While Dick Cheney has endorsed Harris, there have been no comments from other senior Republicans from Bush’s era

The MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell this week hit out at George W Bush, the Republican former president, for refusing to weigh in on America’s looming presidential election.

“All any decent person wants him to do is to say, ‘Don’t vote for Donald Trump, and here’s why,’ and he won’t even do that,” O’Donnell told the Fast Politics podcast, of the Republican president who was in office from 2001 to 2009.

Increasingly, Bush – and some other top Republicans from his political era – are looking lonely in their ongoing refusal to take a side in an election in which many have warned that US democracy is under threat from Trump’s open sympathies with autocracy.


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  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    big fucking tough guy when it comes to sending other peoples’ kids out to die for a bullshit war based on outright lies

    but when it’s time to actually take the correct stance on something, he buckles like a lawn chair under the average cod cosplaying maga chud

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I was living in NYC before and after 9/11.

      The Ground Zero pit stayed undeveloped until 2007 because that’s how long it took the money men to decide which insurer would pay for what. George W. never bothered to push them to hurry things, because it was vital that every single penny be accounted for. No problem with starting a war with lies, but money must be guarded to the utmost.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      cod cosplaying maga chud

      Had to recalibrate my mental image from the fish costume I imagined before remembering that Call of Duty exists 😄

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      I’m pretty sure his endorsement would be a negative. Same with the Cheney one, I can’t think of anyone that would look at that and be like: yes, I’ll go with Cheney. If anything it would turn people off.

      • ochi_chernye@startrek.website
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        2 months ago

        I think you’re right, but I’d like to believe there was at least one person out there that thought, “Shit, I’d better vote for Harris, or he might shoot me in the face!”

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I mean, Bush and Trump are in direct competition for worst presidents in living memory.

    …and they both kinda jimmy with elections. They have a lot in common really so it makes sense he’ll be averse to calling out someone whose not that dissimilar to himself.

    Also Bush has a generational bonding to the GOP, so there’s probably some level of moral compromise in that.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I had Bush ahead of Trump for a long time, but now I have to give it to Donnie.

      It’s one thing to lie about a war, and a whole differnet level to plan to kill citizens with Covid.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I had Bush ahead of Trump for a long time

        Presidents in the rear view mirror rarely carry the emotional weight of ones at the forefront.

        I’d argue Reagan was worse than both of them. We had all the nightmarish bellicose foreign policy of the Bush Administration, the disastrous neglect of health care leading to multiple epidemics from the Trump Era, and dogshit fiscal policy that gave us massive recessions and enormous new debts to accompany our contracting quality of life at the end of his last term.

        But who still remembers Iran-Contra or the '87 bank collapse or our deplorable environmental and civil rights policies or the then-extremely-lethal AIDS epidemic?

        Buchanan and Andrew Johnson are still largely considered the two worst historical presidents. Truman and Nixon are routinely cited as 20th century flops. But its very difficult to remember how shit America was before most of the folks doing the rankings were even alive. Harder still to have enough of a historical baseline to make an objective measure.

        As soon as Trump is done, we’re going to be on one about how DeSantis or Cruz or Matt Gaetz is the actual worst person to run for President in our lifetimes.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Over a million dead from Covid is the convincer for me.

          I don’t think Jackson killed a million Natives and none of those actually voted for him, like Herman Cain voted for Trump

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Over a million dead from Covid is the convincer for me.

            AIDS took 700,000. And it would have been far easier to contain than COVID-19, given the method of spread. But Reagan was on mic laughing at a journalist who asked about efforts by the CDC to contain the spread.

            Trump’s COVID policy - at the start of the pandemic - wasn’t the worst. Maybe that’s because he saw it as an excuse to foist xenophobia on the country yet again. Maybe his germ-o-phobia played in our favor. But he did kick off a quarantine and direct a bunch of federal resources towards vaccine development. I’m not sure what Hilary would have done that was significantly better.

            It was the GOP fundie base that went full anti-vax and tried to drag Trump along for the ride. And it was the GOP business base that demanded early reopening (a policy Dems in big blue states like NY and CA were also happy to embrace).

            Our COVID fuck-ups were disappointingly bipartisan, even if the Trumpies ended up embracing the worst aspects of anti-vax rhetoric later on.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              Our COVID fuck-ups were disappointingly bipartisan, even if the Trumpies ended up embracing the worst aspects of anti-vax rhetoric later on.

              Trump fired the head of the White House epidemic office because that guy was friends with another guy Trump didn’t like.

              The Obama White House had a table top demonstration to show the incoming team how to deal with a pandemic. Trump declined to attend.

              Covid was 100% Trump; he even called Dem warnings a ‘hoax.’

            • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You’re wrong. One thing you’re leaving out is that if trump simply had publicly supported mask use, many thousands of lives would’ve been undoubtedly saved. Instead of doing that he just parroted fox News lies about masks. Among other Republican specific fuckups.

            • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Trump intentionally delayed reacting to the Pandemic from the very start, after having shortsightedly firing response teams, ditching well-functioning policies, and selling off medical supplies. This was literally for political reasons. And then he did everything in his power to slow it down once it became a real emergency. He should be in the Hague for that alone. At no point was his response ever Ok.

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              In addition to what the other response said about the Obama pandemic team, Trump also let his son-in-law try to weaponize the COVID response against democratic states/cities and steal PPE to sell to the highest bidder.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Cheney is pissed at his daughter losing her family-guaranteed sinecure in Wyoming to a Trumpie, because he’s invested in his family’s political legacy.

      Bush has no real beef with the Trumps and isn’t trying to give his daughters a leg up into the next administration.

      Totally different set of political incentives to endorse.

  • 5h17h34d@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Second worst president ever.

    He’s considered a war criminal in most countries outside of North America and Europe.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I mean, who’s surprised by this? Dubya was always a dumbass, and essentially the beta version of Trump.

    • 474D@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Dubya was actually quite intelligent, just a shit speaker and an asshole.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        People keep repeating that, where was this intelligence when he was president?

        And on that note, what actions have ever displayed this “quite intelligent” side?

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          W was an actual Yale graduate and if you look at clips from his governorship of Texas you will see a person who could speak coherently in complete sentences and everything. Republicans have long targeted people with a fifth-grade level of comprehension and fake being that stupid. Trump’s only real innovation is targeting people with a third-grade level of comprehension.

          • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            That doesn’t really provide evidence of him being smart. Which goes back to my point, there isn’t enough actual examples out there of him being smart. Being able to talk just means you’re not very stupid, smart is a higher bar.

              • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                Well my original comment was about people saying he is smart. Not being dumb doesn’t not automatically mean you’re intelligent.

                No one is saying he is actually stupid, but I’m calling BS on him being “smart” given how there actually has never been any evidence of that.

                • Minarble@aussie.zone
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                  2 months ago

                  He was a fighter jet pilot in the National guard. You have to be at least above average intelligence to be left alone to fly one of those things no matter who your connections are. The folksy dumb guy was mostly just an act. No doubt Cheney was the evil genius behind the administration but George was right in there and aware of what was going on.

        • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          George Lakoff is on record saying he heard him give a speech displaying masterful rhetoric. Then he lost an election to a “bubba”, and vowed, quote, “I’m never gonna get out-bubba’d again”.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Not sure he was even a shit speaker if we compare him to Trump. His sentences at least made sense. I’m sure he just wants to be done with it all. He retired from office 15 years ago, and he lives in Texas I thought. If he endorses Harris, Trumpees will lash out at him. We can call that cowardly to not speak out do to fear of retribution but he is 78 years old. 78 year olds shouldnt be key factors in planning for our futures, they should be relaxing and planning their next health care visits that we have figured out a way they can access. The average male in the U.S. dies at 74. Let the old man paint a few more pictures on canvas if so chooses and pass in his time. That said… Wish Trump would do the same.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          The question we should be asking is: is our children learning?

          Edit: apparently some missed that this is a literal quote from Dubya.

        • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          The poster did say he was an asshole. Bush was elected to be the governor Texas and held onto the presidency - he wasn’t a dumbass.

  • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Bushes are morally bankrupt anyways. Two war criminals and one of them, Laura, killed her friend in a car accident where she ran a stop sign.

  • NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why did anyone ever think he was any good? The folksy paintings? The aw-shucks friendship with Michelle Obama?

    This dipshit has the blood of millions on his hands. He gave us Alito. He destroyed as much of the administrative state as he could. His CIA daddy stole his election.

    Can you imagine our world today if Gore had gotten in?

    Fuck Cheney too, he only cares because Trump was mean to his shithead daughter.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      Can you imagine our world today if Gore had gotten in?

      It’s not very well-remembered today that Clinton’s administration ended with a budget surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars or that Gore was by far the most prominent voice in the world sounding the alarm about global warming. With a Gore victory we could have been debt-free as a nation by now and actually taking significant steps towards ending our dependency on fossil fuels; instead the debt is $35 fucking trillion dollars (which is so enormous it sounds like a joke) and the only reason this isn’t a bigger problem is that we’re cooking ourselves off the planet anyway and no amount of debt is going to matter.

      Somewhat tangential, but “global warming” was always a weak formulation of the problem and “climate change” even more so. I prefer “anthropogenic runaway global heating” which more accurately frames the actual problem and has the handy acronym ARGH.

  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I wonder if this is because W benefitted from the same ratfuckery that Trump uses (Roger Stone, Brooks Bros Riot, etc.)

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      He wants Republicans policies but not Trump. He’s stuck like a lot of other people. Unfortunately, most of those people will hold their noses and vote for Trump and hope for the best. That’s the two-party system for ya.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      His nephew is still in politics and he thinks speaking out will hurt his nephew’s political career.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Trump is the only chance gwb has of someone else having more war crimes than him; making him look less evil.

    These are Republicans, they only ever serve their own best interests.

  • NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Oh, now everyone is surprised when he acts like a piece of shit? My good friend growing up died in Iraq in 2008. For what?

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      No, that was Ronald Reagan, who gave us most of the SCOTUS justices who picked W over Gore to be President in the 2000 election despite his having lost.