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I would not be surprised if Bush loathed Trump. Trump has called him out on the Iraq War from the get go. he has humiliated his brother (the ultimate affront to W is to attack his family), and he has pointed out that our country was moving towards a bizarre monarchy where being president seemed to be a right if you came from the Bush or Clinton families.
Also, Bush is very much like McCain - a Republican establishment guy, and Trump is not really a Republican at heart, he is...well....he is Trump. And few people are more Washington Establishment than the Bushes (and Clintons).
Still, Bush did not mention Trump as the cause of any of the things he mentioned. The phenomenon he describes are for the most part true, and have been brewing for the past decade - certainly under Obama. His comments could as easily have been referring to condemn Obama as at Trump, and they may not have been referring to either rather than to what is going on in society in our country in general.
It IS noteworthy that Bush kept quiet through all of the Obama Fiasco to speak up now, so i will give you that. but again, this is no more surprising that McCain's behavior.
These people are ALL part of the swamp.
Add, "in the Age of Trump" to every sentence:
"Honey? Thank God we have Will & Grace back again...in the Age of Trump!"
"Honey? I'm going out to get a gallon of lowfat almond milk...in the Age of Trump!"
"Honey? It feels like I have a lump in my scrotum...in the Age of Trump!"
Trump is a horrible human being, and he is doing damage to the country that will take decades to get over.
But Bush's decision to invade Iraq was worse. Much, much worse.
trying to divide the nation.
Carter in '76, maybe?
How precisely could a politician operate in our system and succeed without dividing people to some significant extent? Do you divide people here? What precisely does "divide people" mean and is it inherently bad?
Unless you count he’s the only one to fix the grievance list. It was just a laundry list of grievances for his base. Give me another campaign like it since World War II except maybe Nixon.
It was nothing but divisive which is what set it apart. And it has continued well into his actual term.
Imagine what would have happened if Trump had wanted "Welfare Cadillac" to be played for his campaign?
Frankly, people who claim Trump's campaign was unprecedented on this count know little about American political history. Kind of like when some claim today's campaigns are much dirtier than campaigns of old.
Remember the 1988 campaign, in which the HW Bush campaign made it about flag-burning and Willie Horton coming to rape your wife?
Again, you need to define what "divide people" exactly means.
Trump was different in that his campaign was nothing but a repeated grievance list for his base. The only thing comparable again was Nixon and I guess Wallace. W certainly wasn’t anything like that with his campaign.
You understate past campaigns and overstate Trump's. You may not like campaign positions on protectionism and infrastructure repair, for instance, but those were at the center of his campaign and they hardly fit into your as yet undefined little box of "divisive politics," presumably dealing solely with race.
I don't like the guy, either, but I'm not willing to make up things just to criticize him or to engage in blatant hyperbole.
Not like Orange anyway. Not since Nixon or Wallace anyway.
And the protectionism and boondoggle went hand in hand with the larger message.
We will just disagree.
Politicians are weather vanes
It is worth noting that circa 2005, Chris was agreeing with Killshot and some others here that things were looking up in Iraq as the neo-con ghouls gushed about the prospect of "free elections" and "new schools," and as they claimed the tide was turning with the hearts of Iraqis. I don't know how one can be optimistic about a giant abomination, but I'll leave that to small abominations to explain.
I even remember another bloke whose name escapes me, who became quite exercised about Vietnam comparisons and even claimed a friend of a friend who served over there said he felt safer in Baghdad than in Philly. And this bloke was serious, mind you.
Oh, if I could only remember his name...
Killshot and I agreed on virtually nothing during that time, including how the war was going.
Just check your vast, weird, pervert archives of me. You'll see.
that recalls nearly everything that nearly everyone else forgets. Sorry.
Killshot was touting the things I mentioned at that time and you grudgingly agreed that things were looking up in Iraq.
well in Iraq, and I'll bet a year's salary he never said to send in troops.
things were looking up?
BTW, if I was going to make up something about Chris and the Iraq War, why in the world wouldn't I claim that he supported entering it? Wouldn't that be a far more damaging charge? But that's not what happened and it so happens that at a point when this board was chock full of rah-rah chickenhawks, he was willing to conform to a certain extent and agree that positive signs were emerging from Iraq.
The war would never have occurred to the American people if it weren't for the neocons surrounding Bush.
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Only the Bushies thought it was worth invading Iraq to get rid of them.
It's not like the IC was insisting that WMD was a reason for war.
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