Trump supporters and defenders

Because you have integrity and honor, anyone supporting Trump has none of that - they are all hypocrites - who put greed and team over country, and sometimes their own self interests.

The GOP is now a Mob run organization.

DD

 

The Iraq war was a huge mistake, but it was not Bush who drove for that war.

 

Except you can look at my posts regarding Bush from 2002 - 2008 and see for yourself. I was critical of Bush but also praised many of his policies as well.

 

don't you have dangerous fake news to spread, such as wind mills causing cancer? Or wifi waves causing autism?

 

Well I see almost all of them as just talking points that you would see on MSNBC or CNN. There is no changing his mind from my point of view based on the content and lack original thought in what he wrote. I have a friend that I have tried to have discussions with and his political thought doesn’t seem to go much further than what MSNBC and media of that sort say and these points stated by FB echo those talking points. It is literally like bashing my head against a wall trying to talk to him about politics. It’s like religion almost.

I have another hardcore democrat friend who doesn’t simply regurgitate dogma from the cable news/democratic (@CometsWin look I used democratic just for you) talking points and I can have productive conversations with him.

I also have my dad who is basically **** you democrats on anything. I try to take the other side with him sometimes and that’s just a disaster lol but I still listen and try to provide counter perspective at times when I think he will listen.

Anyhow, I highly doubt FB would listen to my feelings about the whole Russia thing (I get further and further from believing anything of significance happened as time goes by) but I would say I pretty closely mirror Noam Chomsky’s feelings on it all. I certainly don’t agree with him on everything but I think he laid things out pretty well in a recent interview I randomly saw. He’s obviously pretty far on the left so maybe he would listen to him.

Outside of that the only thing that I don’t understand at all and think that he should re-evaluate his stance on is...

“5. He made himself and our nation look weak when took the side of the authoritarian leader who had committed acts of espionage against our Democratic institutions and process over the agencies of the United States who work to defend our nation“

What is this referring to? It can’t mean Russia because Trump has drawn very firm lines against Russia during his presidency. With the biggest one being Venezuela (and yes that is a big one) that I have talked about before. He also has drawn some clear lines with China (they are also a major player in Venezuela). I honestly have not researched the Huawei fight but this has seemed to be a major deal. We will see if the trade deal when it is reach amounts to anything of significance though. The Saudi support bothers me but American politicians can’t seem to drop them.

Also, were you worried about American projections of power before Trump? I have only seen this point brought up by heavy partisans who think he is bowing to Russia for some odd reason that I can’t understand in the slightest. If you were worried about American maintaining strong hegemonic influence under past presidents then forgive me for assuming otherwise.

Anyhow, there are very few people on here that can have nuanced political conversations without becoming defensive. It’s also even harder to have these nuanced conversations online since you can’t actually see or hear the person and understand the way in which they are saying things. People will also hyperfocus on one little thing you said and try to turn it into ammunition. It takes forever for me to reply back to these posts as well. I had my recent back and forth with @CometsWin when he freaked out over my use of Democrat instead of Democratic and that was a completely worthless exchange. Not sure why I keep getting sucked back into this.

 

It was his administration that boldly lied in order to start a vastly destructive, costly, and drawn out war with no true direction or plan. It was one of the biggest disasters in modern American history compounded by the fact that it was started with lying to the American people and the world.

Anyhow...carry on...

 

Truman, a Democrat, famously had a sign on his desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here." It meant that as President, the burden of ultimate responsibility for the decisions made during his presidency rested with him. That is true for all presidents. It was true for George W. Bush. It was his decision to needlessly start the Iraq War, a war that severely damaged not only Iraq, killing and maiming untold thousands of its people, but also severely damaged the stability of the region, and the power and reputation of the United States.

In my opinion, it is deeply wrong to put the blame solely on Cheney and his clique, which you appear to imply. Bush is not a stupid man. He was actually a decent governor of the state of Texas. He worked with Democrats to get things done. He saw the value of being bipartisan. Sadly, he was a victim of the Peter principal. When he was elected president, in an election as deeply flawed as the election of 2016, if in different ways, he rose to the level of his incompetence.

Despite that, he managed to do some good things while in office. Iraq, however, was one of the most disastrous decisions made by the man. Arguably the worst decision he made as president. I was ardently against that war, and said so here before it began. Wars have unintended consequences, another well know saying, and we are still dealing with those consequences today. We are still there, still paying for it in blood and treasure, and George W. Bush bears the responsibility. I hope it weighs heavily on the man.

 

I was wrong back at the time. Afghanistan absolutely had to happen, Iraq did not.

I still think that GW meant well, but he just had terrible advice and terrible advisors, and he made the mistake of listening to them (just like JFK and LBJ and Reagan and etc...)

 

The US must to stop intervening in the Middle East. Obama's decision to send troops back to the "stupid war" shows the extent to which that region is a complete shithole.

Remove the UK, French, and US support, and the entire region would within a few years resemble the 7th century -- and it was on its way to doing so during the Arab Spring.

It's that fact that causes hypocrisy among Trump haters -- which was especially evident when they cried over his announcement of pulling 2,000 troops out of Syria.

 

I'm not absolving Bush of blame for Iraq, I am comparing the man to Trump. Bush is vastly superior to Trump, and I think we can all agree on that because frankly, anyone is vastly superior to Trump.

But I never called Bush evil - which is what my point was. The claim that liberals call the current Republican evil and then sing their praises later on is categorically false.

 

care to elaborate on the "good things", at least itemize them

 

Who do you support that allows you to claim integrity and honor?

 

He managed to lock up hundreds of thousands of black men for a false drug war and fathered a war criminal.

 

Anyone can claim that if they oppose Trump.

 

GWB passed the Medicare drug benefit. Another major accomplishment in his presidency he pushed for $15B AIDs research and prevention spending and also pushed an initiative for HIV treatment in Africa and the Caribbean.

 

I'm not giving you an itemized list, but after 9/11, he rallied the country behind him to find and punish those responsible for the worst act of terrorism experienced by this country in modern times. He brought NATO into a coalition to find, and kill or capture, those responsible for the attack and those who helped them. For the first time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5, the keystone of the alliance, which says that an attack against one member of the alliance is an attack against all members of NATO, and requires that they all to come to the aid of the member being attacked, something trump apparently knows nothing about.

NATO did, and they are still in Afghanistan fighting and dying beside the United States (whether we should still be in that ancient hell hole is another thing entirely). We invaded Afghanistan, bringing down the Taliban government that had supported bin Laden and and his minions, and going after Al-Quada and bin Laden. AQ suffered terrible losses, but their leader, as everyone knows, managed to stay hidden for several years.

Bush recognized the danger of AIDS and HIV becoming widespread in Africa, unchecked, and led a humanitarian effort that likely saved the lives of millions who live on that continent. The effort is widely recognized and praised around the world. Ultimately, our country spent billions to the combat the disease, with Bush, his wife, and his administration pushing hard to make a difference. They did.

Those are two obviously good things Bush was responsible for, in my opinion. It would be far easier to list the things he did, or didn't do, that I disagreed with at the time and still disagree with. That's all I'm going to "list" for you. I have a life outside of D&D, believe it or not. ;-)

 

robbie, I would suggest you would benefit from reading Craig Unger's House of Trump, House of Putin and/or Seth Abramson's Proof of Collusion. Both of these books are the result of thorough research, extensively footnoted/referenced, putting into context Trump's history with Russia and Russians of influence.