“Own when you lose”? Bitch, we remember Jan 6th. Nevermind Obama.
There is a reason they skipped past Biden and said Obama.
We all rallied behind Clinton.
(I read the Monica Lewinsky thing was only found when they were searching something else desperately trying to find something to impeach him on. Because Nixon was impeached.)
Yep, the Starr report was basically hundreds of pages of mostly legally irrelevant sensationalism, and Republicans charged taxpayers 40 million to make it.
Technically, Nixon resigned before being impeached, though the writing was on the wall. I wonder if he would have resigned if the Democrats didn’t have a supermajority.
There’s bombing the pharma plant in Sudan that killed 10,000 and an unknown number of downstream people due to lack of medicine, there was the sanctions on Iraq, estimated to have killed 1 million, mostly children, the acceleration of Israeli settlements, dropping cluster bombs on Yugoslavia, etc all right there.
But republicans only issue with those crimes is that Clinton didn’t kill enough foreigners.
Given what I know about the Yugoslav wars I can say with near absolute certainty that using cluster munitions on Yugoslavia (Serbia) was entirely warranted.
No, using cluster munitions is never fucking warranted, the land is still blighted today, 25 years later.
Ill feel sorry for them when the Serbian government stops trying to be little Russia. Until then I will propose that they deserve an increase in munitions saturation.
Unexploded cluster munitions don’t target Serbian politicians, they tend to hurt children more frequently than anyone else.
This is why it’s almost universally agreed that weapons that don’t discriminate between soldiers and civilians and continue killing long after a conflict has ended are a special kind of evil and a crime to use even in war.
The other reason being that less precise weapons just aren’t as effective at actually destroying military targets.
But what do you mean? The election was stolen, it doesn’t count /s
I live on the opposite side of the world and even I remember when Obama wore a fucking tan suit once more than 10 years ago because Republicans threw such a big tantrum over it.
But what about that elitist Dijon mustard he put on his hamburger? That was a real travesty.
Or the time he served too many peas at dinner?
The terrorist fist jab
Telling a voter that to help climate change at a very small individual level they could make sure their car tire PSI is up to the recommended level.
Then Republicans said that that was “Obama’s foreign policy”.
Or how about when they pretended “lipstick on a pig” was a slight to Palin?
Or how about when they forced him to reaffirm “In God We Trust” on the money.
Or how about Michelle Obama just fucking existing and claiming she’s a man.
Fuck all of them.
Her sleeveless dresses practically made all the regressive’s dicks shrivel up and fall off.
He put his shoes on the Presidential Desk!
… as has basically every President in the last 40 years, in at least one photo, but Augh freak out when Obama does it!
I don’t remember that one.
Michelle and Barack did a fist bump and a Fox News commentator called it a “terrorist fist jab”
How else could republicans attack a guy who deported more people, bombed more countries, and saw the immiseration of more black families than either Bush or Trump? Right-wing democrats are more competent at being republicans than actual republicans.
They freaked out because of the choice of leaf in his salad! (Arugula) That obviously makes him the Antichrist.
And a man of good taste; Arugala is best salad
And dijon is the superior mustard. It’s just further proof that some people have more money than sense and just want what they’ve always had.
I mean really it’s that some people’s interface with the world is backwards.
Instead of it being like
“Facts” -> “Emotions”
for many people it’s
“Emotions” -> “Facts”
They don’t like Obama. Therefore, whatever he did is bad. That’s it. They’re like the common clay of the new west.
I think Seth Meyers did a thing about how the right wing was freaking out about Biden having ice cream and saying that’s unpresidential and for old people, but like literally the same week Trump had ice cream and it was not a problem.
I
retiredtried dijon after that, and you know what? It’s fuckin awesome.Edit: Auto incorrected.
That’s such a perfect microcosm of how unabashedly childish they are. I get that most of them are probably racist but HOW can you POSSIBLY care about someone wearing a tan suit? If I was Obama I would have worn it every day for a month just to spite them. It’s the same as when they shat their pants when AOC got like a $300 hair treatment or something. It pisses me off so much.
I tried to be patriotic and accept him as president in 2016 until it was quickly obvious that he is a traitor to his country.
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.”
–Teddy Roosevelt
Every true patriot should stand opposed to trump.
Agreed. And against Biden too.
We were still talking about Obama’s birth certificate years after inauguration. So yeah, that’s not really a thing.
We should all get behind the sitting president regardless of party, but I don’t think that has ever happened…
I’m not honestly sure that we should. Sometimes supporting and wanting what’s best for the country means earnestly hoping the president utterly fails.
I sincerely hope this trump administration accomplishes less than they did last time, ideally nothing.
Why? The Trump administration will do good and bad things, and I hope they succeed at the good things (e.g. cutting waste) and fail at the bad things (e.g. cutting important services).
Show them the American people are more than partisan hacks, and maybe they’ll start pretending they’re not partisan hacks.
Horseshit. They are not being honest about clearing government waste. Any talk of reducing government spending without significant cuts to the military is a fable.
Any minor good things they do will be completely overshadowed by the pilfering of the country for a select few.
hey are not being honest about clearing government waste. Any talk of reducing government spending without significant cuts to the military is a fable.
I’m going to be ready to applaud if they somehow do deliver on their promises in a way that doesn’t screw over important services. I don’t see any way for them to hit the $2T mark that Musk claims w/o very painful cuts to the military, Social Security, and Medicare (which they’re not going to make), but I’ll certainly applaud them for any waste cutting that doesn’t screw over a large subset of the population.
I’m not saying we should stop calling out their BS, I’m saying we should applaud them if they actually do a good thing. How much applause vs boos they get is up to them.
Fuck that. Fascists don’t deserve the benefit of political decency.
“Cutting waste”, for a conservative, is to reduce public services. They have spent a very long time putting out the idea that the government must turn a direct profit and pretty much none of them have the barest clue of what an indirect effect is. The more they crush public infrastructure the more space there is for private interests to come in and overcharge for services they don’t even really provide(health insurance, for example).
Nothing they do to streamline, especially with Elon must holding the lever, will be a benefit to the working class and the benefit to the owner class will be a few quarters of profits while they continue to descend into a place where there’s no money left for their customers to buy their products.
There is no good coming.
I hold out hope to be pleasantly surprised.
There’s a lot of waste in the government, especially in the military. We need to audit how money is spent, reorient spending culture from “use it or lose it” to rolling over unused funds, and improve reporting so these kinds of waste are caught sooner. I don’t think there’s anywhere near $2T Musk claims there is, but I could believe up to $500B or so in unnecessary spending.
Whether they do that is up to them, but I’ll be ready to applaud them if they somehow pull it off, and criticize when they make boneheaded decisions that screws people over for minimal fiscal benefit.
Is this your first election? Every cycle they shout about wasteful spending, and when they win they increase military spending, cut taxes on the wealthy, and cut important services to cover it, then when that doesn’t cover it they quietly run up the debt just to shout about how high the debt is as soon as they’re replaced.
There’s holding out hope to be pleasantly surprised, and then there’s pretending that there’s even a whisper of a chance that they’ll do the exact opposite of the thing they’ve done for decades.
Nope, I’ve been through a few. In fact, I was originally registered Republican when I was naive enough to think they actually cared about small government. I’m now registered third party to juice those numbers a bit in the hope someone cares about registration statistics, because neither major party actually seems to do what they promise. Sometimes I’ll switch parties to the local dominant party (in my case, Republican), just so I can have a say in the primaries, but usually I don’t particularly care.
Given my two options, hope and despair, I choose the former.
There’s the option of acceptance, where you know what’s going to happen but you don’t waste energy crying about it. Hope in this scenario isn’t hope that they actually do anything beneficial for average people, it’s hope that they’re too incompetent to actually accomplish the horrible things they plan to do.
Oh, my sweet summer child.
Waste, in this case, includes important services first and foremost. Medicare and social security are definitely waste. It’s money wasted on people who aren’t buying any of those expensive things that Musk and Trump are selling.
Trump has been consistent about few things, but one of those is not touching Social Security or Medicare. He seems to have drawn a pretty clear line in the sand there, which also significantly limits the options for cuts in the budget since those two are absolutely massive.
Well, he no longer needs to be consistent there. it’s not like he’s (legally) up for re-election or anything.
No, but he wants to be liked since he’s a massive narcissist, and gutting SS and Medicare would piss off everyone.
I want what’s best for the country, specifically the people in it, and the world as a whole.
I hope that trump fails because his stated objectives are abhorrent to common decency, fiscal prudence, and functional governance.What he calls waste I don’t believe for a second is actually waste. He has done nothing to earn my trust in that or any other regard, and so I don’t. Certainly not enough to trust them with something as broad as “waste”, if the fools who think that any scientific research they don’t see the point of is “waste” like so many of the examples have been.
Listening and judging a politician based on their words and actions isn’t being “partisan”. The electorate can’t even be “partisan hacks”, they’re the one’s whose interests and opinions are supposed to be being represented.
It’s not up to the American people to live up to the expectations of politicians. It’s literally a politicians entire job to live up to ours, and do things that benefit us. If the politicians goal is contrary to that end, I hope they fail.
I’m not gonna wish someone who wants to harm me, my family and my friends luck just so that they might not want to in the future. They need to earn my trust, not the other way around.If they do nothing for four years and things remain exactly the same as today, I’ll count that as a win. If they yell “psych!” and actually do something good I’ll eat a hat.
What he calls waste I don’t believe for a second is actually waste
I don’t know what he considers waste, but there’s a ton of obvious waste, such as military suppliers (also goes for many government suppliers). I obviously haven’t pored over government financials, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we could find tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of waste by looking for things like this.
That said, what will probably end up happening is that they’ll use it to gut services that are politically inconvenient (e.g. CDC) instead of cutting actual waste. But I’ll hold out hope, because I literally can’t control it anyway and I prefer hope to despair.
The electorate can’t even be “partisan hacks”, they’re the one’s whose interests and opinions are supposed to be being represented.
I take it you haven’t spent much time on social media then… So many people have knee-jerk reactions to things due to their party affiliation instead of the actual facts. Positive things about Biden/Harris get posted on Lemmy and Reddit, and negative things tend to get ignored (inverse is true for Trump).
People like slanting their view of events when it fits their own internal narrative, instead of objectively looking at the facts. That is what I mean by the electorate being “partisan hacks.”
It’s not up to the American people to live up to the expectations of politicians
Sure, but it’s also up to the American people to inform politicians when they are or are not living up to expectations. If they only get negative feedback from those outside their party and positive feedback from those within it, they’ll continue doing things that benefit their party over society as a whole. If members of the opposition party actually applauded when they did something good, maybe they’d do more of that thing. But if all we get is negativity and obstructionism (and yes, that happens on both sides of the aisle), we’ll just get more partisan hackery.
I’m calling for a shift in the public discourse on social media toward constructive feedback instead of partisan nonsense. We can’t change what the big media orgs do, but we can choose what we do and who we support.
My eyes rolled so hard they literally flew out of my head and knocked a wall off the back of my house when I saw your example to justify “hundreds of billions of dollars of waste” was an opinion piece on the $500 toilet seat from 1986.
Spoiler alert: if you read the next few years of news it’s revealed that those stories are almost uniformly exaggerations and misrepresentations driven by Reagan era people who wanted to starve the beast.Political lies drummed up to justify cutting vital services under the pretenses of “fighting waste”.
You can do whatever you want. I won’t be caught dead cheering for a fascist who wants to rollback civil rights just to give him a fair shot in case he makes a prudent budget cut. Which he won’t, because his platform has openly covered that they want to cut education, healthcare, and science.
But hey, at least you gave the fascists a fair shot despite their open plans for evil, right?It’s well known that government agencies spend way more than they need to in order to keep their funding the next year. Spending needs aren’t consistent every year, so they try to smooth over the differences by purpurchasing things before EOY or retaining staff they don’t technically need in case their spending needs are higher next year.
That’s stupid and wasteful. I don’t know how wasteful, but I do know there’s an incentive for an agency to expand its budget. It may not come in the form of $500 toilets, but you don’t have to look any further than the TSA to find excesses.
fascists
Trump is no more a fascist than Harris is a communist. I don’t like rhetoric like this, and I urge you to stop with the name calling. I absolutely don’t like Trump and I like his base even less, but I do not believe he’s a fascist, but he is a populist nationalist, which is its own brand of dangerous.
Regardless, I already voted against him twice and can’t do much to stop him, so the best thing is to discuss ways he can use his position for good.
Do you actually know what a fascist is or do you think it’s just a synonym for Nazi?
Harris has never advocated for the communal ownership of the means of production.
People who worked with her don’t describe her as a communist.
There isn’t serious debate about if she’s actually a communist or if she just gets really close to the definition.a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterised by a dictatorial leader, centralised autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy
Is that the definition of fascism, or trumps former chief of staff explaining why he thinks trump is a fascist?
I trust the former head of the joint chiefs of staff, Trump’s former chief of staff, and any number of academics to know what fascism is than I trust you, a person who’s worried about being uncivil to someone who wants to put people in camps.
Like, take a step back and think about what you’re doing. You’re saying it’s insulting and wrong to call a far right populist leader who attempted a coup to stay in power, who has threatened to use the military to bring places that disagree with him into line, who calls his political opponents “the enemy from within” and who calls them evil and their criticism of him illegal a fascist. Even if you don’t see how just that snippet of his behavior warrants the label, why on earth would you care if someone like that was insulted?
We were discussing how he could use his position for good. He could fucking fail at everything he tries to do and leave the country no better and no worse than it is today.
I’m not gonna sit here and jerk the guy off in the hope that he fails at fascism so hard that he somehow deports musk and enacts MAGA-care for all to spite Obama.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna175198
https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2024/10/is-trump-a-fascist/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist
The likelihood of a person correctly opining on the president is 50/50. Effectively, there’s no benefit to piling on to the mass of muted dissent or agreement.
There’s a difference between screaming into the echo chamber and support.
And in any case, I would disagree that we should just not talk about politics. If nothing else, there doesn’t have to be a greater benefit to calling the president a shitheel for it to be worth doing if you think that.
The value of political discourse and dissent is inherent to the act, with it being a nearly universal litmus test for oppression. But actions with effect are a better option, always. Organizing, organizing, organizing! Ambient dissent is a great base to build off of, but it’s just the building blocks set properly, and there’s plenty already. Stack higher!
The likelihood of a person correctly opining on the president is 50/50.
https://econ.video/2017/10/15/corner-gas-a-riot-is-not-5050/
(I am annoyed at my inability to find a link to just the video clip)
If we really want to be pedantic, it varies moment to moment, but averages slightly below 50%
We were still talking about Obama’s birth certificate years after inauguration.
Was Trump himself not one of the biggest pushers of that bullshit? I seem to remember him using it as part of his campaign when he wasn’t even running against Obama.
You’re absolutely correct. For the longest time, Trump was known as the birther guy because he was constantly making ludicrous, racist, nonsensical claims about it.
Because sitting presidents never stand behind the American people.
How can they, if they’re sitting?
Maybe they would care more if approval ratings meant something.
Be vocal about good things the President does, regardless of party affiliation, instead of just pointing out bad things about the opposition party. Trump will do some good things (and surely plenty bad), and showing that the public is watching and cares is a good thing. The same should be true for Biden and whoever comes after Trump.
But no, that’s not happening because partisan BS. That said, I will be pointing out good and bad things the President does, as I have done the last few elections.
“We” as in Republicans? Absolutely not true.
In my circle, the outspoken Republicans were absolutely convinced that “Hussein Obama” was a radical, socialist, communist, muslim foreigner who had illegally become president because he was the anti-Christ. He was here to kill the babies and white people and he destroyed the country. Practically everything was Obama’s fault such that it sparked the “Thanks, Obama” sarcastic meme. He couldn’t do anything right. Employment numbers down? Obama did it. Employment numbers up? Obama is lying about it, they’re actually down. Osama Bin Laden killed? That makes everything worse, but also, there’s no proof it was actually him.
“Thanks Obama” is the best thing that has come from any presidency.
Don’t forget the allcapa. They always fucking allcapped it. barack HUSSEIN obama
Sounds about white.
The Osama thing they also claimed it wouldn’t have been possible for Obama if W Bush hadn’t previously done…things?
I’m sure someone will find something in her social media history from back then.
Why the fuck is this even being entertained? That’s one of trump’s “lawyer” tv hosts. And she’s talking to some right wing rage bait podcaster. Discussing either of their opinions is fucking useless. And OP’s intention in even posting this is likely just to attempt to legitimize one or both them as part of the general discourse. These are scabs on the otherwise festering asshole that is the gop. Fucking move on.
Angertainment. Helps keep the division going.
I vote for murder. Im fully okay with killing conservatives even if they arent maga at this point just to be safe. Preferably radiation poisoning
This but not even joking. It’s simple self preservation at this point to eradicate them.
My high school and early college was during the W. Bush years. I hated him, and around that time is when I got political, active, and told my (Republican) parents that I was a proud Libertarian! (Look, I’ve learned a lot over the years, and Libertarians used to pretend to be a little more progressive.)
My parents hated that, and constantly gave me the “you may not like him but he’s your president too and you have to respect the office!” The first time he complained about Obama (hours after the election), I broke that one out and turned it around. And they
realized their hypocrisy immediately becoming gay communistsdecided that the rule was stupid, actually, and that it turns out you don’t have to respect the office when you dont want to!What bothers me so much more than their stated political views is the realization that they never actually had reasoned, considered views to begin with. They emotionally select things that seem directly beneficial to themselves. And then lie about their beliefs because they know they’re selfish and indefensible.
They’re still republicans but I’m an anarchist who no longer respects any presidents! Funny where a difference in fundamental values will lead you.
Libertarianism as a concept has a lot to like on a surface level, I was right there with you. They could do something great with the movement, but looking around now you eventually realize that there are really only 2 sides of mainstream libertarianism, ‘Republican, but weed and gay people might be okay sometimes’ and ‘Completely avoid personal accountability, but still punish others when it suits me’.
Actual libertarianism is fine. The problem with modern Libertarianism is them trying to shoehorn capitalism into what was a socialist ideology. Its anathema.
But go look up Joseph Dejacque. The man who coined the term and was the first libertarian. He would have scared the bejesus out of the modern libertarian larpers. Stood against all the things they are for. Fought in the French revolution.
Actually libertarianism has a lot going for it, period. Where it falls short is in recognizing that the power wielded by corporations and wealthy people now far surpasses any level which could be self-regulate, or be controlled by “the free market”. So it’s naive in its view of solutions to major issues facing a modern world, but pretty great regarding its interpretations of liberty, and the role of government in people’s lives.
They emotionally select things that seem directly beneficial to themselves. And then lie about their beliefs because they know they’re selfish and indefensible.
This is the most infuriating part. We all do it to some extent, but some people really turn it up to 11.
but I’m an anarchist who no longer respects any presidents!
Respect has to be earned not demanded.
We anarchists :)
Yes, we absolutely have to own when we lose, and we have no finer example of this than MAGA on January 6th, 2021 CE. Because fuck me if that wasn’t an inspirational display of accepting the loss of the presidential election to the democrats. Truly a historic moment for decency, courteousness, virtuousness, stoicism, gallantry, and the actual definition of honor among Americans.
Better believe I make my nieces and nephews watch my VHS tape of that day every year on its anniversary.
Absolutely no qualms with your comment, but I’m just curious. You have January 6th on VHS?
It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. People keep telling me I should “digitize” it to something called an “SD card”, which frankly sounds satanic.
It is.
You’ve heard the phrase “the devil is in the details”…well what is data if not details?
Took a strange turn there, for sure.
R×publicans literally called Obama the anti-christ and tried to make everything he did into a scandal (remember the tan suit?).
Spicy-mustard was an insult to America.
Saluting while holding a coffee cup.
Terrorist fist jab.
Was it spicy? I thought it was dijon lmao
“If you have a spicy mustard, dijon or something like that.”
I like a nice yellow mustard too but dijon is clearly superior, imagine the outrage if he’d said “gimme that spicy brown” it would’ve been interpreted as some sort of SecretMuslimAntiChristPresident code.
I just meant to gatekeep spicy mustards, which dijon is clearly not. It IS superior to a lot of other mustards because it has more flavour, but it’s pretty mild compared to something like Põltsamaa Kange which will make you cry if you apply it the way you’d use dijon.
I wish
Fox News gave Trump the platform to push the “Muslim not born in America BS” do they not remember this?
Did u not no he wuz muslin anticrist? Borned in kinya? Hoosain? Do u forgot?
Do ur gramma not send u this?
Duh!
Wut bout not my present shirt? U not get 1?
Man I wish we could go back and get Bernie. :(
I heard he was actually born in Agrabah!
I heard he was actually a descendent of Jafar.
Let’s not forget Socialist Joker.
They remember. Hypocrisy is their bread and butter.
WE STOOD BEHIND OBAMA??? BITCH, TURTLE MCFUCKFACE SAID, AS SOON AS OBAMA WAS ELECTED, THAT HIS #1 PRIORITY WAS ENSURING OBAMA DIDN’T GET A SECOND TERM!!
Wait, what?
They actually have the gall to say they stood behind Obama?
Obama’s presidency was the exact point at which toxicity and hate became the overt centerpieces of Republican identity - when they stopped even pretending to be motivated by “fiscal conservatism” and instead gave themselves up entirely to just sowing division and spewing hatred.
Hell - virtually the first thing they did was co-opt the formerly libertarian Tea Party movement, which started out, under Bush, as a series of protests against the Wall Street bailouts - and converted it into a traveling right- wing carnival of hate. That became the entire point of it - after the Republicans took it over, the bailouts were never even mentioned again - all it was was an opportunity for right-wingers to congratulate themselves on how much they hated the left, and especially how much they hated Obama.
It’s not too much of a stretch to say that everything MAGA has become - all of the division and all of the hatred and all of the lies - traces back specifically to how the hateful bigots among the Republicans reacted to Obama’s presidency and the influence they came to hold over the rest of the party.
Yeah the only reason Trump even ran for president in the first place was because he became a Republican attack dog for pushing the racist as fuck birther conspiracy.
This is especially hilarious because so much of this rhetoric came from Trump himself! He basically established his political voice by playing peanut gallery through the whole Obama presidency and pushing birther nonsense.
We all know that this is a bullshit statement that Republicans trot out to try and shame people into not opposing them, that’s a given. But to use that to defend Trump, who spent all of the Obama presidency doing EXACTLY that loudly and vocally is a special level of irony.
In the infamous words yelled at Obama by Joe Wilson: " YOU LIE"
They were behind him with a knife in his back at every opportunity from his first day in office.
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311 :
Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
They’re STILL not over it. What a crock.
