4 ms·

Bill Clinton and Obama would both be considered homophobic nazis, white supremacists (a black white supremacist in the latter case, I've been assured that's a r

Bill Clinton and Obama would both be considered homophobic nazis, white supremacists (a black white supremacist in the latter case, I've been assured that's a real and extremely dangerous variant of white supremacist by many foremost self-proclaimed experts), and woman haters for their views and policies on gay marriage, border control and immigration, even abortion (they said that abortions should be rare). So I'd say we've come a good way since electing those two bigoted old hatemongering dinosaurs, haven't we?

llanowarelves 4y ago
Additionally, I am old enough to remember when being against illegal immigration wasnt a "hateful extremist right-wing", issue. (Pre-2016, Schumer, Pelosi etc talked about it a lot).
- dahfizz 4y ago
  Remember when Trump first announced "his" covid vaccine and everyone on the left was suddenly skeptical of vaccines?
  - crummy 4y ago
    I don't remember that.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      > So, let's just say there is a vaccine that is approved and even distributed before the election. Would you get it? > I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump. And it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. This is the exact same tactic used by anti vaxxers on the right. s/Donald Trump/Fauci/. Talk about undermining public trust in institutions - this is the (now) vice president publicly saying that it would have been possible and probable for a vaccine which wasn't safe or effective to be released to the public. https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2020-09-06/segment/01 https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2020-09-06/segmen...
    - galangalalgol 4y ago
      There were a few weeks early on when the vice, slate, the Atlantic etc. were minimizing the virus, and the right was taking the other side. Then it switched overnight with no acknowledgement. Vice even pulled some articles. Then later Fox news suddenly claimed they had always been pro vaccine. I read it was something to do with consistency with Rupert Murdoch's news properties in the UK. There are a few countries where it stayed the other way around, Israel I think?
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  Oh they were all talking about securing borders, halting illegal immigration, etc. Hell, some of them even separated immigrant children from their families at the border and caged them. At some point in time that all became the Nazi™ thing to do, prior offenders were all retroactively absolved of their sins, and asking about how that made any sense was "whataboutism".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jmyeet 4y ago
  So if (and I do mean "if") you're calling recent Republiccan statements and policy as simply being against "illegal immigration", that's a level of revisionism right up there with the Civil War being about "states rights". For example: - "Tucker Pushes Racist ‘Great Replacement’ Theory Yet Again, ADL Renews Call for Fox to Fire Him" [1] - "Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as 'shithole' countries" [2]. He then went on to say we should have more immigration from Norway, which is probably the whitest country on Earth. Coincidence? - "Mollie Tibbetts' killing fuels Republican immigration attacks ahead of midterms" [3] - "President Trump Pardons Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio" [4] - "The parents of 545 children separated at the border still haven’t been found" [5] - "Here’s what you need to know about Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that quickly sends migrants to Mexico" [6] (a policy that should've ended on the first day of Biden's presidency but--fun fact--Biden has excluded more asylum seekers under Title 42 than Trump did) If Republicans actually cared about these people they'd end policies that destabilize countries and create refugee crises like the completely unwarranted sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba. For the record, when it comes to foreign policy, the Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same. [1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-pushes-racist-great-replacement-theory-yet-again-adl-renews-call-for-fox-to-fire-him https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-pushes-racist-g... [2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-... [3]: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/mollie-tibbetts-death-republicans-immigration/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/mollie-tibbetts-... [4]: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/25/545282459/president-trump-pardons-former-sheriff-joe-arpaio https://www.npr.org/2017/08/25/545282459/president-trump-par... [5]: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/21/donald-trump-immigration-parents-children-separated/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/21/donald-trump-immigra... [6]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42-biden/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42...
  - llanowarelves 4y ago
    And yes, the fact that so many want to leave their very poor, often dangerous or dirty, countries validates that they are indeed shitholes. They will tell you as much, if not in words, by their actions. It doesn't mean that that person is bad or that you hate them (or their culture, ethnicity, etc.) if you frankly describe the unfortunate situation of their country with that word.
jmyeet 4y ago
I can't tell if this a "both sides" butwhataboutism or not. But there's enough of that and enough people who will mistake my statements as "Republicans bad, Democrats good" that I'll address that even if that's not your point. A better way to reduce my position is "Republicans bad, Democrats slightly less bad". Or, perhaps more accurately, "Republicans bad but effective, Democrats slightly less bad but completley ineffective." That all goes to my point: the Democrats as they exist in modern US politics are completely feckless. They are way more concerned with fundraising, the aesthetics of appearing to do something and doing everything they can to stamp out any remotely progressive or socialist element of the party. There's no better example of this than the concerted effort to coronate the only candidate in 2016 who could get Trump elected over an actual progressive. Obama, who I personally like as a person and a statesman, was a pretty ineffective president. Obama the candidate was progressive. Obama the president was just another Democratic right centrist who reneged on many campaign promises (eg codifying Roe v. Wade). And Bill Clinton was the architect of mass incarceration of Americans (particularly minorities) with the 1994 Crime Bill (which our current president was one of the primary architects of). The 1994 Crime Bill was an abomination. But you see, all of that makes my point: there is no Left in America. That's why I find things like Elon Musk's tweet so ridiculous and why I dismiss any notion that both sides are now more extreme. They're not. The political spectrum as a whole has shifted right. That's why "both sides" is both a logical fallacy in general and quite ridiculous in this case in particular.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  "whataboutism" - hah give me a break, you brought up historical change and previous presidents to contrast how things have changed! Now it's whataboutism to do the same thing because you don't like the point. And it was satire! Not surprised it's difficult to recognize but clearly it's spectacularly idiotic to actually call a black person a white supremacist. No, if I was going to criticize Obama for something unironically it would obviously be his rampant corruption and nepotism, warmongering, foreign interventions, and many failures in Eastern Ukraine and the South China Sea, underestimation of and troubling relationship with Putin, etc. And I hear a lot of claims without evidence that "there is no left" or that one party is less worse than the other. I'm not convinced by either. The former is just pointless arguing of semantics when the intention is normally pretty clear, and the latter is clearly highly subjective.

llanowarelves 4y ago

Additionally, I am old enough to remember when being against illegal immigration wasnt a "hateful extremist right-wing", issue. (Pre-2016, Schumer, Pelosi etc talked about it a lot).

dahfizz 4y ago
Remember when Trump first announced "his" covid vaccine and everyone on the left was suddenly skeptical of vaccines?
- crummy 4y ago
  I don't remember that.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    > So, let's just say there is a vaccine that is approved and even distributed before the election. Would you get it? > I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump. And it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about. This is the exact same tactic used by anti vaxxers on the right. s/Donald Trump/Fauci/. Talk about undermining public trust in institutions - this is the (now) vice president publicly saying that it would have been possible and probable for a vaccine which wasn't safe or effective to be released to the public. https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2020-09-06/segment/01 https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2020-09-06/segmen...
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    There were a few weeks early on when the vice, slate, the Atlantic etc. were minimizing the virus, and the right was taking the other side. Then it switched overnight with no acknowledgement. Vice even pulled some articles. Then later Fox news suddenly claimed they had always been pro vaccine. I read it was something to do with consistency with Rupert Murdoch's news properties in the UK. There are a few countries where it stayed the other way around, Israel I think?
throwawaylinux 4y ago
Oh they were all talking about securing borders, halting illegal immigration, etc. Hell, some of them even separated immigrant children from their families at the border and caged them. At some point in time that all became the Nazi™ thing to do, prior offenders were all retroactively absolved of their sins, and asking about how that made any sense was "whataboutism".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jmyeet 4y ago
So if (and I do mean "if") you're calling recent Republiccan statements and policy as simply being against "illegal immigration", that's a level of revisionism right up there with the Civil War being about "states rights". For example: - "Tucker Pushes Racist ‘Great Replacement’ Theory Yet Again, ADL Renews Call for Fox to Fire Him" [1] - "Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as 'shithole' countries" [2]. He then went on to say we should have more immigration from Norway, which is probably the whitest country on Earth. Coincidence? - "Mollie Tibbetts' killing fuels Republican immigration attacks ahead of midterms" [3] - "President Trump Pardons Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio" [4] - "The parents of 545 children separated at the border still haven’t been found" [5] - "Here’s what you need to know about Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that quickly sends migrants to Mexico" [6] (a policy that should've ended on the first day of Biden's presidency but--fun fact--Biden has excluded more asylum seekers under Title 42 than Trump did) If Republicans actually cared about these people they'd end policies that destabilize countries and create refugee crises like the completely unwarranted sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba. For the record, when it comes to foreign policy, the Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same. [1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-pushes-racist-great-replacement-theory-yet-again-adl-renews-call-for-fox-to-fire-him https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-pushes-racist-g... [2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-... [3]: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/mollie-tibbetts-death-republicans-immigration/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/mollie-tibbetts-... [4]: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/25/545282459/president-trump-pardons-former-sheriff-joe-arpaio https://www.npr.org/2017/08/25/545282459/president-trump-par... [5]: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/21/donald-trump-immigration-parents-children-separated/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/21/donald-trump-immigra... [6]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42-biden/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/29/immigration-title-42...
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  And yes, the fact that so many want to leave their very poor, often dangerous or dirty, countries validates that they are indeed shitholes. They will tell you as much, if not in words, by their actions. It doesn't mean that that person is bad or that you hate them (or their culture, ethnicity, etc.) if you frankly describe the unfortunate situation of their country with that word.

jmyeet 4y ago

I can't tell if this a "both sides" butwhataboutism or not. But there's enough of that and enough people who will mistake my statements as "Republicans bad, Democrats good" that I'll address that even if that's not your point. A better way to reduce my position is "Republicans bad, Democrats slightly less bad". Or, perhaps more accurately, "Republicans bad but effective, Democrats slightly less bad but completley ineffective." That all goes to my point: the Democrats as they exist in modern US politics are completely feckless. They are way more concerned with fundraising, the aesthetics of appearing to do something and doing everything they can to stamp out any remotely progressive or socialist element of the party. There's no better example of this than the concerted effort to coronate the only candidate in 2016 who could get Trump elected over an actual progressive. Obama, who I personally like as a person and a statesman, was a pretty ineffective president. Obama the candidate was progressive. Obama the president was just another Democratic right centrist who reneged on many campaign promises (eg codifying Roe v. Wade). And Bill Clinton was the architect of mass incarceration of Americans (particularly minorities) with the 1994 Crime Bill (which our current president was one of the primary architects of). The 1994 Crime Bill was an abomination. But you see, all of that makes my point: there is no Left in America. That's why I find things like Elon Musk's tweet so ridiculous and why I dismiss any notion that both sides are now more extreme. They're not. The political spectrum as a whole has shifted right. That's why "both sides" is both a logical fallacy in general and quite ridiculous in this case in particular.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
"whataboutism" - hah give me a break, you brought up historical change and previous presidents to contrast how things have changed! Now it's whataboutism to do the same thing because you don't like the point. And it was satire! Not surprised it's difficult to recognize but clearly it's spectacularly idiotic to actually call a black person a white supremacist. No, if I was going to criticize Obama for something unironically it would obviously be his rampant corruption and nepotism, warmongering, foreign interventions, and many failures in Eastern Ukraine and the South China Sea, underestimation of and troubling relationship with Putin, etc. And I hear a lot of claims without evidence that "there is no left" or that one party is less worse than the other. I'm not convinced by either. The former is just pointless arguing of semantics when the intention is normally pretty clear, and the latter is clearly highly subjective.