Not technically, she literally won the popular vote by 3 million votes.
Former POTUS George H W Bush Dies aged 94
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
- Start date
Yes. I try to get it right because as odd as the pronunciation is, it's much easier.
Nah. He was thinking about what his base would say if he shook hands with the Clintons.
I'm sure that factored into his thinking as well.
I thought Brian Mulroney's speech was class.
I doubt the current POTUS could display such a sense of humor at his own expense
ok he's almost in the ground. Can we get back to real news?
Was Trump late and disrupting the show? Did he wave? If he wanted to say hello he easily could have, that's the point here. There wasn't anything preventing him from doing so.
He knows Bush despised him but he still had to sit there and listen to all the eulogies - he also knows that when it's his time, he won't get that sort of warmth of feeling at his send-off. I'm fairly certain that he isn't the sort of man who normally does things he doesn't want to do, and I assume he felt extremely uncomfortable - but he had absolutely no choice about being there.
I see Bill gave him a little friendly glance, but nothing was coming back to the Clintons.
Just found out a double amputee hammer thrower who was a few years ahead of me in med school serenaded Bush while he was dying. Which has to be my most bizarre (and indirect) claim to fame.
I'd like to think that, and maybe it's true, but for me this means any fellow elite person is always welcome by others. (the context wasn't even a funeral, just some meeting of presidents last year).
I do think there'll be more antipathy toward Trump though because of the extended hostility he's directed against most fellow politicians. Bush may have disagreed with Obama on a lot but never to the extent Trump and Obama did. Bush mostly stayed quiet once he left office and seemed to be fairly graceful when handing over the keys. Although there is of course an argument that it's quite frustrating to see those who oppose Republicans being completely cool with them in public so long as those same Republicans make sure not to hurt their feelings behind closed doors. But then, simultaneously, when you're regularly attending functions like these, I can see why it's probably easier to just try and get along with people you disagree with. Constantly acting like a dick will only make things awkward, as we see with Trump.
Ya, a lot of media and politicians do treat Trump as a singularly deviant figure, and he often speaks like one, but from memory Bush was despised when he left office to an extent Trump isn't (and also heavily skewered by the liberal parts of the media like Trump- Jon Stewart, Colbert, Keith Olbermann made their names at that time).
Even before Trump took office, Bush was already rehabilitated with the paintings and the Obama hugs.
Bush was my personal introduction to US politics, and I'll always have stronger feelings about anything to do with him, so maybe I'm not seeing this objectively about how Trump will be treated later. I think there's always been a lot of hagiography about US presidents, and that gives them all a post-retirement sheen. You'd hope that with mask-off Trump, it's the hagiography that will die. Instead what you see is this pining for an era where there was just enough of a veneer of norms and process on the same dirty business (Bush with Iraq, West Wing TV revival!) so that the mythologising about the sacred office can continue without the dissonance of reconciling that myth with the loud idiot currently embodying it.
For me it's kind of entertaining to see Trump ride through the awkwardness and do nothing to relieve it. He at least seems to be more of a human being with actual beliefs because of that.
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Indeed. Probably (to an extent) because they're less of a threat once they've left office, and because their opponents will typically view them without the fear that they'll do something even worse than any act they've already committed. The past always seems more rosy than it was in reality.
Such a narrative worked so well with GWB because of the assumption he was a bit of an idiot but a lot of assessments of him reveal that's not true and that he was more tuned in that most people assumed.
@Cheesy @berbatrick
Depends on when he dies. The Donald is only 72. His father died at 94. If he lasts until 90+ he'll definitely get a fond send off like this. People won't even remember all the Twitter 'OMG look what Donald said' in 20 years. If he passes in the next 6 years he won't.
Depends on when he dies. The Donald is only 72. His father died at 94. If he lasts until 90+ he'll definitely get a fond send off like this. People won't even remember all the Twitter 'OMG look what Donald said' in 20 years. If he passes in the next 6 years he won't.
He'll be interred in the Kremlin WALL(!)
No no no. They are no longer in office or politics so cordiality of their shared history is natural. The attitude alluded to above is the reason why the US is currently such a fecking rabid shitshow of disunity.
I get that to an extent - obviously the job is so high-pressure and so unique to the point where figures from either side of the divide will be able to relate to each other more than they can with an average joe in the public.
But at the same time...where's the limit in that regard? GWB's administration, for example, directly lead to a ridiculous amount of deaths due to his government pushing for the Iraq War. If I'm of the view that this is tantamount to him committing war crimes, am I not naturally going to be a bit perturbed when the Obamas are suddenly best mates with him? There's a disconnect between a lot of the public and the Dems in that case wherein established politicians don't really care all that much about engineering social change because they've not actually been unduly impacted by awful Republican policies, for the most part. If I view the right as doing stuff that's genuinely awful (and I'd say they are in regards to things like healthcare and climate change) then there's a decent chance I'm going to want someone in office who can relate to that anger, instead of being completely cool with the people responsible for those heinous actions.
I don't think the disunity is because of people on either side of the divide not being able to get along...or, perhaps, if that is the case, then it's not because people on either side just felt like being dicks to each other one day, but because of continuing social and economic pressures being placed upon people, to the point where the side they don't like don't just represent opposing political ideals but instead can be regarded as possessing a threat to their way of lives. An American who can't afford decent healthcare, for example, might not want to be cordial with Republicans because those Republicans are actually impacting his ability to live his life properly.