting be finished in a manner that helped Bush. I remember how civil it all was… there was anger and disappointment, but we all went through it quietly proud how the process was solved in a civil manner.
Different times.
There were issues. There’s feelings that R members of the Florida govnt helped push the outcome. Some counties went in less than 200 votes. The fact that Bush was led by the nose by an unscrupulous cabinet into 2 wars, not to mention a lot of bad policy that played out over years, did not help with how people look back.