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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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Way to downplay warcrimes and actual wars 👏👏👏
Nobody who understands what Bush did thinks Trump is worse.
Edit: ITT- People justifying senseless wars
Bush did a hell of a lot more harm with his war on terror and basically lying about why we wanted to go to war , but Trump single-handedly paved a very dangerous road for the US to become fascist and have crony capitalism (or at least, make it much more apparent and much worse).
Dubya was an asshole politician who wasted thousands upon thousands of lives for oil - and I would still say he’s less bad than Trump because Trump wanted to make the US into something more akin to China and Russia.
Don't act like US didn't want it. Almost half the population voted for it, dum dum. War crimes causing millions of deaths are a little important than your binge internal politics.
23% of the nation said true patriots will have to use violence to restore democracy last week. a non trivial chunk of this country has lost its mind
Blind unwavering nationalism is a cancer. The (North?) American Dream is one of individualism and corporate reliance. It's slowly seeping north of our common border, too.
With a military as big and armed as the US, you can absolutely argue that our binge internal politics are actually worth taking into account for these sort of things. The fact that seemingly half of the US population voted for it (whether they were actually for it, or were just voting not Democrat to “own the libs” is another conversation) is fucking terrifying.
The reason I would say that Trump is worse than Dubya is because of the potential and horrific shitshow that could happen if the US became more like Russia or China. To help put it into perspective, imagine if Putin was in charge of the US army. It’s not too crazy of a stretch to say that he would probably invade all of his small surrounding neighbors and absorb them as Russian territories or make them become part of Russia itself. Take this example a step further - he has access to the US arsenal of nukes. How long would it be until he would fire nukes at other nations and invade them?
That’s not to say Dubya is better - like I said, starting a 20-year war for oil but masking it behind “removing WMDs” and “God told me to do it”, wasting lives pointlessly for greed is fucking disgusting. But it would legitimately pale in comparison to the damage somebody like Trump being in charge of a fascist US can and would do to the world for years to come.
Wait... you think Trump didn't commit war crimes?
With a few thousand victims. Bush put at least a million on the already staggering US death toll.
But he also created a new quality, with running Guantanamo as a torture prison camp.
If it wouldn't be for the military and economic power the US would be openly referred to as the shithole country it is on the international stage.
I think Trump did worse things than Bush did, but Trump's rise to power would have never happened without the actions of Bush Junior and Bush senior and Reagan, so for me it's kind of hard to say who did worse.
No one is downplaying what Bush did, we're accentuating how excruciatingly bad Trump's actions were. See you comprehend that Bush's crimes were horrible, you're simply incapable of understanding that Trump's were much, much worse.
Many executives get their countries embroiled in foreign conflicts. Few actively attempt to subvert their own government upon their dismissal; they literally are the worst of the worst, and your inability to fathom this is either feigned or revealing.
How can what Trump did be worse than killing a million civillians, running torture camps, invading foreign nations, commitingto extrajudicial killings, and giving rise to the IS, who again killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed millenia of human history and culture and commited all imagineable atrocities?
Because Trump would normalize invading countries, running camps (he already kept kids in cages!), trying to get the government to commit extrajudicial killings, and idolizing tyrants like Putin, Orban, Kim, etc.,
This isn't hyperbole, there's examples plenty of each.
Bush did all of this 20 years ago. To be fair though invading other countries, putting fascist regimes into power there, extrajudicial killings and camps all have been part an integral part of american history. It became a new quality with Bush though as the world progressed to a more humane standard at the time and the veil put around these things by Bush was much thinner, than by his predecessors.
Still Trump is ultimately just continueing the work of Bush. It is just more noticeable as he is very loud and brazen about it, where Bush was only outspoken about it.
thanks for your stellar analysis, it's factually incorrect and bereft of insight nuance or critical thought. keep trying to tie them together, it's pointless but obviously keeps you very entertained.
The US deserves to fall, and I'm glad trump did so much damage on his way out.
lol someone just turned 13. that's cute lil' edge lord, your future is fucked regardless of politics.
Others have said that it depends on exactly what your standards are for defining “worse”. Broadly speaking, it seems to come down to whether you’re emphasizing foreign or domestic policy. It’s not necessarily because people don’t understand or are downplaying atrocities.
The question is vague enough that it’s entirely possible for informed, compassionate people to come to different conclusions. That’s why this is an interesting discussion.
Yeah, except a fascist US would be farrrr worse internationally and domestically than anything bush did in 8 years.
Right now it's easy to say bush. 5 years from now, I'm not so sure
Yeah, it depends on perspective. Trump was probably worse for Americans but Bush was worse for those in the countries he invaded and ravaged.
I'll say the same thing to you as I did the other guy.
What until you hear about the war crimes of authoritarians. Just recently we have Assad gassing his own people, Russia stealing children, stealing land, and filling mass graves in Ukraine, Saudi Arabia murdering a journalist with a hacksaw. Bush may have started an illegitimate war, but the US military is comparatively very good when it comes to avoiding civilian casualties.
Everyone with a brain KNOWS trump is worse.
This shows their priorities. They don't care about war crimes.
I think it’s more a reflection of the media people consume. It’s easy for people to forget Bush’s war crimes when he’s been rehabilitated in part to make Trump look like an exceptional threat.