We'd probably be better off if we elected a golden retriever.

i remember living in redhatistan in 2003. it was halloween. i thought of the thing that would be scariest to my neighbors so i dressed up as an iraq war protestor. most of my neighbors immediately got it and thought it was hilarious. about 15% of them were insanely offended and two or three grown men squared up to fight me until they realized the puny disabled kid had this long board with nails in it holding a small sign. i was not unprepared in any way.

I got garbage thrown at me in school and I was the one called to the the office over it. I didn't even have a complex opinion on the war. I was just creeped out by jingoism and I wanted to distance myself from it.

I remember in those days I was watching CNN and there was a split screen, one side was a photo of Bush, the other side was a photo of Saddam. I remember thinking "I honestly don't know who scares me more." I had absolutely no idea how bad things could get. I wish we were back to the relative sanity of those days.

Not to be too nitpicky, but the Iraq war started in 2003. 2001 was about California wildfires, the fallout from the dotcom bubble, then 9/11 and Enron.

The rumor i heard is he might not have wanted to have an audio clip of himself saying "shame on me" that could have been used in any other context. But yeah he made himself look like an absolute twat that way. Not the best fast thinker.

Trump would probably say he invented the old saying itself, just like how he invented the phrase "priming the pump"

In fairness, Bush's rating declined steadily after 9/11, and was in the mid 50s when he asked Congress for a formal declaration of war in Iraq.

And that makes sense - Americans rallied in the days following the attack. Bush played his role perfectly. He was very presidential after 9/11. He was serious. Somber. He mourned and offered consolation. He was dignified.

The Trump administration missed a crucial step in starting a war. He forgot that Americans hate wars of choice - and especially when the gas prices are affected.

The attack left an emotional impact that could be manipulated to brainwash support. Today's brainwashing techniques require a lot less, are more effective, and attack people's egos directly through group psychology and cults-on-demands of the engagement algorithm.

So, voting for war criminals isn't a sign of stupidity per se. Republicans generally like war crimes.

The unnamed common republican is the final boss of stupidity

When i turned 18 and voted in my first election, i knew george w was astoundingly stupid. And i knew even more so every election with trump. But those that vote for them are even worse.

But lumping all Americans into one box is also dumb

The intelligence of the american people cannot be underestimated.

Both of those men stole elections to get into office.

Yup.

I mean, I always assume that americans as a whole vote for whoever is representing average american the best.

One of the varieties of voting machine (the ones made by Diebold) in use during that election used Microsoft Access as its database for storage. Only oldheads will understand how horrifying that is. Access did have an audit table (a part of the DB that records all transactions made to the data) but it was hand-editable.

Afghanistan is in Southwest Asia, not the middle east, fyi

Bold of you to assume most Americans knew the difference.

vast majority in many of our allies

Not in Spain, it was not. I think the biggest demonstrations ever recorded in Spain to this day are the ones of those days, saying a very clear NO TO WAR. The president still sent the army any fucking way.

Fool me once!

"...you can't get fooled again"

Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him without getting a cut of the action?

The worrying part is people in idiocracy were smart enough to listen to the advice of the smartest man they could find. Magahats could never.

I love the idea of a Dumb and Dumber short or reboot with Dubya and Trump, but I can't listen to Trump-speak at all.

The south isn't the only states that voted for the pedo...the midwest is filled with evangelicals who voted for him all 3 times.

the south has a great many good people in it whose voting access has been stripped from them by criminalization schemes and gerrymandering. you want the south to stop ruining elections? federalize national reforms on voter access and gerry mandering.

the exploitation of the south isn't initiated by southerners, it's initiated by the bosses and the bankers. basically the solution to the south being a problem is to return to Ulysses S Grant's strategy of prosecuting the KKK and handing out money to poor people.

President Clavicular