Kinda like now, only now there’s a lot more dead bodies
I remember when the world thought George Dubya Bush was the dumbest president the US would ever have. This is worse in basically every possible measure.
Well, he caused about a million deaths and countless refugees from the Middle East. The chaos just didn’t reach the US in the same way as the one caused by Pedolf Diddler.
Even more than that, in a lot of ways this is the chaos he unleashed coming back on us. ICE was created by his administration as part of the overreaction to 9/11, and their whole strategy of “say person doesn’t have legal status, detain them in the cheapest and most dangerous facility possible, and charge taxpayers a king’s ransom to do it” was first dreamed up by the fucking ghouls in his DOJ, they just called them “enemy combatants” instead of “illegal aliens.”
Yes, it’s definitely a continuum and important to keep in mind. Thinking ahead, we don’t yet know what kind of ripple effects we see from the current administrator in 15-20 years…
The chaos just didn’t reach the US
The consequences and refugees of the Bush imperialist wars did reach Europe though. It helped right wing ideology to rise.
In Trump’s first term, the one good thing was that he didn’t start a new war and create more refugees and devastation. Of course now he and his masters are purposefully wrecking the global economy which is worse.
Yep, the reason I don’t want to mention Europe here is because Bush was and still is pretty widely despised in Europe as it is. I feel like the US still looks back at him with some nostalgia (remember how funny he was in that golf video?), but IMO it’s just because they didn’t really face any direct repercussions. Even if they paid trillions for his stupid wars, the effect was more indirect.
didn’t really face any direct repercussions.
Other than, like, the PATRIOT act and the beginning of the end for privacy and civil rights in the name of national security. Or a ton of education programs gutted to support No Child Left Behind. The effects might not be obvious but they are directly caused by his administration.
I don’t deny that it was, but you have to admit that was only a trial run, and there were some people who were just barely competent still in positions that stopped him or at least scaled back some of his more unhinged actions in his first term.
He’s removed those (albeit flimsy) guardrails this time around. Everyone around him is a dangerously stupid yes man now.
It did, but its verifiable worse now
'Wait, holdup just a goddamn minute, youre saying it wasnt a good idea to reelect a pussy-grabbin, insurrection-instigating, lying, raping, narcisistic, grifting, thrice impeached, draft dodgin, goddamn criminal back into the most powerful office in the land? But he said hed go after his political enemies for no other reason than he didnt like them, destroy key institutions, american soft power, and go after democracy itself…
Hmm… But his opponent was a woman. In a suit. Im sure she was equivalent. Oh well.’
- 60% of eligible voters and those idiotic sitouts.
Acting like the only reason Hillary and Kamala lost was they were women ignores the actual problem.
Even the DNC acknowledged that, and corrected course.
The reason Biden won was his election was while Trump was in office, not because he had a penis.
I’m tired of the sexist shit where people act like if Kamala and Hillary were men they’d have easily won. The problem is no one except the oligarchs and those paid by them like neoliberalism, not anyone’s genitals.
I think OP’s reply is more about how dumb the average voter is, and not about voters’ fixation on genitals. Lets not manufacture outrage when there is none.
Hmm… But his opponent was a woman. In a suit. Im sure she was equivalent. Oh well.’
Riiight…
Read the room. Smh.
Just the last two months of 2016 sucked and that was from anxiety for what was coming. 2017 was dogshit, but 2026 has been terrible in comparison because those assholes spent the last term planning out how to dismantle democracy and handed Trump a fucking playbook to do it. 2017 they didn’t know what they were doing and there were people appointed that at least stood up to his stupidity because they cared about the country over Trump. That’s not the case anymore.
I’m not American, but I remember thinking that clearly electing trump was a mistake but maybe it won’t be as bad as we fear. And at first that seemed not too far off. The Muslim ban got watered down, the wall didn’t really go anywhere. But no it ended up being much much worse.
I’m an American and I thought the same thing at first; when he was elected, I knew he’d be the worst president ever, but I figured that there were checks and balances on presidential power and he’d at least be restricted with what he can do. I didn’t realize that those checks and balances didn’t actually do anything if the president just didn’t care. When he was elected again in 2024, I knew it was going to be terrible because they stacked the Supreme Court and had a majority in the house and senate and the Republican Party is filled with sycophants.
I remember work the day after the election it was complete silence at lunch.
Everyone knew things were about to go to shit. There wasn’t even a point talking about it.
I had an Aussie team lead in 2016 and he messaged me the day after the election like “WTF happened?”
I was feeling grim and said “we just woke up in a fascist hellscape” which at the time was gruesome overkill for effect but I often think about that interaction now. America is not the same place it was a decade ago.
I should add I’m Canadian. This was in a Canadian office.
Are you trying to say that people don’t think 2016 was bad, or are you trying to say that 2016 is worse than now? Because I don’t see anyone making either of those arguments.
The first trump admin was bad, but the second one is objectively worse. Even his fanbois are starting to notice how much worse it is. It would be funny if I didn’t have to live through them having to deal with the consequences of their actions, cuz I have to too.
Obama was president in 2016. I don’t think it was bad
You clearly have forgotten the horrors of the tan suit and the chaos of the Dijon mustard.
2016 was one of the worst years of my life. Had an actual mental breakdown and needed years of therapy and meds to get back to “normal”
The early '90s felt really hopeful to me growing up in the US. Berlin wall fell and Germany re-united, the USSR broke apart, technology was advancing, the promise of the internet, etc. I also wasn’t out on my own in the early part of the '90s, though, so there is certainly some things I wasn’t experiencing nor aware of. It’s not to say things were perfect at all. I don’t know that I ever felt that hope for the future again.
All that to say, this meme has basically always been around is generally accurate.
Must’ve been blissfully unaware of climate change
I grew up on the edge of the rust belt in a small area. We were told from a young age about water conservation, the acid rain problem at the time from factories around the great lakes and that pollution from factories was causing it, etc.
Later, when news about the hole in the ozone layer was coming out, it also felt at least somewhat hopeful because countries began to talk more about pollution and climate (though I think this began in the mid-to-late '90s not in the early part I mentioned)EDIT: Montreal protocol was all the way back in '87 and that’s what I was thinking of; time kinda blends together a bit 30-something years later. At the time, it looked like that might amount to something.You’ll also note that I specifically said that things were not at all perfect. I also don’t actually remember the phrase “global warming” being a thing back then and certainly not the later ‘climate change’, but that’s not to say nothing was going on. (in a quick search, it looks like “global warming” as a phrase appeared in a scientific paper in 1975, but I don’t know when it gained traction in the news and common usage that I would have heard).
Further, I also said that the meme was accurate going further back than the stated date. It’s also possible to be hopeful about some things and not others. The actual state today for humanity as a whole is better than it was in 2016. Some places have backslid in some ways, but overall, it’s better. I suspect it will continue to backslide in some areas but improve more in others. Does that inspire me personally with a feeling of hope or joy? Not particularly, especially when we have AI/datacenter craze and whatever the hell the US is doing.
I was an addict and in mild psychosis in 2016. Doing way better now
Congrats!
It’s objectively worse now buddy. That’s not in debate from anyone in the world.
+1. In my personal life things are much better and improved, but in terms of world stability, health of politics (at least where I live), the observed impacts of climate change, etc. pre-2016 was so much better on average.
I had to talk down trans friends from suicide on 2016. We have been screaming about him from the rooftops (and in my case, stage) since then.
I guess, but even 50+ year olds feel this way. Anyways, whzt time period WAS better than now? Surely not every decade in human history has coincidentally ended up on equal footing.
ended up on equal footing.
Huh?
No one is saying that.
If it was getting worse in 2016, and is still getting worse in 2026 after getting worse the entire time, that absolutely means were worse off now than 2016.
You’re not wrong, you just don’t understand what you’re replying to.
I guess the more interesting question is when was the last time that things were generally pretty okay at least? Or has the story of humanity been a strictly monotonic decreasing function. Or how long has it been strictly decreasing or essentially strictly decreasing? Etc. Curious what time you would choose to live in. Not saying this as a 2026-defender lol.
FDR would be the most recent “good” period and we’re approaching that point of the cycle again.
Especially with low birth rate, kids born during COVID have a pretty good shot of lifing a decent life, and raising their own kids who won’t realize how important shit is and will hand it back to the oligar hs.
Thatsy whole point.
The class war will never end, either it gets this bad or it gets so good we think it’s over. But it never ends.
No.
2016 = MAGA/Trump does incompetence and stupidity
2026 = MAGA/Trump does unprecedented corruption, calculated evil, and inescapable damage.
I was very much so an adult in 2016.
2016 still sucked. But for me it sucked in “god this is stupid, I’m so glad it’s temporary” kind of way. It felt like a temporary accident and we learned from our mistakes.
2026 sucks in a “oh fuck, this is how the rest of my life is going to be” kind of way. Everyone knew exactly who Trump was and what he wanted to do; he was still the first choice for most Americans, and now it feels like it will never get better.
