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Excerpt: On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest at the side entrance of the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue by John Hinckley Jr. Reagan was walking to his limousine after a speech to AFL-CIO leaders when Hinckley, 25, who was standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots, hitting Reagan and three others.
And no Dubya. I think in a long term view, Dubya was far more destructive than Trump has been so far. That of course could change if he gets reelected.
Dubya was fucking horrendous, but nothing compared to trump, the most damaging traitor in American history and potentially the proximal cause of the loss of the Republic.
But he made Trump possible. See my other comment in this thread.
Trump made the racists and fascists feel confident and united. Trump undermined our allies, all of our institutions, the courts, the judges, the police, the press, anyone who doesn't do exactly what he wants. Dude invited Russia to flood our country with disinformation and conspiracy nonsense in a way that resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths during the pandemic. For a while it was like another September 11th was happening every single day. Even the most conservative numbers for death estimates from COVID are like 15 times the number of Americans who died in Vietnam. Dude tried to deploy troops in America against people who protested things he did. His administration was a formalized system of bribery, nepotism, and influence peddling. He tried to unilaterally pull the US out of NATO. Everyday was a nightmare of chaos and lies.
I've forgotten more horrible shit than I ever remember from the Bush years. Bush was George Washington compared to Trump. You can pin GWB with starting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and manufacturing the consent to get us there, but that's about it. The whole war in Afghanistan is kind of overshadowed by the absolute disaster of the withdrawal, negotiated and agreed to by Trump's administration with the sole purpose of tripping up Biden during his first 100 days, and he sold out our allies and loyalists to do it, not to mention majority of people in Afghanistan that never wanted the Taliban in charge. I agree GWB was the worst president since Andrew Jackson, but Trump is so, so much worse.
Dubya's Iraq delusions cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. But Dubya didn't threaten the fabric of our democracy, nor did he encourage internal divisions and hatred.
Without Dubya, we wouldn't have Trump, Putin and possibly Xi. After Clinton the US had a very high prestige in the world and even their antagonists were more likely than not to try and not piss them off too much. After the Iraq invasion the US lost all claim to being not just another imperialistic power and this definitely emboldened the others. Any idea that rules and international law mattered went out of the window. Add to that the normalization of torture, unrestricted mass surveillance and open disregard for democracy and we have a lot of the ingredients for the mess we're in right now. And let's not forget the 2008 financial meltdown which contributed to the feeling of disenfranchisement that drives a lot of the present day political divisions. So in my view Dubya really fucked shit up and we're all still paying the price.
Oh, Dubya DEFINITELY fucked shit up and set things in motion. He is one of the worst presidents, just above Ronald Reagan. But Trump, tied with Andrew Johnson, has him beat, I hold.