I have to admit, my corner of tumblr seems remarkably passive about this past week. No freaking out, no mad panic, no “it’s the end of the world”
Just “meh” and “so lets move on and do what we need to do”
This is so much worse than 2004.
Beyond idiotic.
This is nowhere near comparable. It’s not even the same scale.
I really do wonder to what degree people are saying stuff like this to numb themselves because it’s horrible and it feels like there’s no winning moves.
I felt like this when Bush and Cheney won, but ultimately justice prevailed. By the way did you hear Bush and Cheney endorsed Kamala? 😍
Bush was terrible but wasn’t embracing fascism. He never had a project 2025 plan to kill democracy.
This isn’t your daddy’s nightmare here, this situation is much, much worse and I think this poster is very much understimating that here.
The only differences there are between Bush and Trump are that Bush succeeded in stealing an election and Bush was smart enough to try to hide his evil shit and soften it with Orwellian language instead of crowing about it from the rooftops.
The danger is more that the systems that resisted Bush’s fascism have been weakened, namely the Supreme Court.
Ah how time sands away the rough edges of our memories.
Bush created an illegal prison to hold “suspected terrorists” indefinitely without charges or trials. Bush had literal CIA black sites around the world for the explicit purpose of evading US law. Bush had a legal memo drafted for the explicit purpose of instituting a torture program. Can I get an Abu Ghraib up in here? Mass surveillance of Americans, Bush invented the Patriot act and fisa warrantless taps! So many chestnuts like “Your either with us or with the terrorists” “See something say something” as an explicit way to turn Americans against each other, to compel loyalty to death leader or else be labeled a terrorist. Speak out against Bush’s lies about the Iraq war, well how about an administration official leaks to the NYT blowing the cover of your spy wife to put her in danger as revenge, and then pardon the fucker who did it? To say nothing about getting Medicare, opposition to lgbtq rights, no child left behind bullshit, voter restrictions, and I can’t just not give a big what’s up to Hurricane Katrina! Fuck the “unitary executive” theory is a Bush era creation. That’s just the stuff I personally remember, without even looking up a greatest hits list of Bush shit.
Oh yeah, Bush wasn’t even elected the first time! The conservative supreme court in a 5-4 opinion installed him!
Trump is the first president not to accept the results of an election, to undermine democracy directly. I’ll give you that, and in some ways he’s a very unique threat in that way. But he is not the first president to stretch presidential authority, to abuse his power, to break democratic norms, to stomp on civil rights, etc. We’re talking here about Bush, but don’t forget Nixon and Reagan also existed!
Yes this is bad, maybe uniquely bad, but one thing we have going for us is Trump and the people around him are highly incompetent. That was not true in the Bush years. We can fight him and we can defeat Trumpism. So long as elections happen, we can stop the worst of Trump. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the country that reelected Bush even after all that shit, turned around 4 years later and elected a progressive (by the days standards) black candidate with the middle name huessain, and voters did it by a landslide. It took a lot of work to get there, but we as a country did it before and can do it again. There is hope.
I too am old enough to remember Bush, and honestly… I think this person is seriously underestimating how much more dangerous the Republicans have gotten in the intervening time.
Bush had nothing remotely close to the project 2025 agenda, and Bush didn’t have a supreme court willing to tell him that he was literally above the law.
Bush was terrible, no doubt about it, and the people who’ve been trying to rehabilitate him can fuck off forever. But Trump, and the version of the Republican party behind him, are so much worse.
You are correct. Honestly fuck every person who downplays trump. People downplayed him into the Whitehouse twice now and everything you pointed out proves them wrong as fuck.
Bush at least had respect for the institution of the President and the Constitution. This fool respects nothing and no one.
Man, I don’t give a shit about the imminent sociopolitical and economic hellscape. I got numb to that six months into his first term. But I am very likely going to be suffering through the slow-motion environmental catastrophe this inarticulate slug is about to cause for the rest of my life. If the Department of Heteronormativity Enforcement comes a-knocking 'cause they found out I watched Thor: Ragnarok and Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy in the same weekend, at least I know where my claw hammer is, but I don’t have high hopes for restarting the gulf stream by throwing a brick through it.
Fuck this downplaying bullshit. I wish it was just a matter of fighting our way out of it but it’s not. We are fucked. Too many ways to list.
“I have met with Mr Hitler and found him to be a smart, reasonable man.” -Winston Churchill
Until climate change puts us out of our misery.
Either life on earth dies or the billionaires get their mad max hellscape to rule over. Human rights won’t really be anyone’s priority, then.
Hot Nuclear War for 2028, if we’re all gonna die at least make it quick.
IDK. Compared to Trump, Bush seems downright reasonable in hindsight. He was at least willing to work within a democratic framework. This will be a new level of political extremism in America and downplaying it won’t help.
Bush literally stole the election. Democratic framework my ass. He implemented all the draconian spy and warcrime immunity laws that still exist in the US to this day. He is so far away from the democratic framework its not even visible anymore.
Even as a guy who reminds people at every opportunity that the Brooks Brothers Riot was a coup (check my comment history), it is crystal clear not only that Trump has been way worse already, and his second term will be a huge escalation on top of that.
Oh i agree. I just didnt like the “democratic framework” part.
That’s what’s been driving me crazy, the only people who have stolen an election were Republicans!
In 2003/2004 would people have said the same thing compared to Reagan, or Nixon? That compared to Bush, Reagan seems downright reasonable, or compared to Bush, Nixon seams down right reasonable?
I remember a lot of protests against The Patriot Act? And against Guantanamo Bay?
I remember a lot of right-wing patriotism sweeping through the USA and people being condemned for not falling in line.
Are you sure 2003/2004 was a more reasonable time?
Yes, I was also around for the Bush presidency, and I’m pretty sure. Bush had some pretty shit policies but was also very much an establishment republican who was not going to fundamentally change the system. He didn’t have a rabid cult of personality surrounding him. There was no Project 2025-type plan to turn America into a theocracy. Bush never “joked” about becoming a dictator, becoming president for life or putting his political opponents into jail. He didn’t threaten his NATO allies with letting Russia invade them.
I could go on, but the point is: America didn’t just elect another conservative who will try to roll back LGBT rights, it elected a Mussolini-style Fascist. Thinking “Oh we’ll just vote him out in 4 years” is… optimistic.
The Heritage Foundation has been around for decades, along with other think tanks that would publish playbooks just like “Project 2025.” That Project 2025 became such a big thing is because the Dems started to realize they were losing the Fuck Trump vote and wanted to rally the base without actually doing anything. Oh give the voters what they ask for? Nah give them more fear, that’ll rally them instead! Just look up their history, they have literally worked with both sides and are basically long winded op-eds The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia
Both sides again, really? That’s definitely one of the opinions of all time… I’ll just leave this here.
DNC tried to rally any sane Republicans, I think the results showed they reached all 3 million of them.
It’s just that they needed to rally their base and present a plan on how they could make their lives better. They needed to remind the electorate, all that they’ve done. This all seems so familiar…
I was 100% with you and thought W. Bush was a worse president than Trump, all the way up until January 6. All the ramifications of it are still playing out so it remains to be seen which is worse.
Dubbya basically set in motion all the problems we face today in his failed response to 9/11 - instability and refugees from the middle east and ‘drill baby drill’ environmental catastrophe. We’re still suffering the consequences.
Trump and anti-democracy and January 6 - the reprocussions are still playing out. His loss on Tuesday could have done a lot to right the wrongs and stop the bleeding. But now they’re going to be supercharged and the most important thing we can do is ensure that a fair vote can happen in 2026 and 2028. If that doesn’t happen we’re lost, and the deck will be heavily stacked against us.
This presidency is a revenge tour for Trump, he even stated so himself. Millions are getting deported. Environmental regulations, human rights and workers’ rights are stated to be discarded.
Yeah, 2003 seemed pretty reasonable.
In 2003/2004 would people have said the same thing compared to Reagan, or Nixon? That compared to Bush, Reagan seems downright reasonable, or compared to Bush, Nixon seams down right reasonable
They did and, other than Reagan, they were right.
I remember a lot of protests against The Patriot Act? And against Guantanamo Bay?
Which are still intolerable atrocities that would never be allowed in a well-functioning society.
I remember a lot of right-wing patriotism sweeping through the USA and people being condemned for not falling in line
Yes, there WAS a lot, but nowhere near as much as now.
Are you sure 2003/2004 was a more reasonable time?
Absolutely. 100%. 2004 conservatism is to today’s fascism what sticks of dynamite are to thermonuclear weapons.
I wonder if it felt that way because we were attacked and it was an attack against all Americans , Not X segment of Americans.
So it kinda felt like we had very different ideas of how to proceed, but it did feel like everyone was sincere about protecting the country together.
Clearly the policy and tract the country took has been haunting us ever since, but I never got the impression that the politicians in charge were 100% self serving and had ulterior motives.
Personally, I’ve been buckled down for the last 3 years already fighting to win my union and get our first contract. I’m in the same camp as the folks you see on tumblr. To me, he’s just one more billionaire to crush.
Yeah – this sounds more of a reasonable argument.
In the play What the Constitution Means to Me, the author Heidi Schreck describes progress as a woman walking on the beach with a dog. “If you watch the dog it keeps running ahead and then running backwards, so that if you only keep your eye on the dog it seems like progress is constantly being undone,” she says. “But if you watch the woman, you can see that she is moving steadily forward and forward and forward.”
I feel similarly to the tumblr poster. Not because I think people won’t die (people died from bigotry in the 00s as well), or that everything will be okay soon, or that nothing can happen to me, but because this is a survival mode I’m familiar with.
You keep going and you find the comfort and the joy you can, and you protect and support the people you can. Some of the most joyful environments I’ve ever been in were gay bars in red states when gay marriage was illegal, and it wasn’t because everyone there had a perfect life.
Thanks, I needed to read this comment. I’ve been struggling with a way to reframe my thoughts so that everything doesn’t feel so dire and futile that there’s no point in even trying. This helped a lot.
