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While Dick Cheney has endorsed Harris, there have been no comments from other senior Republicans from Bush’s era

The MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell this week hit out at George W Bush, the Republican former president, for refusing to weigh in on America’s looming presidential election.

“All any decent person wants him to do is to say, ‘Don’t vote for Donald Trump, and here’s why,’ and he won’t even do that,” O’Donnell told the Fast Politics podcast, of the Republican president who was in office from 2001 to 2009.

Increasingly, Bush – and some other top Republicans from his political era – are looking lonely in their ongoing refusal to take a side in an election in which many have warned that US democracy is under threat from Trump’s open sympathies with autocracy.


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[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 6 points 58 minutes ago* (last edited 58 minutes ago)

Trump is the only chance gwb has of someone else having more war crimes than him; making him look less evil.

These are Republicans, they only ever serve their own best interests.

Its Bush, that war criminal can go to hell

[-] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 3 points 46 minutes ago

Yep, but it would be nice if he took Trump with him.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 2 points 20 minutes ago

straight to hell

[-] 5h17h34d@lemmy.world 22 points 3 hours ago

Second worst president ever.

He's considered a war criminal in most countries outside of North America and Europe.

[-] crusa187@lemmy.ml 19 points 3 hours ago

Still waiting to see W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz convicted of war crimes for all the torture they oversaw at those cia black sites, among other things. Absolutely villainous.

[-] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Bush and Cheney basically fabricated the entire Iraq War and the only people to come out on top were Exxon Fucking Mobil who took majority control of the Iraqi oilfields, and then the executive in charge of the operation, Rex Tillerson, got appointed to the Trump admin.

Thousands dead for greed. America's hands stained in blood and grease for generations.

Still only second worst tho, no disagreement on that.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Bush and Cheney basically fabricated the entire Iraq War and the only people to come out on top were Exxon Fucking Mobil

Be fair. Halliburton did pretty well for themselves as well.

[-] Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Honestly find it odd that he hasn't come out for Harris considering he's the first one to look at President Trump and say "this is weird shit". It's not like Bush is in politics anymore I don't see how ditching Trump would hurt him in any way

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago

Centrists are so disappointed that senpai didn't notice them.

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 hour ago

'Morally Indefensible' - but Adolf Hitler will not come out against drinking cow's milk.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago

To Bush, being morally indefensible is a plus.

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 26 points 4 hours ago

I mean, who's surprised by this? Dubya was always a dumbass, and essentially the beta version of Trump.

[-] TammyTobacco@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 hours ago

W was always a tool, a blank slate for his owners to use. The guy has no thoughts of his own so I'm not surprised.

[-] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

He may not have been a genius mastermind but he's smart enough not to be absolved of the evils he committed. Blank slate is a juuuuust a bit too far for me

Just saying

[-] 474D@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Dubya was actually quite intelligent, just a shit speaker and an asshole.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 hours ago

People keep repeating that, where was this intelligence when he was president?

And on that note, what actions have ever displayed this “quite intelligent” side?

[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago

Not sure he was even a shit speaker if we compare him to Trump. His sentences at least made sense. I'm sure he just wants to be done with it all. He retired from office 15 years ago, and he lives in Texas I thought. If he endorses Harris, Trumpees will lash out at him. We can call that cowardly to not speak out do to fear of retribution but he is 78 years old. 78 year olds shouldnt be key factors in planning for our futures, they should be relaxing and planning their next health care visits that we have figured out a way they can access. The average male in the U.S. dies at 74. Let the old man paint a few more pictures on canvas if so chooses and pass in his time. That said... Wish Trump would do the same.

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

The question we should be asking is: is our children learning?

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[-] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 46 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Hilarious to me that all the media spent time rehabbing Bush's image and he can't even manage to match Dick fucking Cheney?

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 23 points 4 hours ago

Cheney is pissed at his daughter losing her family-guaranteed sinecure in Wyoming to a Trumpie, because he's invested in his family's political legacy.

Bush has no real beef with the Trumps and isn't trying to give his daughters a leg up into the next administration.

Totally different set of political incentives to endorse.

[-] WhyFlip@lemmy.world 20 points 6 hours ago

Choose a side you fucking coward, Bush.

[-] btaf45@lemmy.world 1 points 34 minutes ago

His nephew is still in politics and he thinks speaking out will hurt his nephew's political career.

[-] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Take his word for it. He chose one.

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 26 points 5 hours ago

I've never seen a Bush miss an opportunity to be on the wrong side of history.

[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 11 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

He wants Republicans policies but not Trump. He's stuck like a lot of other people. Unfortunately, most of those people will hold their noses and vote for Trump and hope for the best. That's the two-party system for ya.

[-] solsangraal@lemmy.zip 121 points 8 hours ago

big fucking tough guy when it comes to sending other peoples' kids out to die for a bullshit war based on outright lies

but when it's time to actually take the correct stance on something, he buckles like a lawn chair under the average cod cosplaying maga chud

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 38 points 8 hours ago

I was living in NYC before and after 9/11.

The Ground Zero pit stayed undeveloped until 2007 because that's how long it took the money men to decide which insurer would pay for what. George W. never bothered to push them to hurry things, because it was vital that every single penny be accounted for. No problem with starting a war with lies, but money must be guarded to the utmost.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 17 points 5 hours ago

They wanted it to stay an open wound because it let them be more jingo

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 points 4 hours ago

"Jingoistic" is a phrase I've not heard in a long time.

He's super busy painting dog pictures.

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[-] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 87 points 8 hours ago

I mean, Bush and Trump are in direct competition for worst presidents in living memory.

...and they both kinda jimmy with elections. They have a lot in common really so it makes sense he'll be averse to calling out someone whose not that dissimilar to himself.

Also Bush has a generational bonding to the GOP, so there's probably some level of moral compromise in that.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 30 points 7 hours ago

I had Bush ahead of Trump for a long time, but now I have to give it to Donnie.

It's one thing to lie about a war, and a whole differnet level to plan to kill citizens with Covid.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 4 hours ago

I had Bush ahead of Trump for a long time

Presidents in the rear view mirror rarely carry the emotional weight of ones at the forefront.

I'd argue Reagan was worse than both of them. We had all the nightmarish bellicose foreign policy of the Bush Administration, the disastrous neglect of health care leading to multiple epidemics from the Trump Era, and dogshit fiscal policy that gave us massive recessions and enormous new debts to accompany our contracting quality of life at the end of his last term.

But who still remembers Iran-Contra or the '87 bank collapse or our deplorable environmental and civil rights policies or the then-extremely-lethal AIDS epidemic?

Buchanan and Andrew Johnson are still largely considered the two worst historical presidents. Truman and Nixon are routinely cited as 20th century flops. But its very difficult to remember how shit America was before most of the folks doing the rankings were even alive. Harder still to have enough of a historical baseline to make an objective measure.

As soon as Trump is done, we're going to be on one about how DeSantis or Cruz or Matt Gaetz is the actual worst person to run for President in our lifetimes.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 4 points 4 hours ago

Over a million dead from Covid is the convincer for me.

I don't think Jackson killed a million Natives and none of those actually voted for him, like Herman Cain voted for Trump

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Over a million dead from Covid is the convincer for me.

AIDS took 700,000. And it would have been far easier to contain than COVID-19, given the method of spread. But Reagan was on mic laughing at a journalist who asked about efforts by the CDC to contain the spread.

Trump's COVID policy - at the start of the pandemic - wasn't the worst. Maybe that's because he saw it as an excuse to foist xenophobia on the country yet again. Maybe his germ-o-phobia played in our favor. But he did kick off a quarantine and direct a bunch of federal resources towards vaccine development. I'm not sure what Hilary would have done that was significantly better.

It was the GOP fundie base that went full anti-vax and tried to drag Trump along for the ride. And it was the GOP business base that demanded early reopening (a policy Dems in big blue states like NY and CA were also happy to embrace).

Our COVID fuck-ups were disappointingly bipartisan, even if the Trumpies ended up embracing the worst aspects of anti-vax rhetoric later on.

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Trump intentionally delayed reacting to the Pandemic from the very start, after having shortsightedly firing response teams, ditching well-functioning policies, and selling off medical supplies. This was literally for political reasons. And then he did everything in his power to slow it down once it became a real emergency. He should be in the Hague for that alone. At no point was his response ever Ok.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

You're wrong. One thing you're leaving out is that if trump simply had publicly supported mask use, many thousands of lives would've been undoubtedly saved. Instead of doing that he just parroted fox News lies about masks. Among other Republican specific fuckups.

[-] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 6 points 3 hours ago

Our COVID fuck-ups were disappointingly bipartisan, even if the Trumpies ended up embracing the worst aspects of anti-vax rhetoric later on.

Trump fired the head of the White House epidemic office because that guy was friends with another guy Trump didn't like.

The Obama White House had a table top demonstration to show the incoming team how to deal with a pandemic. Trump declined to attend.

Covid was 100% Trump; he even called Dem warnings a 'hoax.'

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

In addition to what the other response said about the Obama pandemic team, Trump also let his son-in-law try to weaponize the COVID response against democratic states/cities and steal PPE to sell to the highest bidder.

[-] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 17 points 7 hours ago

Both were awful. At least you don't fall for the rehabilitation so many in our media have been doing of Bush

[-] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago

Both are incredibly incompetent. However, I think if Bush had not become president he would have been seen as somebody who is a bit stupid, and easy to influence, but otherwise a pleasant personality. Trump on the other hand was a criminal long before he saw the Oval Office.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

Bush was terrible, for sure. But it was at least believable that he was doing what he thought was best for the country (Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld, not so much). But there is no way you'll ever convince me that Trump cares about anyone or anything other than himself.

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[-] cybersandwich@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

Former presidents dont typically get involved in presidential politics(especially of their own party ) after they leave.

They'll typically stump for candidates in their own party if they were a popular former president.

You could argue that his lack of involvement with Trump's campaign is pretty telling.

[-] Thrillhouse@lemmy.world 25 points 8 hours ago

I wonder if this is because W benefitted from the same ratfuckery that Trump uses (Roger Stone, Brooks Bros Riot, etc.)

[-] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 29 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Bushes are morally bankrupt anyways. Two war criminals and one of them, Laura, killed her friend in a car accident where she ran a stop sign.

[-] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago

He's a war criminal at large who is running from the Hague, he's obviously going to be on the bad guys side.

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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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