8 upvotes, 5 direct replies (showing 5)
View submission: Casual Questions Thread
Why the hell has the reputation of George W. Bush improved over the past few years? Is it because of Trump? Or are there more factors playing a role?
Comment by bl1y at 12/05/2023 at 13:40 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He's no longer running for office, that's it.
When someone runs for office, there's no sort of balanced, nuanced approach to criticism. "Sure, Iraq was a fiasco, but look at what he did to fight AIDS in Africa..." Nope. It's "BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED! BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED!" That's the only acceptable message from the opposition.
But, now that he's out of office, you no longer get excommunicated for looking at the whole picture.
Comment by Smorvana at 12/05/2023 at 12:42 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
When you no longer have the media pushing propaganda about you, people soften
Comment by throwaway09234023322 at 09/05/2023 at 15:00 UTC*
-6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
On top of what others have said, I think you could look at Biden as well. Most people don't believe he will be mentally capable to do a second term. That's kind of scary when most people question the mental faculties of the leader of our country. I don't think most people thought Bush was on the edge of dementia. There's also the insane inflation that we've had since Biden taken office that has lead to a record number of people saying that they are worse off financially since Biden taking office. No other president has had such a high number. I think it's in 4x% range but can't remember. When you have two presidents that suck in a row like this, it makes people look back at Bush and think that maybe he wasn't actually that bad.
Edit:
"On the heels of Biden’s official announcement for reelection, 63% of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll say they don’t think the 80-year-old is mentally sharp enough to run the nation effectively and 62% believe Biden is not in good enough physical health to be in the Oval Office."
"The big hit on Biden is the economy: With inflation moderating but still high, 41 percent say they're not as well off financially as they were when Biden took office, the most in nearly three dozen ABC/Post polls to ask the question"
Comment by [deleted] at 09/05/2023 at 14:52 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think Trump being so insane and debased from the norm of politics definitely made some look back at W and think "at least he understood the world wasn't his personal reality show." Low bar, sure, but it's sort of impossible not to make those comparisons.
There is also the fact that there seemed to be a massive media campaign to rehab his image in the past 4-8 years. The stories of him being besties with Michelle Obama, the painting stuff (which admittedly I think dude is a good painter), the talk show tours. There has definitely been a concerted effort to make W more palatable. In reality, I'm sure W is a pretty good guy, but he was responsible for some seriously destructive fuck ups that will likely continue to define my lifetime.
Comment by [deleted] at 09/05/2023 at 12:19 UTC*
-4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Liberals have all become full throated Neocons and now buy completely into the agenda of forcing the US liberal worldview and culture on everyone else and that America (The West) is better than everyone else.
It's not just Bush that has been rehabilitated, the entire Biden Admin is packed to the brim with all the same PNAC ghouls that were behind Cheney and Liberals now repeat word for word PNAC propaganda and worship Neocon think tanks like the ASPI and take all their blatant propaganda narratives as 100% truth.
Go on rpolitics, rworldnews etc and just watch them repeat Team America World Police crap without any irony, positions that any Millennial Liberal (and Liberal alt media like Stewart and Colbert) would have laughed at 15 years ago. Hell Liberal media, liberals on rpolitics, rworldnews etc all argue that Afghanistan was GOOD now and the US should go back in there, Iraq is now simply a "mistake" where the US had "good intentions". Liberals new pretty much worship the CIA and Establishment Deep State and openly shittalk anyone who whistleblows against US Departments. Here's an amazing clip of Liberal media's warhawk psychotic response[1] to the the blatantly made up Havana Syndrome, how is this any different from Fox back in the 2000s?
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V31E5tDtn3w
As someone who came into political consciousness in the early 2000s. Watching the transformation of Liberals in the past decade into rabid, authoritarian, pro-establishment, interventionist imperialists has been genuinely horrifying.