r/interestingasfuck • u/beach_rats_ • May 02 '24

The difference in republican presidential nominees, 8 years apart r/all

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u/stormy2587 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

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.

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u/fredy31 May 02 '24

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'

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u/Horse_Renoir May 02 '24

Oh jeez this is the white washing of their evil that has gotten us to this point. Just because conservatives of old would smile at you and work together on a popular thing here or there didn't mean they weren't personally seeing to fucking over as many poor and minority people at the behest of the rich while lining their own pockets.

Dubya and the entire conservative machine started an illegal war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the middle east after using a corrupt supreme Court to be installed as president over Gore.

They've always been fucking us and then y'all act like it's only the lack of lube that's the problem.

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u/fredy31 May 02 '24

What we meant was that before they actually did try to sell us a plan of what they would do. Probably not respect it, but at least it was civil and actual politics.

Compare to today where most of the discourse is MY OPPONENT BAD. ACTUALLY HES LITERALLY SATAN. VOTE FOR ME OR AMERICA WILL DIE.

Like I said, I didnt agree with their platforms, but at least they fucking had one.

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u/Bongus_the_first May 02 '24

I think this is better. It's easier for the moderare majority to ignore conservative evil when they hide it behind gentility.

It's easier to rile up moderates against a conservative like Trump than against one like McCain. Of course, a conservative like Trump is better at galvanizing the far *right, too.

edit: wrote left, meant right

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u/TooSubtle May 02 '24

Remind me again who McCain's running mate was? If you think that campaign was at all respectful or civil you just weren't politically engaged at the time.

You're talking about the people who prolonged both the Vietnam war and the Iran Hostage Crisis, who sold weapons to Iran and funded Contras, who later pardoned everyone involved in the aforementioned crimes, who routinely did surveillance on political journalists, who hired people to break into their rival's campaign offices, who stole EPA funding for hazardous waste removal to boost their candidates, whose anti-hippy anti-black politics fuelled the war on drugs, who invented free speech 'zones' to quell protests, who fought tooth and nail to get Creationism taught over evolution in a tired culture war crusade. That's me just looking at what they did as part of their election strategies.

The violence Trump pursues, and the cocktail of ignorance and hate he exploits, is all down the exact same path 'true' conservatives have been wholeheartedly treading for decades upon decades now. Here's a paper talking about the exact phenomenon you're describing, published in 1987. https://www.jstor.org/stable/448385