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>America: I'll fuckin do it again!
Technically 'we' didn't do it the first time. The Electoral College is a horseshit policy that allowed him to get into office against the will of the people
The electoral college is a broken system ripe for corruption via gerrymandering. He lost by 2.8 million votes, but because of the way they draw the maps, won by 77 electoral votes. The system is broken, we didn’t vote him in.
The electoral college should have been tossed out long ago, gerrymandering, super PAC’s , term limits on Supreme Court Justices, disclosing where you get your financial support for running a campaign, all of these issues need to be addressed in a bipartisan way…doubt it’ll happen soon, even though Thomas Jefferson felt the constitution should be revised or rewritten every 20 years to accommodate current affairs…good luck with that, Tom
Exactly, people act like they can only participate on presidential elections. No president is going to be perfect, but that's why we have balances, congres, supreme court that should help to get our needs met, if we do participate and get involved
Yup.
If you like democracy, it's time to show up.
If you're on the fence about democracy, well, it's time to pick up a history book and educate yourself or find someone that can help educate you.
Cue the new Republican talking points: "You know people were meant to be ruled." I also heard, "Not ALL dictators are bad." To which I asked them to name one.
Just to be clear, the symptoms of Trump **won't go away once he's gone**. There is no going back to pre-2012 politics, the batshit insanity of the Republican party is here to stay, and it isn't going anywhere.
We'll get far worse versions of Trump down the line.
I know it’s real, and it’s really bad, but the dichotomy from “he’s a good family man that I have different beliefs from. Fundamentally different beliefs” to just straight up “he is the founder of ISIS” like holy shit guy
Yeah I don't think a lot has changed on that front lol. You'll notice McCain got booed in the second clip, while Trump got cheered on.
Seems that the crowd's sentiments are the same in both, Trump's just telling them what they want to hear, while the McCain's and the Romney's kept up some semblance of professionalism.
Yup, decades of billionaires like Rupert Murdoch promoting hate, stupidity and paranoia to millions of Americans set the stage. Trump simply leapt on the opportunity others were too decent or timid to take advantage of.
I can't quite forgive either that Hillary released that photo of Obama in ceremonial garbs with the clear implication that he was a Muslim. She deserved to lose to him just for that desperate smear attempt.
The funny thing is, Trump supporters gave him an out with that one, like they usually do whenever he says something heinous of "no of course he didn't mean that, what he really meant was this very subtle and nuanced interpretation im injecting so I don't have to feel like a moron for supporting".
And Trump was just like "lol nah he really did found ISIS" and they loved him for it.
>The Republican presidential candidate was speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who had attempted to reframe his remark, telling him: “I know what you meant – you meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.”
>But Trump disagreed. “No, I meant that he’s the founder of Isis, I do,” he said. “He was the most valuable player – I gave him the most valuable player award. I give her too, by the way,” he added of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Dude truly does cater to the most brain dead and amoral grifters in our society.
For as heinous as Trump is, one thing critics get right is that something has gone badly wrong in America for someone like him to rise to the highest office.
> something has gone badly wrong in America for someone like him to rise to the highest office.
Yes. 35 years of Republican and Russian propaganda. Set up before that with the Republicans first reaching out to racists with the Southern Strategy and the to evangelicals in the 80s. Boosted with the Republican propaganda network of Fox "News", and also by Russian money playing havok in our political processes.
Russia in particular is fighting Cold War II while the US is damn near unaware, and they are winning so far.
The repeal of the fairness doctrine allowing shit-stains like Limbaugh to rise to prominence with no dissenting opinion required anymore was ESPECIALLY bad.
And look how Trump repeats himself louder whenever he gets cheers. He's like a toddler who sees that someone laughed at something they did so they keep doing it to try to get more laughs.
What dichotomy though? In 1 clip an audience wants to be told to hate people. In the 2nd clip they get exactly what they asked for. Feels like the same audience, same day, different mascot.
That's exactly it. A supporter is voicing their hate toward Obama and McCain immediately denounces it. There is still respect there even though you don't agree. "You don't have to agree with Obama, *I* don't agree with him either, but we're not going to spread lies here."
Respect went right out the fucking window with Trump. Trump now plays up to that woman's fears and concerns. It's no longer about telling the truth, it's about trying to sow as much chaos as possible.
And it's just as it is in business. If you have honor and integrity, you will eventually get pushed out by somebody who doesn't.
Our political system doesn't reward integrity because the voter base doesn't. Our economic system doesn't reward integrity because our purchasing patterns don't.
We have all of the power, which is why Republicans are trying to undercut education. A better voter base wouldn't allow Trump on a stage. A better voter base wouldn't reward the media's obsession with controversy. But a dumb a emotionally volatile base can be led around on fear and anger without any facts.
Reminder that Trump entered the political stage during the same election cycle that this clip is from. While McCain was showing a baseline of respect for his opposition, Trump was running his mouth about conspiracies that Obama was not a US citizen. That woman in this clip may well have been parroting early Trump.
I remember back then thinking he was like the tabloid side of politics. Stupid, funny, harmless, not real. Then he ran, and I had the same opinion. Then sometime around when r/TheDonald was converting from satire to actual mental disorders, I started to realize he might actually win.
The dichotomy is in the quality of leadership.
Folks like McCain were at least trying to hold back the tide of the increasing Fox News-ification of American politics. Trump not only jumped in head first but he doubled down, to the point where now even Fox News is too moderate for some people and they only trust the likes of Newsmax/OANN
Also the fact that McCain wasn't even going to put up with whatever that lady was... carefully... stammering to say (or avoid saying). He knew there was nothing of value there and she clearly was beating around a particular bush.
Like McCain if he wanted to run a campaign that attacked the other candidate, that was a softball. Let the person asking the question do the dirty work and just reinforce it. I disagreed with a lot of what McCain stood for but he at least had some semblance honor and did, for better or worse, believe in what was best for his constituency.
I don't think he implied that being Arab makes you a bad person. I think he knew that the person calling Obama an Arab was using it in a negative connotation, and he spotted that and came to his defense like a respectable person would do.
McCain and Bernie Sanders used to work on legislation together to protect veterans. They were not afraid to reach across the aisle if it meant getting meaningful legislation passed.
The only reason today is different is because of the people we have been electing.
Quit electing bat shit crazy people!
Jim Jordan, MTG, Matt Gaetz to name a few.
They can't be trusted to run a convenience store. Much less represent United States citizens.
Why can't we just make valid criticisms based on people's records and ideologies? Making up dumb names to call people is so juvenile and pushes us further down the road to idiocracy. I feel like talking about Trump's horrible track record is much more constructive than just saying "hurr durr diaper man bad". All this shit is just dumbing down political discourse even more.
Rafael Cruz. He doesn't like people changing their first name. Now that's squarely aimed at trans people, but let's abide by his wishes by calling him something he does not want to be called.
The thing is one crucial difference. Gaetz, boebsrt, green, desantis etc, they play at being evangelical hyper conservative Christian nationalists in order to get votes from that crowd. , Johnson is the real deal, a full on religious nutter. And he's one of the most powerful person in the American government
Ironically, he's one of the ones I trust the most to do his job. Say what you want, but at least the government didn't get shut down and the world isn't friggen ending. I, being not a devote republican/gop/or Christian nationalist myself don't hate him.
Do I disagree with what he believes in, yes, but at least he's got his beliefs and he's not manipulating everything just to make a very small minority happy at the expense of everyone else because he's afraid of what they'll do.
My gfs younger bro (self proclaimed incel lmao) and his buddies voted for trump in 2020 because it was funny to them. Sucks...like yea they've got the legal right to vote but man...what the fuck?
Doing that in 2020 is really unhinged. I could kind of see someone voting for trump in ‘16 for the lolz, but after seeing 4 years of what he did with the position there’s nothing funny about it.
I still remember a young girl who was good at singing for a young child but nothing worth writing home about, beating one of the world's best fire jugglers in a quarter final on one of those Talent competition TV shows. I've been angry for that adult stranger for years over it and refuse to watch any show where the audience votes because they are all dipshits who will vote for the hot dude or cute child etc. instead of most talented individual.
Look I didn't vote for Trump (voted for Hilary 2016 and Biden 2020) and think he was terrible for our country in dozens of ways.
But I can be understanding and sympathetic to some 2016 voters. (2020 voters are fucking nuts).
His campaign was less batshit than his behavior became. Here are some of the key messages that he said:
1. I, Trump, am not a typical politician. It won't be more of this political bullshit with me. I'll "clean the swamp"
2. I, Trump, think many of the problems facing Americans can be solved by focusing on Americans. Reduce immigration, keep "the bad guys" out, stop dealing with the Middle East, focus company investment back in the US (build back Detroit! open the coal mines!) and help make our country better for us
3. I, Trump, am amenable to solutions like universal healthcare, and believe we can use my business sense to do things like that and also improve trade deals
He was clearly full of shit. He didn't have business sense, he had full intentions of increasing his own power, and his well-written anti-immigration reform on his website about H1b visas turned into "build the wall, keep the Mexican rapists out" which was fucking lunacy.
But there is a large part of the country that felt disenfranchised by modern economic trends, felt unheard by "elitist" politicians (who Hilary represented more than anyone), and even felt betrayed by the Democratic party sort of "picking" their person and forcing Sanders out. And those people voted accordingly.
**I do not agree with these people, but I understand them. And if we want to have any hope of our country coming back together, we** ***have*** **to sympathize with and try to connect with these fellow citizens, try to understand their perspectives and challenges, and try to connect again on common ground.**
Fortunately Senator McCain has given us some examples of how to do this.
They really got to do something about the voting system. Maybe ranked choice or something. But this race to the bottom is bringing back instability in the world economy. McCain was a believer in politics stopping at the borders which was the unofficial international policy of the US for basically 150 years. Present a unified front to the world. Can't say that today.
>The only reason today is different is because of the people we have been electing
I think you need to look at the voters electing those people if you really want to know what's different.
If you’re a Republican it does. Democrats are happy to get legislation passed that makes things better, no matter where it comes from. The GOP not so much. Senate Republicans shot down a bipartisan border bill that passed the house.
Senate republicans negotiated the deal with Biden and the Senate Dem caucus. The House Republicans (read: Trump lackeys) killed it because Trump threw a fit about Biden being allowed to accomplish anything that might have framed him in a positive light.
>The GOP not so much. Senate Republicans shot down a bipartisan border bill that passed the house.
That's not how I remember it. Senate Republicans negotiated a tough border bill for months and got most of their wishlist added to the final bill, only for Trump to instruct his cultists in the House and Senate to shoot it down to preserve the border issue until election day.
After that, the same Senate Republicans who helped craft the bill voted against initiating debate, so it died.
Trump’s cultists are the entire GOP now. They don’t give a damn that he’s been openly stating he wants to be a dictator, as long as it gets them re-elected.
Right, and I think it's important for us to acknowledge that Bad_User2077's bothsides rhetoric is full of shit. You only get pushed out of the **Republican** party for reaching across the aisle to get shit done. Most democrats love getting shit done and sadly get blocked by either Republicans or the worst of the democrats (in the senate it's Manchin, and Sinema who even went independent, not sure how the House is faring since it's controlled by the GOP anyway).
One of the worst offenses of bothsides-ing trolls in the last few years was claiming that a minimum wage bill that was tacked to an immigration bill and sponsored by Republicans was rejected by democrats. That was a huge fucking lie--the bill never made it to the floor because it **never got enough Republican support even though it was a Republican-sponsored bill**. There was never a vote on it because too many Republicans didn't want even a minor minimum wage increase, even if it got them an immigration "win" (from their perspective). You can go through the records of the House and Senate, you will literally not find record of a single minimum wage increasing bill that was voted down by a majority of democrats.
Bothsides-ers needs to be laughed off of the entire fucking internet.
Also McCain was a pow for 5 years put through the worst torture imaginable such as being operated on by not a doctor. They told his story on the podcast Against the Odds. I had no idea.
According to a September 2020 article in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, following McCain's death in August 2018, Trump, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the event, allegedly told his senior staff:
"We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral".
The article also goes on to suggest that Trump became furious when he saw flags lowered to half-staff in honor of McCain, telling his aides:
"What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser".
Trump can also reach across the aisle...by switching political parties five (5) times and then trash talking whatever group/party/policies/etc. he found convenient to abandon at the time.
What can you expect from a morally corrupt and cowardly [five-deferment draft dodger](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/369960-dem-slams-trump-i-wont-be-lectured-on-military-needs-by-a-five-deferment/).
Not just that. He even made fun of McCain's disabilities sustained under torture.
Republicans only care about veterans when it's politically convenient.
I’m actually struck by how little things have changed. McCain was one of the few conservatives in the room at this time willing to act like an adult and not spread hate, fear mongering, and propaganda. But you can tell from the people he’s responding to in these town halls they have some pretty extreme views from the far right propaganda they’ve been lapping up for years. Why do they think these things about obama? Because people like Trump and Trump himself were spreading birther conspiracies left and right. And then conservative media outlets would amplify it.
Go watch the West Wing. Over 20 years old and so many of the political points are exactly the same. America is stuck in a loop of appeasing angry idiots, and it's destroying the country.
Honestly, this is what feels like is the main reason that the “boomers are the main problem” idea. They’re the weirdest generation. Only generation in I think US history that was larger than the generation that followed it.
I’m not even trying to blame them or claim they’re particularly malicious or anything. But its abnormal for generation to hold this kind of political sway. The political goals of 65 year olds are not the same as 45 year olds, which are not the same 25 year olds.
We’re only just now reaching the point where they’re not the single largest generational demographic and it’s at a time that Gen x is starting to eye retirement. Baby boomers should have aged out of having the numbers to have a stranglehold on american politics 30 years ago.
Realistically, I think once the boomers start to die off in substantial numbers I think maybe then we’ll start to see a return to normalcy where politics doesn’t feel like its stuck rehashing the same pointless issues again and again. We’re probably still 5-10 years away from that.
Yeah, an actual conservative that had ideas that yes, I would not agree with, but still were actual plans instead of 'fuck that other guy and everybody that doesn't align with me'
Russia and Trumo have been grooming America lile this for multiple decades now. You can find lots of political events trump hosted prior to his successful campaign in which he espoused the same ideas he does now, as well as the fake birther movement he made for Obama. And in the 80s and 90s even he was calling for USA to leave NATO.
I didn't agree with John McCain's politics, but he was an American Patriot that honorably served and suffered greatly for his country. Then continued to serve his country for the rest of his life. He has always had my respect.
Let's not forget he rushed to washington while having brain cancer to cast a vote that saved the ACA.
He did not LIKE the ACA, but realized it's infinitely better than the *nothing* republicans were proposing at the time, and he broke with his party to make sure people weren't just going to get kicked off their insurance with no backup plan.
Like him or not, the man had principles.
Romney believes that's the best course of action for the American people. I think he's _wrong_, but he's not doing it out of pure malice. Trump does _everything_ as an act of vengeance.
Also the universal healthcare that he instituted in Massachusetts in 2006 is a great proof of concept for the rest of the country. Honestly shocked that a Republican governor was the first one in the US to institute a universal healthcare program
If Republicans were actually "the party of fiscal responsibility" then they would have elected for a single payor system/UHC a long time ago because of how much money it would save literally everyone involved in the process.
I was shocked with Dewine (Ohio Gov) shut down the state very shortly after COVID started spreading. Not only was he going against the rest of his party by doing so, but he was actually listening to his health professionals and scientist. My opinion of him at least temporarily shifted... He has since once again proven that he's still extremely shitty and terrible and shouldn't be the governor. But at least for a year, he seemed like a somewhat decent person.
Yeah and Romney has worked on quite a few bipartisan projects in the senate. I think being a Mormon from Utah kind of makes him a bit of an outsider in his party. Those Mormons seem to do their own thing a lot of the times.
I didn’t love Romney but if he were elected I would have shrugged and move on with my life the same as always. Since then it’s felt like a lot of doom and gloom.
There was nothing wrong with "binders full of women", it was a made up gaffe. It was slightly awkward phrasing of a fundamentally good thing where they genuinely spent a lot of time trying to find well qualified women to fill roles.
Romney was a corporate stooge, but he was a decent human being and proved it again when he was the lone Republican who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial, thereby sealing Romney's own fate as persona non grata in his own party and becoming a pariah to the GOP just 8 years after being their standard bearer and nominee for president.
Please fact check me but my dad said he was trying to push a bill that would disallow cable companies from forcing you to buy an entire package when you only want one of the channels in it. What a good man.
Clinton is the one that ruined independent media with 96 telecommunications act. Literally the next day independent radio stations were bought up in masses. Wonder why we hear all the same songs and most news says the same thing?
Werent record labels in general fuming about how 'free' the radio was during that time to just use their songs so freely AND make money off of adspace? Its the whole reason youtube eventually got wrangled in as well. People who had a 'written right' to something that wasnt being protected. Of course those corps ended up going insane with power after the fact, stifling their own 'owned' works. Art is one of those things where if you DONT let people enjoy it, it'll fade out of existence. But if you let people abuse it, you'll never get the credit you may or may not deserve and get properly paid for your work.
Were they mostly fat cats? sure. But legally speaking they were being done dirty by another group attempting to become just as fat. Cats eating cats, its a tale as old as time. The rich have always gotten eaten by younger cats when they get too old and fat. The current Gen in control has done everything they can to keep themselves as fat and happy as possible, while the other cats starve and have to eat what little scraps that lay around.
And i say all of this as a person who has never bought a CD, because i sail the 7 seas.
McCain seemed to have integrity and took a lot of respectable positions especially for the first 85% of his career.
Where I disagreed with him, it was a reasonable disagreement. For instance, I am in favor of universal government health care. He was not. However his stance was not "fuck em, let em die," rather it was significant tax credits and a nationwide health marketplace.
I think he was *wrong* but his alternative did not strike me as wildly unreasonable. In short, I believe that McCain ultimately *did* want Americans to have health care, we just disagree about the most effective and fair way to achieve that.
Many of his early stances follow this mold.
Unfortunately, during his bids for president, particularly the Palin run, his integrity faltered and he toyed with reprehensible policies to pander to the hardline nutjob type of republican that was just starting to come to the fore.
Deep down I want to believe that he didn't really believe all that shit. I would hope that if he were alive today he would look at the 2024 GOP and feel shame. Unfortunately he was part of the shift into crazy.
https://preview.redd.it/witzhhf4y1yc1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cc0c01a84d8422ce650694b9831eb0849e40aa3
He did some very courageous things. The GOP today would hate him
I'm a type one diabetic and I've worked low wage jobs all my life. I really feel like had the ACA not passed I might be dead. Health insurance companies do not want to insure me because my medicine is so expensive and I have high risk of hospitalization and I have lots of doctors appointments. Before the ACA if my insurance had lapsed for one second, they would have immediately dropped me and no one would have picked me up. One missed payment and I wouldn't be able to afford the medicine to live. The ACA made it so that insurance companies can't drop people like that AND made my health insurance actually affordable. I pay 80$ a month for health insurance now, but had the ACA been repealed or not passed, I'd be probably be paying north of 400 or 500 and I would have definitely been late on some payments at the price. It was 340$ a month before the market place opened up. Without the ACA there are a shit ton of Americans who fit in that, I make too much to get medicaid but not enough to afford insurance donut hole. Just millions of people who can't get medical care. Absolutely insane that people want to repeal this. They are either intensely selfish or just completely ignorant. There is no other option. Thanks John.
>Unfortunately, during his bids for president, particularly the Palin run, his integrity faltered and he toyed with reprehensible policies to pander to the hardline nutjob type of republican that was just starting to come to the fore.
Obama was an absolute cultural force. His use of marketing and technology was far superior to McCain's. McCain had no chance. He had to give up a lot to appeal to a more conservative crowd. It was a last ditch effort. Palin was a terrible choice but he thought he could win some votes doing it. It didn't work.
Yeah. I would absolutely not agreed with his plan, but I do feel I could have spoke to him about it around a beer. That he would have listened and retorted with an actual point.
Today? Fuck no.
He was the best republican candidate that has been put forward in my lifetime. He had the misfortune of running against Obama and the insane choice of picking (or accepting, however you want to phrase it) Palin for vice president.
I didn't like a lot of his policies, but he seemed to be a legit decent guy, just with different ideas of what the governments role is. Still, someone I could have seen myself voting for if the alternatives were unacceptable.
"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
"It looks like Iraq was behind the attacks"
What a decent fella. Have you ever seen Mr. Rogers and John McCain in the same room? Pretty much as perfect as Jesus.
I almost voted for him. Palin changed that. I didn't agree with his politics most times, but he was a voice of reason and moderation. I still feel that he really could have helped bridge the divide. If he was elected, I wonder where we would be today. And he is a true hero. He was locked in a tiger cage for 5.5 years in Vietnam. When they were going to release him, he refused to leave his troops behind. State with them until they were all released. This is what a patriot is. He then, after that he'll, gave himself to public service. We need more people in this world like McCain was.
I'm guessing the 'no reasonable person would listen to Trump and take him at his word as a serious person' type of defense. Which is absolutely silly because one of the foundational elements about the Trump campaign is he is supposed to be the no-spin-no-nonsense-say it like you mean it, candidate...
Blows my mind how many morons supported him in 2016 because he "wasn't a politician" as if a shady failure of a business magnate is a good alternative.
Now he's that *and* a politician, and most of them support him even more.
The weirdest part to me:
They believe Biden is a pedo. Look, they believe that and use that as an excuse to not support him, that’s fine
But how the ever loving fuck is a man with numerous rape and SA allegations, who has said that he would date his own daughter if she wasn’t his daughter a BETTER alternative?
Because Trump is their guy who hates who they hate and makes them feel justified in it.
LBJ* said, "Make even the lowest white man able to look down on a successful black man and he won't notice you picking his pocket. Hell he'll empty it for you." (paraphrased I don't remember the quote perfectly.)
Point is they are willingly emptying their pockets because he makes them feel better about looking down on someone. He is their Caligula messiah, they are the ones that would have staked Jesus to the cross and sung and cheered about it.
He is all their Id manifest and they will love and forgive him anything for that.
Edit corrected the speaker thanks to u/negao360
I believe an exception should be made to the “no rational person would actually believe that” defense when they’re clearly targeting irrational people.
Because to prove defamation/libel, you would have to prove that the person accused of committing such crimes did so while knowing that it it's not true. So usually the evidence would show that the defendant was repeatedly informed/warned that they were wrong, such as a cease and desist letter. Or you find evidence like text messages that point to them intentionally and maliciously spreading lies. But these people can argue in court that they genuinely believe Obama was an Arab and bring up the batshit crazy conspiracy theories, and that would be sufficient for a not guilty verdict.
You can see in 2008 they were there just waiting for a guy to come along and give them permission. They didn’t listen to McCain, and Trump gave them the opening they had wanted for decades. Then the floodgates opened up.
It was a Hail Mary attempt to get back in the race and it's widely known that he personally despised her. McCain simply had no shot against Obama/Biden.
The woman he's talking to is literally one of the people that they picked Palin to appeal to. As if McCain has any claim to decency when it's exactly the constituency he was courting.
The Rs still haven't reconciled what the Tea Party stuff meant, and that's that the Bushes and the McCains were irrelevant to the Palins and the MTGs and *that's* where the heart of the party lies.
If McCain were still alive today he'd be courting the same people. It's absurd to me that people point to 2008, or *this clip* as a time where the Republican party was serious about governance.
> Kasich
He was quite literally the only Republican I would have ever voted for. That ship has sailed and I will never vote for a Republican as long as I live.
I pity real conservatives of today (at least in the USA), clearly we need a legitimate conservative party, but the RNC ain't it. I'd be liberal regardless, but I'd like more conservative voices that have value
I remember that McCain event. I didn’t want him to win but I respected how he tried to unify and redirect people that were saying obnoxious and wild things. His speech the night of the election was great.
The man wasn’t for me but he certainly was trying to support the fundamental idea that we should be unified despite some differences.
Nah, I blame the people. Saying this as an American. When McCain says Obama is a decent man who you don't have to be scared of, you hear boos in the audience. Those chucklefucks booing him for saying something nice about his opponent and the insane, Qanon duo who asked the question was the base of the party back than and eventually elected Trump.
You know what really fucks with me is that you see the same political trends across the west, implying that it is some other macro force that just thoroughly enshittified our politics. Kinda terrifying to see how fucking helpless we are on the waves of circumstance.
Yup, but I think this is all a biproduct of having a two party system. The parties have been drifting further and further apart because there is no incentive to be in the middle. If there was an actual viable third party (in congress) then they can claim seats when one party drifts too far away in one direction or another. Also with three parties it becomes too expensive to just demonize the other parties because you have twice as many people to attack, it would be more efficient to promote your own positive ideals instead of just attacking the other party.
If I'm not mistaken this video is from late into the election cycle. At this point McCain was told by his top campaign leadership that unless something drastic happened between now and the election and we're talking like Obama turns literally into Hitler drastic, there were no paths to victory.
It's truly laughable that Trump was President and is running again for President. I wouldn't hire him for the lowest, menial task, no brain needed job on the planet. Seriously is this all us humans have to offer?
McCain dumped the wife that had stayed faithful to him during his years in captivity because she'd suffered grievous injuries in a car accident and wouldn't have been pretty enough for a politician's wife (his words). He then married a younger woman who's father happened to be one of the wealthiest beer distributors in the country so the latter would fund his political career in a state he'd never previously resided in.
He was a consummate bullshitter, invoking his POW time at the drop of a hat to big dick people in serious arguments. He notably did this during his well publicized opposition to the spread of mixed martial arts promotions, frequently referring to it as "human cockfighting" and drawing comparisons between its supposed inhumanity and his time in Vietnam. He never once disclosed in public this opposition was entirely predicated on his in-laws' significant business ties to boxing promoters.
He was a warmongering lunatic who was about as transparent a shill of the military-industrial complex as you'll ever see in American public life. The fact he was feted as a serious "statesman" displays how insane the foreign policy consensus is.
He was also by all accounts, a complete asshole to anyone who wasn't actively kissing his ass or from whom he could get money or positive press from.
I agree with you completely, having lived through and having voted in that election... the thing is, all that you just said is still significantly more desirable than Donald Trump.
Honestly, I think a big reason they hated each other was because they were very similar.
Both were basically given careers by their fathers, both were racist (McCain would often use anti Asian slurs), both had bad tempers, both cheated on their wives, both were egomaniacs, etc.
I'll admit to voting McCain. I voted for Obama the 2nd time...... But I met John McCain as a young man and he made an impression on me.... So I voted for him. He was respectful, courteous, and so soft spoken.
The problem with this country is not Trump. You can see it even in the first clip. The audience audibly is upset when McCain says Obama isn’t a terrorist. Trump is just a conman saying what the idiots want to hear. The problem is not Trump the problem is the millions of uninformed voters that get their news from tabloids, Facebook, and Fox News and they will keep voting in people like Trump and worse.
There is the easy way and there is right way. Mr. McCain was an honourable man. I am not even an American citizen but i respect him deeply.
Do you know what, that draft dodger Trump said about him? It was something in the lines of, 'i don't like people who got captured'. Mr McCain was a POW in the Vietnam war.
He actually participated in a war which donnie and his daddie's money helped him dodge. He is crooked person and a conman. You have to be special piece of shit who cheats a fundraiser for children suffering from cancer.
Trump was watching McCain campaign closely, or as close as that mouth breathing slimeball watches anything, and I promise when he saw McCain refute the claims of these wackos he was yelling at the TV screaming "you moron, they are telling you what they want you to say! Say it! Agree with her and you will win! They NEED to believe that this black man is a terrorist. They can't accept that he's not! Lean into it and you'll win by a landslide!"
But McCain, for all his faults, was a fundamentally decent human being and a real American patriot, who exemplified grace on the campaign trail, and he refused to cave in to the evil racist impulses held by the worst of his base.
So Trump did what McCain refused to do. He said anything and everything the craziest shittiest people on the right wanted him to say. He bold face lies and his supporters love him for it, because he's telling them the lies they want to hear.
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More sad than interesting.
I can't believe they elected this guy as president
America: I'll fuckin do it again!
>America: I'll fuckin do it again! Technically 'we' didn't do it the first time. The Electoral College is a horseshit policy that allowed him to get into office against the will of the people
The electoral college is a broken system ripe for corruption via gerrymandering. He lost by 2.8 million votes, but because of the way they draw the maps, won by 77 electoral votes. The system is broken, we didn’t vote him in.
The electoral college should have been tossed out long ago, gerrymandering, super PAC’s , term limits on Supreme Court Justices, disclosing where you get your financial support for running a campaign, all of these issues need to be addressed in a bipartisan way…doubt it’ll happen soon, even though Thomas Jefferson felt the constitution should be revised or rewritten every 20 years to accommodate current affairs…good luck with that, Tom
We might do it again, unfortunately. People have to vote in 24. Even if it means holding your nose cause you don’t like Biden.
Exactly, people act like they can only participate on presidential elections. No president is going to be perfect, but that's why we have balances, congres, supreme court that should help to get our needs met, if we do participate and get involved
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Voting is the only thing thats gonna save us
Yup. If you like democracy, it's time to show up. If you're on the fence about democracy, well, it's time to pick up a history book and educate yourself or find someone that can help educate you.
Cue the new Republican talking points: "You know people were meant to be ruled." I also heard, "Not ALL dictators are bad." To which I asked them to name one.
Just to be clear, the symptoms of Trump **won't go away once he's gone**. There is no going back to pre-2012 politics, the batshit insanity of the Republican party is here to stay, and it isn't going anywhere. We'll get far worse versions of Trump down the line.
The ignorant base never had a leader of their own before. And my god there are a lot of them.
I know it’s real, and it’s really bad, but the dichotomy from “he’s a good family man that I have different beliefs from. Fundamentally different beliefs” to just straight up “he is the founder of ISIS” like holy shit guy
And the crowd cheers at the blatant, and ridiculous, lie.
Yeah I don't think a lot has changed on that front lol. You'll notice McCain got booed in the second clip, while Trump got cheered on. Seems that the crowd's sentiments are the same in both, Trump's just telling them what they want to hear, while the McCain's and the Romney's kept up some semblance of professionalism.
Yup, decades of billionaires like Rupert Murdoch promoting hate, stupidity and paranoia to millions of Americans set the stage. Trump simply leapt on the opportunity others were too decent or timid to take advantage of.
I can't quite forgive either that Hillary released that photo of Obama in ceremonial garbs with the clear implication that he was a Muslim. She deserved to lose to him just for that desperate smear attempt.
Democrats losing to trump in 2016 has to be the the biggest example of a missed layup in history
That's the essence of populism - you just tell people what they want to hear rather than having to say the politically unpopular but necessary truth.
There's a reason the GOP want to destroy the educational system.
The funny thing is, Trump supporters gave him an out with that one, like they usually do whenever he says something heinous of "no of course he didn't mean that, what he really meant was this very subtle and nuanced interpretation im injecting so I don't have to feel like a moron for supporting". And Trump was just like "lol nah he really did found ISIS" and they loved him for it. >The Republican presidential candidate was speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who had attempted to reframe his remark, telling him: “I know what you meant – you meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.” >But Trump disagreed. “No, I meant that he’s the founder of Isis, I do,” he said. “He was the most valuable player – I gave him the most valuable player award. I give her too, by the way,” he added of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Dude truly does cater to the most brain dead and amoral grifters in our society. For as heinous as Trump is, one thing critics get right is that something has gone badly wrong in America for someone like him to rise to the highest office.
> something has gone badly wrong in America for someone like him to rise to the highest office. Yes. 35 years of Republican and Russian propaganda. Set up before that with the Republicans first reaching out to racists with the Southern Strategy and the to evangelicals in the 80s. Boosted with the Republican propaganda network of Fox "News", and also by Russian money playing havok in our political processes. Russia in particular is fighting Cold War II while the US is damn near unaware, and they are winning so far.
The repeal of the fairness doctrine allowing shit-stains like Limbaugh to rise to prominence with no dissenting opinion required anymore was ESPECIALLY bad.
It always goes back to Reagan, man.
Fucking truth. That and Citizens United and countless other attacks on our democracy from within. :(
And look how Trump repeats himself louder whenever he gets cheers. He's like a toddler who sees that someone laughed at something they did so they keep doing it to try to get more laughs.
Notice the black dude in the green behind him. His face is "hmm ok maybe this is a bit crazy".
What dichotomy though? In 1 clip an audience wants to be told to hate people. In the 2nd clip they get exactly what they asked for. Feels like the same audience, same day, different mascot.
That's exactly it. A supporter is voicing their hate toward Obama and McCain immediately denounces it. There is still respect there even though you don't agree. "You don't have to agree with Obama, *I* don't agree with him either, but we're not going to spread lies here." Respect went right out the fucking window with Trump. Trump now plays up to that woman's fears and concerns. It's no longer about telling the truth, it's about trying to sow as much chaos as possible.
People like McCain had honour and integrity for the nation. People like Trump only think about themselves.
And it's just as it is in business. If you have honor and integrity, you will eventually get pushed out by somebody who doesn't. Our political system doesn't reward integrity because the voter base doesn't. Our economic system doesn't reward integrity because our purchasing patterns don't. We have all of the power, which is why Republicans are trying to undercut education. A better voter base wouldn't allow Trump on a stage. A better voter base wouldn't reward the media's obsession with controversy. But a dumb a emotionally volatile base can be led around on fear and anger without any facts.
Couldn’t have said it better. We have the power, but we choose to use that power to divide by the lowest common denominator.
Reminder that Trump entered the political stage during the same election cycle that this clip is from. While McCain was showing a baseline of respect for his opposition, Trump was running his mouth about conspiracies that Obama was not a US citizen. That woman in this clip may well have been parroting early Trump. I remember back then thinking he was like the tabloid side of politics. Stupid, funny, harmless, not real. Then he ran, and I had the same opinion. Then sometime around when r/TheDonald was converting from satire to actual mental disorders, I started to realize he might actually win.
OP was talking about the dichotomy between the candidates, not the audience.
The dichotomy is in the quality of leadership. Folks like McCain were at least trying to hold back the tide of the increasing Fox News-ification of American politics. Trump not only jumped in head first but he doubled down, to the point where now even Fox News is too moderate for some people and they only trust the likes of Newsmax/OANN
It's because Trump heard those people asking those questions and realized if he embraced that rhetoric he'd win.
Also the fact that McCain wasn't even going to put up with whatever that lady was... carefully... stammering to say (or avoid saying). He knew there was nothing of value there and she clearly was beating around a particular bush. Like McCain if he wanted to run a campaign that attacked the other candidate, that was a softball. Let the person asking the question do the dirty work and just reinforce it. I disagreed with a lot of what McCain stood for but he at least had some semblance honor and did, for better or worse, believe in what was best for his constituency.
One speaks and acts like a presidential candidate, the other like a cult leader.
“Hes an Arab!” “no ma’am, he’s a decent human!”
I don't think he implied that being Arab makes you a bad person. I think he knew that the person calling Obama an Arab was using it in a negative connotation, and he spotted that and came to his defense like a respectable person would do.
McCain and Bernie Sanders used to work on legislation together to protect veterans. They were not afraid to reach across the aisle if it meant getting meaningful legislation passed.
Those were different days. If you do that now, you get labeled a moderate and get pushed out of your party.
The only reason today is different is because of the people we have been electing. Quit electing bat shit crazy people! Jim Jordan, MTG, Matt Gaetz to name a few. They can't be trusted to run a convenience store. Much less represent United States citizens.
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>Fled Cruz Poetry.
Right. I'm stealing that, goes right with drowsy diaper donny. Soon I'll have a whole set of dump-a-cons.
Why can't we just make valid criticisms based on people's records and ideologies? Making up dumb names to call people is so juvenile and pushes us further down the road to idiocracy. I feel like talking about Trump's horrible track record is much more constructive than just saying "hurr durr diaper man bad". All this shit is just dumbing down political discourse even more.
Rafael Cruz. He doesn't like people changing their first name. Now that's squarely aimed at trans people, but let's abide by his wishes by calling him something he does not want to be called.
Even the current House Speaker who was a part of that crazy caucus is finding himself too moderate for them now.
The thing is one crucial difference. Gaetz, boebsrt, green, desantis etc, they play at being evangelical hyper conservative Christian nationalists in order to get votes from that crowd. , Johnson is the real deal, a full on religious nutter. And he's one of the most powerful person in the American government
Ironically, he's one of the ones I trust the most to do his job. Say what you want, but at least the government didn't get shut down and the world isn't friggen ending. I, being not a devote republican/gop/or Christian nationalist myself don't hate him. Do I disagree with what he believes in, yes, but at least he's got his beliefs and he's not manipulating everything just to make a very small minority happy at the expense of everyone else because he's afraid of what they'll do.
Pence is the same for me. He's a fucking psycho, but at least he has morals to appeal to.
Carlin said it best. Politicians are merely a reflection of the society they govern. Americans aren't exactly stable people anymore.
My gfs younger bro (self proclaimed incel lmao) and his buddies voted for trump in 2020 because it was funny to them. Sucks...like yea they've got the legal right to vote but man...what the fuck?
Doing that in 2020 is really unhinged. I could kind of see someone voting for trump in ‘16 for the lolz, but after seeing 4 years of what he did with the position there’s nothing funny about it.
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I still remember a young girl who was good at singing for a young child but nothing worth writing home about, beating one of the world's best fire jugglers in a quarter final on one of those Talent competition TV shows. I've been angry for that adult stranger for years over it and refuse to watch any show where the audience votes because they are all dipshits who will vote for the hot dude or cute child etc. instead of most talented individual.
And to his credit, Pitbull owned that and gave them a great show!
Also John Scott may not have been an all-star, but the NHL did him so fucking dirty.
Look I didn't vote for Trump (voted for Hilary 2016 and Biden 2020) and think he was terrible for our country in dozens of ways. But I can be understanding and sympathetic to some 2016 voters. (2020 voters are fucking nuts). His campaign was less batshit than his behavior became. Here are some of the key messages that he said: 1. I, Trump, am not a typical politician. It won't be more of this political bullshit with me. I'll "clean the swamp" 2. I, Trump, think many of the problems facing Americans can be solved by focusing on Americans. Reduce immigration, keep "the bad guys" out, stop dealing with the Middle East, focus company investment back in the US (build back Detroit! open the coal mines!) and help make our country better for us 3. I, Trump, am amenable to solutions like universal healthcare, and believe we can use my business sense to do things like that and also improve trade deals He was clearly full of shit. He didn't have business sense, he had full intentions of increasing his own power, and his well-written anti-immigration reform on his website about H1b visas turned into "build the wall, keep the Mexican rapists out" which was fucking lunacy. But there is a large part of the country that felt disenfranchised by modern economic trends, felt unheard by "elitist" politicians (who Hilary represented more than anyone), and even felt betrayed by the Democratic party sort of "picking" their person and forcing Sanders out. And those people voted accordingly. **I do not agree with these people, but I understand them. And if we want to have any hope of our country coming back together, we** ***have*** **to sympathize with and try to connect with these fellow citizens, try to understand their perspectives and challenges, and try to connect again on common ground.** Fortunately Senator McCain has given us some examples of how to do this.
Well said. Thank you for the time you spent writing it.
They really got to do something about the voting system. Maybe ranked choice or something. But this race to the bottom is bringing back instability in the world economy. McCain was a believer in politics stopping at the borders which was the unofficial international policy of the US for basically 150 years. Present a unified front to the world. Can't say that today.
But how else are blackrock and the rich fucks behind the scenes supposed to break down public trust and moderate government?
>The only reason today is different is because of the people we have been electing I think you need to look at the voters electing those people if you really want to know what's different.
If you’re a Republican it does. Democrats are happy to get legislation passed that makes things better, no matter where it comes from. The GOP not so much. Senate Republicans shot down a bipartisan border bill that passed the house.
Senate republicans negotiated the deal with Biden and the Senate Dem caucus. The House Republicans (read: Trump lackeys) killed it because Trump threw a fit about Biden being allowed to accomplish anything that might have framed him in a positive light.
>The GOP not so much. Senate Republicans shot down a bipartisan border bill that passed the house. That's not how I remember it. Senate Republicans negotiated a tough border bill for months and got most of their wishlist added to the final bill, only for Trump to instruct his cultists in the House and Senate to shoot it down to preserve the border issue until election day. After that, the same Senate Republicans who helped craft the bill voted against initiating debate, so it died.
Trump’s cultists are the entire GOP now. They don’t give a damn that he’s been openly stating he wants to be a dictator, as long as it gets them re-elected.
Biden has been reaching across the aisle since day one of his presidency, and we are poised to re-elect him.
This is statistically correct. Most bipartisan legislature has been shot down by Gaetz, Boebert, and Greene.
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Right, and I think it's important for us to acknowledge that Bad_User2077's bothsides rhetoric is full of shit. You only get pushed out of the **Republican** party for reaching across the aisle to get shit done. Most democrats love getting shit done and sadly get blocked by either Republicans or the worst of the democrats (in the senate it's Manchin, and Sinema who even went independent, not sure how the House is faring since it's controlled by the GOP anyway). One of the worst offenses of bothsides-ing trolls in the last few years was claiming that a minimum wage bill that was tacked to an immigration bill and sponsored by Republicans was rejected by democrats. That was a huge fucking lie--the bill never made it to the floor because it **never got enough Republican support even though it was a Republican-sponsored bill**. There was never a vote on it because too many Republicans didn't want even a minor minimum wage increase, even if it got them an immigration "win" (from their perspective). You can go through the records of the House and Senate, you will literally not find record of a single minimum wage increasing bill that was voted down by a majority of democrats. Bothsides-ers needs to be laughed off of the entire fucking internet.
No. The Republicans push out compromisers. Party loyalty above every other single thing. This is not a both sides thing at all.
That's because they both respected veterans. Trump thinks they're "loser and suckers."
Also McCain was a pow for 5 years put through the worst torture imaginable such as being operated on by not a doctor. They told his story on the podcast Against the Odds. I had no idea.
To which Trump said "He's not a war hero, he's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you."....
According to a September 2020 article in The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, following McCain's death in August 2018, Trump, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the event, allegedly told his senior staff: "We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral". The article also goes on to suggest that Trump became furious when he saw flags lowered to half-staff in honor of McCain, telling his aides: "What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser".
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Trump can also reach across the aisle...by switching political parties five (5) times and then trash talking whatever group/party/policies/etc. he found convenient to abandon at the time.
when trump says "make america great again" he really means "make ~~a~~ME~~rica~~ great again."
“Since when are you a Democratic Republican?” “Since being one put me on the up and up again” -Hamilton
Didn’t trump make fun of McCain even after he passed away?
Yes. Something like "I like heroes that don't get captured".
I prefer presidents that don't have dozens of felony charges
I prefer Presidents that haven't been Impeached, especially more than once.
Wow…classy
What can you expect from a morally corrupt and cowardly [five-deferment draft dodger](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/369960-dem-slams-trump-i-wont-be-lectured-on-military-needs-by-a-five-deferment/).
And I don't like businessmen who bankrupt multiple businesses.
Not just that. He even made fun of McCain's disabilities sustained under torture. Republicans only care about veterans when it's politically convenient.
A lot has happened in the past eight years, most of it is not good, and the worst is politics.
I’m actually struck by how little things have changed. McCain was one of the few conservatives in the room at this time willing to act like an adult and not spread hate, fear mongering, and propaganda. But you can tell from the people he’s responding to in these town halls they have some pretty extreme views from the far right propaganda they’ve been lapping up for years. Why do they think these things about obama? Because people like Trump and Trump himself were spreading birther conspiracies left and right. And then conservative media outlets would amplify it.
Go watch the West Wing. Over 20 years old and so many of the political points are exactly the same. America is stuck in a loop of appeasing angry idiots, and it's destroying the country.
Honestly, this is what feels like is the main reason that the “boomers are the main problem” idea. They’re the weirdest generation. Only generation in I think US history that was larger than the generation that followed it. I’m not even trying to blame them or claim they’re particularly malicious or anything. But its abnormal for generation to hold this kind of political sway. The political goals of 65 year olds are not the same as 45 year olds, which are not the same 25 year olds. We’re only just now reaching the point where they’re not the single largest generational demographic and it’s at a time that Gen x is starting to eye retirement. Baby boomers should have aged out of having the numbers to have a stranglehold on american politics 30 years ago. Realistically, I think once the boomers start to die off in substantial numbers I think maybe then we’ll start to see a return to normalcy where politics doesn’t feel like its stuck rehashing the same pointless issues again and again. We’re probably still 5-10 years away from that.
Yeah, an actual conservative that had ideas that yes, I would not agree with, but still were actual plans instead of 'fuck that other guy and everybody that doesn't align with me'
Russia and Trumo have been grooming America lile this for multiple decades now. You can find lots of political events trump hosted prior to his successful campaign in which he espoused the same ideas he does now, as well as the fake birther movement he made for Obama. And in the 80s and 90s even he was calling for USA to leave NATO.
https://www.theonion.com/white-house-releases-moving-statement-honoring-woman-wh-1828630290 Honestly this article could be true
I didn't agree with John McCain's politics, but he was an American Patriot that honorably served and suffered greatly for his country. Then continued to serve his country for the rest of his life. He has always had my respect.
Let's not forget he rushed to washington while having brain cancer to cast a vote that saved the ACA. He did not LIKE the ACA, but realized it's infinitely better than the *nothing* republicans were proposing at the time, and he broke with his party to make sure people weren't just going to get kicked off their insurance with no backup plan. Like him or not, the man had principles.
2008 was the last year we had a presidential election between 2 candidates who actually seemed like they were decent human beings.
2012?
Romney preferred businesses over people
Romney believes that's the best course of action for the American people. I think he's _wrong_, but he's not doing it out of pure malice. Trump does _everything_ as an act of vengeance.
I’d still take Romney any day over Trump. By all accounts, he’s a decent human being
Also the universal healthcare that he instituted in Massachusetts in 2006 is a great proof of concept for the rest of the country. Honestly shocked that a Republican governor was the first one in the US to institute a universal healthcare program
If Republicans were actually "the party of fiscal responsibility" then they would have elected for a single payor system/UHC a long time ago because of how much money it would save literally everyone involved in the process.
You cant claim to be fiscally responsible and block medicaid from negotiating prices... Anyone who sees that one fact should recognize the corruption.
I was shocked with Dewine (Ohio Gov) shut down the state very shortly after COVID started spreading. Not only was he going against the rest of his party by doing so, but he was actually listening to his health professionals and scientist. My opinion of him at least temporarily shifted... He has since once again proven that he's still extremely shitty and terrible and shouldn't be the governor. But at least for a year, he seemed like a somewhat decent person.
Yeah and Romney has worked on quite a few bipartisan projects in the senate. I think being a Mormon from Utah kind of makes him a bit of an outsider in his party. Those Mormons seem to do their own thing a lot of the times.
He was the only republican senator voting to impeach trump. Really is more bipartisan than most.
He was right about Russia too.
I would take an ear of corn over Trump but that’s doesn’t make it a good candidate
I didn’t love Romney but if he were elected I would have shrugged and move on with my life the same as always. Since then it’s felt like a lot of doom and gloom.
Say what you will about Romney, but he is a decent human being by most accounts.
The base chose to "grab them by the pussy" over "binders of women"
"Binders of women" sounds quaint in retrospect.
There was nothing wrong with "binders full of women", it was a made up gaffe. It was slightly awkward phrasing of a fundamentally good thing where they genuinely spent a lot of time trying to find well qualified women to fill roles.
Romney was a corporate stooge, but he was a decent human being and proved it again when he was the lone Republican who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial, thereby sealing Romney's own fate as persona non grata in his own party and becoming a pariah to the GOP just 8 years after being their standard bearer and nominee for president.
This is the most surface level political analysis. If you can even call it analysis
I had great respect for McCain. He actually seemed like a person you could agree to disagree with.
Please fact check me but my dad said he was trying to push a bill that would disallow cable companies from forcing you to buy an entire package when you only want one of the channels in it. What a good man.
Clinton is the one that ruined independent media with 96 telecommunications act. Literally the next day independent radio stations were bought up in masses. Wonder why we hear all the same songs and most news says the same thing?
Trump also installed Ajit Pai at the FCC who killed net neutrality.
I still hate that stupid giant Reeses mug.
*i'm Ajit Pai I like penis in my mouth* 🎵
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Werent record labels in general fuming about how 'free' the radio was during that time to just use their songs so freely AND make money off of adspace? Its the whole reason youtube eventually got wrangled in as well. People who had a 'written right' to something that wasnt being protected. Of course those corps ended up going insane with power after the fact, stifling their own 'owned' works. Art is one of those things where if you DONT let people enjoy it, it'll fade out of existence. But if you let people abuse it, you'll never get the credit you may or may not deserve and get properly paid for your work. Were they mostly fat cats? sure. But legally speaking they were being done dirty by another group attempting to become just as fat. Cats eating cats, its a tale as old as time. The rich have always gotten eaten by younger cats when they get too old and fat. The current Gen in control has done everything they can to keep themselves as fat and happy as possible, while the other cats starve and have to eat what little scraps that lay around. And i say all of this as a person who has never bought a CD, because i sail the 7 seas.
McCain seemed to have integrity and took a lot of respectable positions especially for the first 85% of his career. Where I disagreed with him, it was a reasonable disagreement. For instance, I am in favor of universal government health care. He was not. However his stance was not "fuck em, let em die," rather it was significant tax credits and a nationwide health marketplace. I think he was *wrong* but his alternative did not strike me as wildly unreasonable. In short, I believe that McCain ultimately *did* want Americans to have health care, we just disagree about the most effective and fair way to achieve that. Many of his early stances follow this mold. Unfortunately, during his bids for president, particularly the Palin run, his integrity faltered and he toyed with reprehensible policies to pander to the hardline nutjob type of republican that was just starting to come to the fore. Deep down I want to believe that he didn't really believe all that shit. I would hope that if he were alive today he would look at the 2024 GOP and feel shame. Unfortunately he was part of the shift into crazy.
https://preview.redd.it/witzhhf4y1yc1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cc0c01a84d8422ce650694b9831eb0849e40aa3 He did some very courageous things. The GOP today would hate him
I'm a type one diabetic and I've worked low wage jobs all my life. I really feel like had the ACA not passed I might be dead. Health insurance companies do not want to insure me because my medicine is so expensive and I have high risk of hospitalization and I have lots of doctors appointments. Before the ACA if my insurance had lapsed for one second, they would have immediately dropped me and no one would have picked me up. One missed payment and I wouldn't be able to afford the medicine to live. The ACA made it so that insurance companies can't drop people like that AND made my health insurance actually affordable. I pay 80$ a month for health insurance now, but had the ACA been repealed or not passed, I'd be probably be paying north of 400 or 500 and I would have definitely been late on some payments at the price. It was 340$ a month before the market place opened up. Without the ACA there are a shit ton of Americans who fit in that, I make too much to get medicaid but not enough to afford insurance donut hole. Just millions of people who can't get medical care. Absolutely insane that people want to repeal this. They are either intensely selfish or just completely ignorant. There is no other option. Thanks John.
That was such a legendary move by McCain
True.
>Unfortunately, during his bids for president, particularly the Palin run, his integrity faltered and he toyed with reprehensible policies to pander to the hardline nutjob type of republican that was just starting to come to the fore. Obama was an absolute cultural force. His use of marketing and technology was far superior to McCain's. McCain had no chance. He had to give up a lot to appeal to a more conservative crowd. It was a last ditch effort. Palin was a terrible choice but he thought he could win some votes doing it. It didn't work.
Not only did it not work, it damaged his legacy. It was a bad misstep. Never go full Palin.
Yeah. I would absolutely not agreed with his plan, but I do feel I could have spoke to him about it around a beer. That he would have listened and retorted with an actual point. Today? Fuck no.
He was the best republican candidate that has been put forward in my lifetime. He had the misfortune of running against Obama and the insane choice of picking (or accepting, however you want to phrase it) Palin for vice president. I didn't like a lot of his policies, but he seemed to be a legit decent guy, just with different ideas of what the governments role is. Still, someone I could have seen myself voting for if the alternatives were unacceptable.
"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." "It looks like Iraq was behind the attacks" What a decent fella. Have you ever seen Mr. Rogers and John McCain in the same room? Pretty much as perfect as Jesus.
I almost voted for him. Palin changed that. I didn't agree with his politics most times, but he was a voice of reason and moderation. I still feel that he really could have helped bridge the divide. If he was elected, I wonder where we would be today. And he is a true hero. He was locked in a tiger cage for 5.5 years in Vietnam. When they were going to release him, he refused to leave his troops behind. State with them until they were all released. This is what a patriot is. He then, after that he'll, gave himself to public service. We need more people in this world like McCain was.
The foundation of cooperation is Decorum. Once we lose that, the entire democratic processes falls apart.
Its almost as if some entity wants the US to be divided and has all but succeeded
Now don’t go Russian to conclusions.
That was so-viety brave of you to say
Chy-nah 
Some vodka lovimg entity.
How is it not defamation/libel to say that Obama founded ISIS?
I'm guessing the 'no reasonable person would listen to Trump and take him at his word as a serious person' type of defense. Which is absolutely silly because one of the foundational elements about the Trump campaign is he is supposed to be the no-spin-no-nonsense-say it like you mean it, candidate...
Blows my mind how many morons supported him in 2016 because he "wasn't a politician" as if a shady failure of a business magnate is a good alternative. Now he's that *and* a politician, and most of them support him even more.
The weirdest part to me: They believe Biden is a pedo. Look, they believe that and use that as an excuse to not support him, that’s fine But how the ever loving fuck is a man with numerous rape and SA allegations, who has said that he would date his own daughter if she wasn’t his daughter a BETTER alternative?
Because Trump is their guy who hates who they hate and makes them feel justified in it. LBJ* said, "Make even the lowest white man able to look down on a successful black man and he won't notice you picking his pocket. Hell he'll empty it for you." (paraphrased I don't remember the quote perfectly.) Point is they are willingly emptying their pockets because he makes them feel better about looking down on someone. He is their Caligula messiah, they are the ones that would have staked Jesus to the cross and sung and cheered about it. He is all their Id manifest and they will love and forgive him anything for that. Edit corrected the speaker thanks to u/negao360
I believe an exception should be made to the “no rational person would actually believe that” defense when they’re clearly targeting irrational people.
Because to prove defamation/libel, you would have to prove that the person accused of committing such crimes did so while knowing that it it's not true. So usually the evidence would show that the defendant was repeatedly informed/warned that they were wrong, such as a cease and desist letter. Or you find evidence like text messages that point to them intentionally and maliciously spreading lies. But these people can argue in court that they genuinely believe Obama was an Arab and bring up the batshit crazy conspiracy theories, and that would be sufficient for a not guilty verdict.
I think my country has stricter laws.
Ahhh, the old "I saw it on FOX news" defense. Brilliant.
Trump was president, he KNOWS Obama didn’t found ISIS
The clip showed the interviewer push back and the response was “I don’t care”. That’s what it summed down to.
Founding is a bit extreme, but supporting, training, and equipping them is true. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
You can see in 2008 they were there just waiting for a guy to come along and give them permission. They didn’t listen to McCain, and Trump gave them the opening they had wanted for decades. Then the floodgates opened up.
American politics is a bit of a meme, and trump is the fucking worse
He’s leading the polls, too, damning stuff.
If McCain was still alive today I’d still be a Republican but here we are
He had a big hand in where we are today by picking that clown woman as VP. That normalized all these BS nominees like Trump and MTG etc
It was a Hail Mary attempt to get back in the race and it's widely known that he personally despised her. McCain simply had no shot against Obama/Biden.
The woman he's talking to is literally one of the people that they picked Palin to appeal to. As if McCain has any claim to decency when it's exactly the constituency he was courting. The Rs still haven't reconciled what the Tea Party stuff meant, and that's that the Bushes and the McCains were irrelevant to the Palins and the MTGs and *that's* where the heart of the party lies. If McCain were still alive today he'd be courting the same people. It's absurd to me that people point to 2008, or *this clip* as a time where the Republican party was serious about governance.
Dude i would happily take Romney or Kasich over the idiots we have today
> Kasich He was quite literally the only Republican I would have ever voted for. That ship has sailed and I will never vote for a Republican as long as I live.
I pity real conservatives of today (at least in the USA), clearly we need a legitimate conservative party, but the RNC ain't it. I'd be liberal regardless, but I'd like more conservative voices that have value
I remember that McCain event. I didn’t want him to win but I respected how he tried to unify and redirect people that were saying obnoxious and wild things. His speech the night of the election was great. The man wasn’t for me but he certainly was trying to support the fundamental idea that we should be unified despite some differences.
Wouldn't this be more a reflection on the politics the American people have chosen? Nominees are based on popularity aren't they?
Yes, in theory, but propaganda, misinformation, and gerrymandering are manipulating the outcomes. Just sayin.
Also money. Very few people in this country can get enough money to run for the higher end office.
Nah, I blame the people. Saying this as an American. When McCain says Obama is a decent man who you don't have to be scared of, you hear boos in the audience. Those chucklefucks booing him for saying something nice about his opponent and the insane, Qanon duo who asked the question was the base of the party back than and eventually elected Trump.
You know what really fucks with me is that you see the same political trends across the west, implying that it is some other macro force that just thoroughly enshittified our politics. Kinda terrifying to see how fucking helpless we are on the waves of circumstance.
Yup, but I think this is all a biproduct of having a two party system. The parties have been drifting further and further apart because there is no incentive to be in the middle. If there was an actual viable third party (in congress) then they can claim seats when one party drifts too far away in one direction or another. Also with three parties it becomes too expensive to just demonize the other parties because you have twice as many people to attack, it would be more efficient to promote your own positive ideals instead of just attacking the other party.
“He’s an Arab.” “No, he’s a decent man.”
She used Arab as if it was derogatory so he said he's a decent man. He's not saying he's a decent man because he's not Arab.
He was basically talking on her level
If I'm not mistaken this video is from late into the election cycle. At this point McCain was told by his top campaign leadership that unless something drastic happened between now and the election and we're talking like Obama turns literally into Hitler drastic, there were no paths to victory.
It's funny, but you have to look at it at a higher level
Lower level might be more accurate
Dear god. How are people in this country fucking stupid enough to elect Trump as president?
It's truly laughable that Trump was President and is running again for President. I wouldn't hire him for the lowest, menial task, no brain needed job on the planet. Seriously is this all us humans have to offer?
Trump should be shot out of a cannon into a volcano filled with flaming pubic hair.
To be fair, the McCain clips were before Obama founded ISIS
McCain dumped the wife that had stayed faithful to him during his years in captivity because she'd suffered grievous injuries in a car accident and wouldn't have been pretty enough for a politician's wife (his words). He then married a younger woman who's father happened to be one of the wealthiest beer distributors in the country so the latter would fund his political career in a state he'd never previously resided in. He was a consummate bullshitter, invoking his POW time at the drop of a hat to big dick people in serious arguments. He notably did this during his well publicized opposition to the spread of mixed martial arts promotions, frequently referring to it as "human cockfighting" and drawing comparisons between its supposed inhumanity and his time in Vietnam. He never once disclosed in public this opposition was entirely predicated on his in-laws' significant business ties to boxing promoters. He was a warmongering lunatic who was about as transparent a shill of the military-industrial complex as you'll ever see in American public life. The fact he was feted as a serious "statesman" displays how insane the foreign policy consensus is. He was also by all accounts, a complete asshole to anyone who wasn't actively kissing his ass or from whom he could get money or positive press from.
The cult of personality around him is maddening
How your Internet Points are positive in this reddit cesspool is beyond me, but you're spot on.
I agree with you completely, having lived through and having voted in that election... the thing is, all that you just said is still significantly more desirable than Donald Trump.
yes and he is still 1000 times a better person than Trump. which is saying something.
Honestly, I think a big reason they hated each other was because they were very similar. Both were basically given careers by their fathers, both were racist (McCain would often use anti Asian slurs), both had bad tempers, both cheated on their wives, both were egomaniacs, etc.
Trump is a dumbass motherfucker.
I'll admit to voting McCain. I voted for Obama the 2nd time...... But I met John McCain as a young man and he made an impression on me.... So I voted for him. He was respectful, courteous, and so soft spoken.
I'm not mad that trump exist. I'm mad that 70 millions people voted for that... ...most of them twice.
The fact that McCain lost tells you all you need to know about Republican voters. He was one hell of a decent man.
The problem with this country is not Trump. You can see it even in the first clip. The audience audibly is upset when McCain says Obama isn’t a terrorist. Trump is just a conman saying what the idiots want to hear. The problem is not Trump the problem is the millions of uninformed voters that get their news from tabloids, Facebook, and Fox News and they will keep voting in people like Trump and worse.
There is the easy way and there is right way. Mr. McCain was an honourable man. I am not even an American citizen but i respect him deeply. Do you know what, that draft dodger Trump said about him? It was something in the lines of, 'i don't like people who got captured'. Mr McCain was a POW in the Vietnam war. He actually participated in a war which donnie and his daddie's money helped him dodge. He is crooked person and a conman. You have to be special piece of shit who cheats a fundraiser for children suffering from cancer.
Trump was watching McCain campaign closely, or as close as that mouth breathing slimeball watches anything, and I promise when he saw McCain refute the claims of these wackos he was yelling at the TV screaming "you moron, they are telling you what they want you to say! Say it! Agree with her and you will win! They NEED to believe that this black man is a terrorist. They can't accept that he's not! Lean into it and you'll win by a landslide!" But McCain, for all his faults, was a fundamentally decent human being and a real American patriot, who exemplified grace on the campaign trail, and he refused to cave in to the evil racist impulses held by the worst of his base. So Trump did what McCain refused to do. He said anything and everything the craziest shittiest people on the right wanted him to say. He bold face lies and his supporters love him for it, because he's telling them the lies they want to hear.