Will Farrell recently returned to his familiar role as George W Bush on Saturday Night Live doing a bit about the recent news that the 43rd US president is now enjoying soaring popularity among Democrats.
It was a funny bit, I guess. Ferrell reminded the SNL audience how "historically not good" Dubya was, joked about thrown shoes and how Dick Cheney's heart is made of Legos now, and of course snuck in the obligatory comment about Russia rigging America's elections as though that's a real thing. The majority of the skit was built around a refrain you're hearing more and more from Democratic pundits who haven't quite lost their minds yet, reminding viewers that as bad as Trump is, he still hasn't done anything remotely as bad as Bush's full-scale ground invasions of nations where US troops are still involved.
Anyone with even a drop of self-awareness knows that the cuddly wuddly new image Dubya is enjoying in mainstream America is taking Trump hysteria a bridge too far. Even MSNBC stooge Chris Hayes said not long ago that "The Iraq War was worse than anything Donald Trump has done (so far)."
Yeah, they like to say that. What they never, ever like to do is acknowledge the far more uncomfortable fact that as bad as Trump is, he also still hasn't done anything as bad as what the Obama administration did to Libya.
It's true, though. For all the many, many, many evil things that this administration is guilty of, none of them come anywhere close to the destruction of an entire nation killing tens of thousands of people and creating a failed state where people are now sold as slaves. The destruction of Libya and attempted destruction of Syria that the Obama administration is guilty of have caused far more death and suffering than Trump has at this point in the game.
So I don't think it's accurate to suggest, as Ferrell's Dubya character does, that Bush's newfound popularity among Democrats is due solely to comparisons between the current Republican president and the last one. It's impossible to hold Bush as the horribly evil butcher that he unquestionably was while cheering on his successor for eight years who only continued and expanded those same bloodthirsty agendas. In order to support Obama, you necessarily had to compartmentalize away from the horrors of the Bush administration.
But I think there's an even more important factor at play here, and it's this: Democrats spent 2016 gaslighting themselves into believing that a warmongering neocon who supported the Iraq invasion would make a fantastic president.
Time and time again in the lead-up to the 2016 primary and general elections I debated Hillary Clinton supporters from the perspective that her support for the Iraq invasion utterly disqualified her for the role of Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization. And they argued right back, often on the grounds that the Iraq invasion wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be. Conversations and debates like this would have been happening all across the country that entire year, and Clinton supporters on that side of the debate would have to have found a way to contort their sense of reality into making Bush's barbarism seem understandable and acceptable. They had to psych themselves into supporting their candidate.
The more rank-and-file Democrats have been forced to find a way to get okay with the idea of warmongering neocon presidents, the more they're going to get okay with Bush. And this is why members of the so-called "Resistance" would rather spend time drawing pictures of Robert Mueller riding on a shark than on trying to curb Trump's Orwellian surveillance powers and unconstitutional war powers: those are Bush's policies, and Democrats have been forced to gaslight themselves into falling in love with Bush.
Democrats are Bush now. Everything they once opposed they have now been manipulated into supporting, and the smiling, blood-soaked face of establishment politics is allowed to lull us all deeper and deeper into insanity.
Wake up. For God's sake, wake up.
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Donald Trump could start an illegal war based on a brazen lie that kills 999,999 people and he would still remain marginally less evil than Bush.
This is a message that bares repeating time and time again, because it seems that many just aren't getting it.
Thank you Caitlin, for fighting and writing, but also for being the catalyst that brought me to Steemit. :)
Thanks for joining me!
I likewise discovered this service through CJ's recent plug and am intrigued by its potential.
Absolutely stunning wordsmithing here. Borders on poetry.
I hadn't put this reality together, Caitlin. Thank you for explaining the real reason why Democrats like W. now. I see it now that promoting Hillary for the entire campaign of course meant they nullified their concern over the main thing for which we should forever reject George W. Bush.
thank you for watching SNL
and the Dhmikrats.
so I don't have to.
and I don't.
The W stands for WAAAAAASSSSSUUUUPPP!!!! :-D
https://steemit.com/travel/@mercmap/douchebag-tower-chicago
The Libya debacle was one of the things I repeatedly highlighted on the blogs. I couldn't even phantom people supporting a woman out on the campaign trail advocating women's rights while her own failed policies under the Obama administration left thousands of people fleeing their country with hundreds to thousands of innocent women and children left drowning in the sea. If you are a dead woman that pretty much eliminated any rights she was advocating about.
Interesting post. As to "as bad as what the Obama administration did to Libya", we could add "Ukraine and Syria" as well . . . In fact Syria is probably the worst of the three.
I was faintly surprised by the tone Ferrell took. It was almost, almost admonishing to the Blue Team Believer relative to Trump. In today's social media clime, anything less than proclaiming 45 to be at least as bad as Hitler is to be a MAGA-ian. This angle from SNL is both curious and of course suspicious. The News Speak is thick and redolent this month.
The Bush and Clintons have the same bankers and military industrialists backing them. Independents in America were warning the establishment not to nominate a Bush or a Clinton, but they did it anyways. I tried to warn Clinton supporters but they were extremely hostile
Thanks Caitlin!! You've made beautiful sense of the insanity & why its impossible to trust the "Resistance."
Killing it Caitlin! This is on point, and it's so important to recognize. I feel embarrassed seeing a loved relative doing this very thing. She has been gaslighted into considering the Bushes, John McCain, and the like, as relatively reasonable and decent, when mere years ago she recognized the same warmongers as actually evil. Part of it is just "Well, compared to Trump...", but beyond that, it is the result of the mental gymnastics it takes to remain a loyal supporter of Democrats who are guilty of the same insidious hawkishness and war crimes.
And the kids who studied 'News and media' are taught to copy and paste pre-chewed articles and pretend to be journalists. But don't have a clue what real news is. Nor do they know anything about real journalism.
This is how the establishment undermines journalism by watering down the very essence of journalism. And call it news and media.
So to give some clarity.
Journalism is:
Seymore Hersh, John Pilger
News and Media is:
CNN, MSN and everything else around the world that does a copy and paste of the half baked half truths.
Slightly off topic, but these brainwaves needed some cyber-space
Highly rEsteemed @caitlinjohnstone.
As the world turns, the story tellers come full circle.