How Trump is benefiting from the limits of our memory.
  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    37·
    2 months ago

    One of the biggest things I remember about his presidency was the fucking embarrassment. Other countries were mocking us and for good reason.

    • HWK_290@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      I recently rewatched the video of the UN assembly laughing to his face. Insanity that he’s still respected as any kind of statesman

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      94·
      2 months ago

      That’s not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon… Americans have been putting up turds to the Oval Office since President Kennedy’s term abruptly ended.

      • btaf45@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 months ago

        That’s not unusual for Americans, though. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon

        All of those guys were way more respected than Trump. And of the rest, all of the others not Bush jr were way more respected than Bush jr.

        The current period IS very unusual for how badly our reputation has fallen. Although you could also say America’s reputation around the world was unusually high from 1945-2000.

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    382·
    2 months ago

    This is such a condescending form of analysis that totally misses the mark. It’s basically just, “Trump was bad, but some people still like him. Why? Must be because they’re just too dumb to remember things.” There’s no actual evidence that people have forgotten any of the stuff they mention, it’s purely just that.

    To attribute the issue to memory would imply that there was widespread agreement while he was in office that he was bad, which has faded over time. But Trump’s approval rating for most of his time in office hovered around 40%, similar to Biden’s. So what’s actually happening is not that people were on the same page about Trump being bad when the events of his presidency were fresh in their minds, but rather, that his supporters never agreed with/cared about the things the article is saying in the first place. Framing it around memory is nonsense.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
      171·
      2 months ago

      Seriously. “Why do you own all these gasmasks???” my mother asks, somehow forgetting the several consecutive years where trump’s thugs were regularly gassing me & all of my friends…

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      bro, I’m trying to figure out what cocktail- other than the right-aide- causes this amnesia.

  • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    Waking up everyday wondering what batshit crazy thing he had either just said or was going to say that day. It was exhausting. And then the pandemic hit and he was suggesting the most batshit crazy things about that. And then he somehow was able to politicize the most common sense things we could do. It was absolutely the most stressed I’ve ever been for that extended period of time.

    I rarely completely disagree with people and I’m pretty good at empathizing and putting myself in their shoes. I may not agree with them but I can see where they’re coming from and can see some good in them. That is to say I usually don’t hate people. I hate this man. I will be glad when he’s not around to spread the chaos and just outright stupidity he spouts and surrounds himself with. This planet will be better off without him in it.

    • Fades@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      2 months ago

      Waking up everyday wondering what batshit crazy thing he had either just said or was going to say that day. It was exhausting.

      For you? Yeah it was exhausting, you poor piece of shit. For the media? It was the best goddamn four years of their lives. Every morning the people would rush to see what insane shit he did that day and the news media farmed the FUCK outta them clicks.

      Not that the CBS executive chairman and CEO might vote for the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he likes the ad money Trump and his competitors are bringing to the network.

      “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the presidential race.

      Moonves called the campaign for president a “circus” full of “bomb throwing,” and he hopes it continues.

      “Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” he said.

      “Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” he said.

      • Leslie Moonves CBS CEO at the time

      They desperately want to drag us back

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
    8·
    2 months ago

    Heck, between the media, The Donald on Reddit and the whole pandemic, people were rightfully getting burned out on everything. I don’t really have any active memories between march 2020 and early 2023. That whole time period feels like a big blur. And that’s just me as a European. I can imagine it’s way worse for people in the US…

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 months ago

    Is it just me, or I thought it’s a general consensus long ago that voters have the memory of a goldfish? Why would forgetting the worst of the Trump presidency be any different? Even people have somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush in spite of deliberate lying by his administration, and dragging the United States into a needless conflict for 23 years that cost $1 trillion.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      Even people have somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush in spite of deliberate lying by his administration, and dragging the United States into a needless conflict for 23 years that cost $1 trillion.

      Each new GOP president is so much worse than the last guy was that we start thinking maybe the last guy wasn’t as bad as we had remembered.