Nixon also illegally scuttled a peace treaty in Vietnam during the '68 election in a similar maneuver. But you'd need a functional non-GOP party to hold the GOP accountable and I don't think any of us will see that in our lifetimes, assuming everyone here was born 1968 or later.
Nixon extended the Vietnam war, because he didn't want it to end before the election.
My first thought also, and I strongly recommend Ken Burns' Vietnam War doco to those who haven't seen it - that's where I first learned of Nixon's unforgivable treason (about this particular topic... not to mention his other treasons).
See also Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by HST.
Democrats let it happen and let it slide after the fact. The GOP is criminal. The Democrats are just lazy and weak.
Unger reserved his most intense criticism for the Washington Post, which owned Newsweek at the time and, he says, had an outsize role in quietly killing the story. He’s also equally critical of Congressional Democrats, who he claims never pursued the dramatic charges as earnestly as they should have.
“Democrats were lap dogs,” Unger said
Damn, nothing has changed
Democrats serve the rich class. They're a red herring to make us believe that we are a democracy
And this is why the lesser evil is still evil.
When the majority of our voting public just chose the GREATER evil in all three branches of government, the lesser evil is still significant harm reduction.
And if the lesser evil had won all three branches of the federal government, maybe we’d instead be talking about how the voters sent a signal that the greater evil needs to tone down all the evil, and things can move in the right direction.
But nope, let’s just pull the lever on the max-evil slot machine to see whether we end up ma more in cyberpunk, nazis, or mad max!
Then they committed treason again with Iran Contra
GOP: Oops, all treason
I'm not young and there isn't a time in my life when the GOP wasn't somehow treasonous
Ollie North! Ollie North! He's a soldier! And a hero! And a novelist! And now he's on Fox Neeeeeews!
Deplorables doing deplorable things.
Nothing new here. Regan was the flashpoint of the dumpster fire that is America now. Nixon was just the match. Trump is a tanker truck full of napalm.
I wouldn't give Trump that much credit (yet), the damage done by Reagan was far greater (disregarding social/demographic, which I mostly blame the attention industry of). But we'll see how much damage he does this time, maybe he "trumps" Reagan...
He's speaking openly about imprisoning political opponents and even members of his own party that didn't bend the knee. And now the Courts he packed are backing up his claims to absolute immunity.
He even said people will no longer "need to vote" after he's done.
The best hope for America right now is an aneurysm.
Somehow its still democrats' fault.
It was not unprecedented. Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam War peace talks to get elected too. Don't think that has ever been addressed very well either.
"This was genuine treason by the GOP."
Nah...just a typical Wednesday for them.
Two things can be true
I mean - not really. It was pretty bold at the time.
Now, yes. Because nothing was ever done about it and no accountability etc.
especially given iran contra drugs for guns. The whole thing is unbelievable and the historic thing has been. shrug.
I bet you the exact same is happening with Nethanyanhu and Trump.
I think you mean Putin and Trump. Netanyahu isnt at war, they're committing genocide.
Oh, are we counting treasons again? I guess mid-century modern is actually a thing now. Good, it’s a nice aesthetic. Bell bottoms and protest, fuck yeah.
Maybe this time we can follow through, eh? We’ve seen what happens when we don’t.
Why is media and news so important? It controls the recording of history.
When a large majority of media conglomerates being conservative, like the Sinclaire group, it makes sharing this news with Americans very difficult.
Throw in education restrictions to keep kids from learning about these events in school, you've got a steep uphill battle to raise awareness.
They keep doing it. And then they do other shady shit like schedule the pulling of troops out of
SyriaAfghanistan for next year because it won't be their problem by then. 🤷♂️Did you say Afghanistan?
lmfao I had a feeling something was off when I wrote that and didn't give it a second thought. But yes, thank you!
Good thing they learnt their lessions and itll never happen again. On a completely unrelated note did you know that Hamas is planning on releasing their hostages mysteriously as soon as Trump gets elected, Bibi is also planning on starting serious peace talks at the same time.
A sacrifice to the elite, for the greater good of wealth concentration, the gods of greed demanded it.
The efforts of the chaos gods Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, hell even the might Cthulhu, pail in comparison to the power of Mammon!
you forget the sex one, Slipperyquim or whatever
The real story here is that Iran betrayed their people and worked with Republicans.
It's a theocracy, I'm not sure why you would expect it to care that much. But also, the theory is that part of the deal was for weapons to be deliered to Iran. Iran's military had been weakened badly in the revolution, Iraq was right next door with a very large military, the new Iranian government had called for the Iraqi one to be overthrown, and the two had existing border tensions that would go on become a full scale war in less than a year. Seeking weapons to re-arm when ypu expect a fight with a strong neighbour is pretty rational if you ignore the morality of all of it.
Not really. That's generally just something anyone should expect. After all the United States China Russia etc etc etc etc have all done the same. It's why allowing a concentration of power. Or in cases like China and Russia demanding a concentration of Power are such bad things. Power corrupts.
The country that kills girls for not wearing a head covering? That's the one you're expecting to take care of it's people?
This is why I don't understand why people say that Trump winning again is the end of democracy.
Trump's behavior is not "weird"; it's standard American politics.
The only way to beat it is to offer real democracy, real economic change, and to take people unhappy with the current system seriously instead of dismissing them as "weird" or "deplorables".
Trump’s behavior is not “weird”; it’s standard American politics.
It's not. I remember all the presidents since Nixon. The stuff Treason Trump did is an order of magnitude worse than anything that came before.
Even knowing everything that has come before intimately doesn't make Trumps stuff make any sense. There is a reason all the professional historians, including the ones politically on his side, are up in arms about him and his plans. This is not "business as usual", he is as bad as literally everyone that has any idea about any of this stuff says he is.
He is way too easy to corrupt and sway. He has no idea what he is doing and trusts all the wrong people because they play him so easily. He's a "useful idiot", but useful to people who want to bring America down or just make more money for themselves. He still thinks all of his plans are his own ideas, or at least that he is doing them for his own reasons, but they are just tapping into his overblown self-confidence and ego.
The reason calling him "weird" actually worked is because he knows that word... schoolyard taunts bother him so much more than accurate assessments of the consequences of his actions. If he could follow along with that logic, he wouldn't be a problem in the first place. Deplorables doesn't get to him because he has no idea what that means and refuses to learn. He has an aversion to reading. Yes, that thing that is basically 90% of the presidents job.
This is absolutely business as usual, but Trump as a business man is just more erratic and harder for those with a vested interest in maintaining existing power structures to control.
He's not as bad as Reagan, but he's a loose cannon and I agree that that makes him dangerous.
calling him "weird" actually worked
I'm sorry, what? Did we see the same election results? Publicly dismissing someone for being weird is alienating to large swathes of the country. Many of us take pride in our weirdness.
see worse is, surprisingly for some, worse than bad and then, this is pretty advanced now, even worse is worse than worse. its trippy.
Has Trump put the lives of innocent American hostages at risk for his political gain?
Note that I'm not saying that he wouldn't, just that he hasn't yet to my knowledge.
I would say that Reagan's treasonous acts were in fact even worse than Trump's, considering that Trump's impeachment treason was to put a foreign country at risk.
Note that that isn't to say that Ukrainian lives matter less than American hostages or that what Trump did wasn't bad, just that putting Americans at risk is "worse" on a scale of treasonous actions.
Another way that things are in fact getting better is that unlike Reagan, Trump actually got impeached (even if the conviction failed at the end).
