The fact that Trump has somehow "normalized" the Cheneys...

[LisaM]

and by extension, the Bushes, is one of the worst things about him. I spent eight miserable years suffering under the harm of the stolen 2000 election and we are still dealing with the aftermath of the crooked SCOTUS decision, the failure of judges with self interest to recuse themselves from Bush v. Gore, and the horrible picks of Alito and Roberts to the court, not to mention the playbook for stealing an election.

The Bush SCOTUS created Trump with their Citizens United and their evisceration of the VRA, and I don't intend to forget it. Ever. Or to let others do so if I can help it.

[Easterncedar]

1. Right on

[Irish_Dem]

2. Cheney knew Bush was a hopeless long time alcoholic and cocaine addict.

So Cheney appointed himself as the VP candidate and installed Bush into the WH.

I assume Cheney kept Bush supplied with booze and drugs the entire time in the WH.

Cheney made a damn fortune on illegal behavior and crimes against humanity.

[BlueTsunami2018]

31. Nah, Bush did his job. Further propping up the ruling class.

Remember the “haves and have mores” speech where there wasn’t a hint of the fake folksy accent he would put on for the rubes?

The whole “dumb W” thing was mostly a put on, he knew exactly what he was doing.

[Irish_Dem]

32. Bush was a serious alcoholic, and a spoiled, entitled nepo baby.

He was not stupid, but not the brightest bulb on the porch.

He did what his parents and Dick Cheney told him to do.

When Cheney was finished with Iraq he was hell bent on hitting other countries in the Middle East.
Nancy Pelosi drew up letters of impeachment and then Bush Sr and Babs hightailed it to DC
and read Junior the riot act.

Junior then tells Cheney to go to hell and that was the end of Cheney being the president.

[Solly Mack]

3. Fuck Cheney. Yesterday, today, tomorrow.

[LisaM]

4. Thank you.

We'll have to suffer through some hagiography in the next few days.

[Solly Mack]

6. Anyone that can embrace a war criminal doesn't have a problem with Trump.

Torturing people (some to death), kidnapping them (extraordinary renditions), indefinite detentions, no due process are all things Trump approves of.

Cheney is the original Mr. Unitary Executive. Trump embraces that idea too - we're seeing it in action now.

Cheney didn't care about democracy or democratic principles - his actions prove that - no matter how much he disliked Trump.

At a slow walk or run, heading to authoritarianism is still heading to authoritarianism.

[The Wizard]

5. In Cheney's defense

he endorsed Harris because Trump, The Siberian Candidate, was / is an existential threat to democracy, and, by extension, civilization.

[LisaM]

7. And yet, he helped create Trump.

Maybe Trump became Frankenstein's monster to the Cheneys, in fact, I am sure he did.

But the lack of responsibility by the whole cabal of the 2000 election to assume responsibility for our current mess is reprehensible.

[Auggie]

15. +1,000,000

[The Wizard]

23. Trump MAGA

removed Liz Cheney from her House seat.

[nycbos]

18. Kind of like Darth Vader redeeming himself at the end of Return of the Jedi

[LisaM]

8. I forgot about how he faked being a Wyoming resident

to even be eligible to run. He did some phony sale of his Dallas house to a GOP donor to qualify, because you can't have two residents of the same state on the ticket. All swept under the rug by the media, of course (the same people who swarmed over Kimba Woods just a few short years earlier for a tax discrepancy).

[hlthe2b]

9. Democrats can see shades of gray. Cheney's "first act" deservedly provoked anger, hatred, resentment

and all other related feelings among nearly all who gave a damn about the direction of this country. After his destructive time in office and with his transplanted heart, it is not difficult to see a "second act" that was more in keeping with "old school conservatism and statesman" in concert with Liz. I will never forget that the two of them were the ONLY R's to show up with Democrats to memorialize January 6 and the loss of so many Capitol police. I see both sides of him and have experienced both the most negative emotions toward him and the "quieted" emotions and gratitude as he spoke out and brought in all the former defense secretaries to actively oppose Trump and his policies.

So, I like to think it is the soul of his donor heart that has precipitated the change, and I will honor that part of Cheney in his late life. I can hold two dramatically opposing views of the man. I can honor the change.

[niyad]

11. Even a stopped clock is corect twice a day.

[jfz9580m]

19. Perhaps

But that’s also what gives a lot of people across the political spectrum a sense that there is way too much collegiality at the top.

Of course, Trump is a chaos agent with heavily dictatorial tendencies. But this sense that corporations now have way too much sway as opposed to any average person (and that’s true now in every part of the globe) is widespread.

And it does feel like a permacrisis with no alleviation and radically lowered expectations is to be the norm.

It’s part of the reason for the enthusiasm over Mamdani and others like him.

Cynics would say “Yeah just let this or that new progressive only get in office and they will also be called a sellout or just be ineffective”. Sure.

It’s already so dire that things will take a while to work. But as the OP says, people like Cheney made life on this planet this hellish.

That’s why expectations now need to be tempered with reality for any progress. It is a given that just about anyone (especially any politician) will be disappointing in this environment -it’s the degree that makes the difference.

BTW I would be delighted to not be constantly disappointed. It’s just that I recognize that the cycle of a backlash following enthusiasm seems to lead to hopelessness.

The average direction would still be better and is in need of correction like never before.

One of the few people I have seen accomplish necessary radical change elegantly and fast was the brilliant Lina Khan. But she was a bureaucrat not a politician, the very class that Vought etc have correctly identified as a very real if completely legitimate threat to authoritarianism, corruption and human exploitation.

It is so right shifted right now that it is communist* to be to the left of “No regulations on any for profit ever! Austerity or at least psychological poverty and solutionism for the worst off will make up the slack!”. That’s the real race to the bottom.

* I happen to live in one of the few actually communist states in the world and find it darkly amusing that they large embrace environmental destruction, deregulation and exploitative business interests as much as most libertarians.

[hlthe2b]

26. Your comment is stuck in the Pre-Trump era. There is no comparison. Fascism/authoritarianism vs classical conservatism

Do you not see the difference? Sadly, many do not. Compromise, however distasteful, was at least possible decades ago--even in the GWB*/Cheney era, however horrible. Tell me, jfz9580m, how is the compromise going under this dictatorship, however, hellish the 2000-2008 era was? If you cannot see the difference, please tell me you are very very young. If not and others feel as you do, we are REALLY sunk.

[jfz9580m]

27. Dick Cheney was not a classic conservative

I have frequently said that if someone is an honest, classical conservative, I can respect that.

Obviously we can’t all have the same leanings politically.

But I view Cheney cynically. I see it as his being savvy enough to get that the new mafia (Trump and co) will be hostile to the old mafia (Cheney and co).

It’s self interest tied with a hope that a narrative of having been on the right side of history (when there was no other option anyway) will scrub his real legacy (The Iraq war, war profiteering for Halliburton and torpedoing action on climate change).

The Cheney mafia isn’t going to bend the knee to the Trump mafia. These are all very egotistical people with strong personalities. That’s hardly a hallmark of character.

My point is that he is still not anything like a classic conservative (which would probably be closer to Adam Kinzinger or some of the conservatives this progressive lawyer Matt Stoller covers).

He was a war profiteer, a liar and pretty damn callous about Iraq, climate change and so much more. He was an architect of our present reality. His failure to mesh with the Trumpian brand is far from a change of heart imo.

Its partly perception of course, but that is mine.

Look, I am happy that they at least come out against Jan 6 etc. Anything is better than this Trumpian juggernaut which is an all-out assault on democracy. In no way do I diminish that.

But that’s a really low bar and far from any indicator of a conscience. And I am only pointing it out so that we don’t forget how we usually end up here. We seem so ahistorical and Panglossian.

Perhaps you have followed him more closely hlth2b. That could be. I have casually followed Cheney in recent years and been entirely cynical.

Again, I am glad that he had that minimal decency. I am definitely never downplaying what Trump is.

I just still think Cheney was awful.

Look at this alarming new embrace of Nick Fuentes. At this rate, soon Laura Loomer will be seen as a moderate. It’s really insane the constant shifting of the centre to the farther right coupled with a narrative that various fairly blah staid relative moderates (including people like me) are radical left.

[hlthe2b]

28. Compared to MAGA Fascists, he most certainly was. I detested him and his post-911 actions horrified me BUT

THERE IS NO COMPARISON. And yes, I had to interview him once in the 1990s for a public health issue in Wyoming (at the then R state convention). It was a hair-raising episode, and he was not unexpectedly rude--albeit that was not an issue for me. But after his political career, he did show some significant change in his behavior, expressed viewpoints, and ability to call out the worst that we are dealing with NOW and I can respect that. Like I said, I like to think there was some of the soul of his heart donor influencing him--as well as the more pragmatic Liz. So, yeah, I have both met him and lived through a major portion of his time in politics and afterwards.

[niyad]

10. EXACTLY!!! cheney and company paved the road to the hell in which we

are currently suffering. And by US, I mean ALL the people affected, including in Iraq and Afghanistan and so many more.

[leftstreet]

12. He was normalized when he wasn't tried for war crimes n/t

[Martin Eden]

13. GW Bush & Dick Cheney are war criminals. I wrote this poem for Bush when he left office:

It also applies to Cheney.
What I'd like to say to his face:

I'd like to say go fuck yourself
But that is much too kind
If you could perform that feat
You'd take pleasure in your behind

I'd tell you to eat shit and die
But you deserve much more
You should suffer all the grief and pain
Of your misbegotten war

Though I can never make you think
Or feel, or understand
I'll take solace when you hear your name
Cursed throughout the land

From inside inside a lonely prison cell
Dark and bare and cold
Where every day you pay for your crimes
Until you're sick, heartbroken, and old

When you finally leave this Earth
You fucked over oh so well
If there is a God and afterlife
You're going straight to Hell.

[Clouds Passing]

14. Yes they did. They created this horror intentionally.

[Bo Zarts]

16. I have three Dick Cheney stories that I'll try to post later today or tomorrow ..

1. Strange encounters when I covered Gulf War #1 for an international aviation news publication and Cheney was SECDEF.

2. Strange encounter at a Highland Park (Dallas) Starbucks when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton.

3. Training our dog, Sirius, to poop in the ivy of Cheney’s Euclid Avenue fortress in Highland Park. Seriously.

Bonus: Strange encounters with his wife, Lynn, in front of our Dallas house (not it Highland Park, but very close .. about eight blocks from the Cheneys). BTW, I always said that the ever charming Lynn Cheney had a bowl of black scorpions for breakfast every morning.

[Tree Lady]

20. My rich cousins used to be next door

Neighbors and friends to the Cheneys before he was VP when they lived In Virginia. She told me Dick was nice it was his wife that was a raving B*. Of course these are fellow Republicans and war mongers.

My cousin was vice president to mobile oil back then, he still has retirement job in his 80's as manager of stock firm in Santa Monica area.

[Martin68]

17. Dick Cheney was just as bad as Trump. War profiteer, responsible for the disastrous invasion of Iraq, outed a CIA office

for political gain, established the use of torture as administration policy, etc, etc. He was a dick.

[jfz9580m]

21. K&R

He was as OTT in his day as Trump is now:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/us-harry-whittington-dick-cheney-b2277004.html

Moment Harry Whittington apologises to Dick Cheney after former vice president shot him in face
Resurfaced footage shows the moment Harry Whittington apologised to Dick Cheney after former vice president shot him in face.
The infamous clip re-emerged following the death of the prominent Texas lawyer at age 95 on Saturday, 4 February.
Mr Whittington passed away peacefully at home, his wife Mercedes Baker confirmed to The New York Times.
The accidental shooting occurred on 11 February 2006 when the pair were with a group hunting quail on a south Texas ranch.
When a group of birds took flight, Mr Cheney wheeled around and took a shot, accidentally hitting Whittington in the face and torso.

I mean yeah it was an accident. But the injured guy apologising to Cheney tells you something about how fucked up things are BTS in that crowd.

[Mblaze]

22. It's a measure of how truly foul Trump is.

[milestogo]

24. Looking at the pictures of Cheney the only good thing I can say is

at least he was honest about his baldness. No combover.

[CaptainTruth]

25. He normalized things like "enemy combatant" crimes...

...& now the Trump regime is using the same terminology.

I hope he lived long enough to realize just how much he contributed to the horrific things that are happening today with Trump, along with the decay of the GOP into a cesspool.

[pat_k]

30. And the failure of members of the Senate and the house to raise an objection, win or lose, was a moral failure of ...

monumental proportions.

Justice Breyer instructed them on what to do in his dissent where he effectively declared that the only thing the Bush v. Gore majority accomplished was to render the Florida election incomplete and therefore unlawful under Florida law. He noted that the Supreme Court had no role in the dispute and that now it was up to Congress to fulfill their duty to judge the legality of the appointment of electors pursuant to an election that had been rendered unlawful by the decision

My only hope is that the magnitude of our current crisis is waking our party up to how critical it is to take a powerful stand when it is a moral imperative to do so, whatever the outcome.

That is how you demonstrate the strength the public is desperate to see from our electeds and candidates.

No More Surrendering in Advance. No more "Can't Win so STFU."

[LetMyPeopleVote]

33. Vice President JD Vance Excitedly Assumes Role of Worst Living Vice President

[electric_blue68]

34. I don't think trump normalizes Cheney at all. Cheney, and W are "just" no longer the worst.