On February 04 2026 14:11 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On February 04 2026 13:05 Billyboy wrote:On February 04 2026 11:15 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 09:54 Billyboy wrote:On February 04 2026 08:28 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 05:46 Billyboy wrote:On February 04 2026 04:12 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 03:30 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 04 2026 02:34 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 01:11 WombaT wrote:
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I mean does it? Does it really?
It’s worth also bearing in mind that this was in a less enlightened era as regards understanding and acceptance around the leveraging of power etc in the sexual domain and how that could be coercive and unethical.
So yeah people defended Clinton for getting a blowiob from the young intern, no big deal, here’s a high five but that was almost 30 years ago
You can’t moan about any decline of moral standards in the office and defend Donald Trump, ever. It’s preposterous. Fucking hell
Utter lunacy I don’t recall defending Trump's character. But you do know that time runs one way right? And there were people back then who knew it was wrong, they just got sidelined. That’s part of my point. If you are going to make that argument then im going to point out that Trump and Clinton are similar ages and thus might be expected to have similar views of these things, so...his defenders sounded just like the most ardent Trumpist on these matters, but 30 years before. And Trump didn't even so that stuff while in office, but before! On February 04 2026 01:55 Biff The Understudy wrote:
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No, man, it’s not Clinton, it’s you. Obama was morally as good as it gets as a us president, and Biden was just fine by historical standards.
You vote and support a man that is the most garbage human being ever to enter American politics, it just speaks volumes about you. There is no moral decline other than you own. There's a fascinating omission from your list, but I think we both know why. I didn't vote him. Try again. Who says this all happened at once? Part of Bush's appeal was that he seemed a better man than Clinton. The chickens don't all fly back to the roost at once. Nobody here realizes or wants to acknowledge that with a few word tweaks you could transplant so, so many defenses of Clinton onto defenses of Trump. Clinton was morally compromised and imo, that made him unfit to be a good president. That the point republicans forcefully made by then. And honestly, i think they did have a point. In Scandinavia, he certainly would have been removed from office. Trump is literally 15 orders of magnitude worse than him, to the point he makes Clinton look like a saint. Anyone supporting a man that is such an absolute cunt is beyond morally bankrupt. That’s not a decline of American moral values. That’s on the republicans and on maga. Those people have no values, and no morals, period. If that’s the standard you set and expect for the leader of the nation, you are a terrible person. The point is that no one cares anymore. Clinton's approval among Democrats didn't budge. Dems were loath to throw out the first dem to win re-election in decades. Make whatever *relative* judgement you want, the pattern is obvious and the slope was in fact slippery. His critics were more right than they knew, but yes, many of them eneded up adopting the arguments they laughed at. On February 04 2026 03:32 WombaT wrote:
Clinton being a pretty good President otherwise also gives him some leeway Mirror image of what a MAGA person would say. It is literally the exact same argument. Al Franken is an example of them Dems dealing severely (likely too severe) with an any impropriety. Whereas Trump is an all timer and many of his staff or associates are similar. Even his advisors like Stone and Epsteins second best friend Bannon are ultra creeps in his orbit. It’s like part of what made America great according to MAGA people is the ability for powerful men to abuse the power to sexual assault women and teens. If you are actually JimmiC then I know we have talked about this before: Roy Moore, Ted Stevens, Al Franken, and Ted Kennedy (JFK too, but sticking with the Senate). Partisans are only willing to throw people overboard when they are of no use or easily replaced. Hillary was ruthless to Bill's accusers but she was nominated for president beforw they were chucked overboard. That's why presidents get the treatment they do. But to circle back to the point i made to start all this, it is so, so easy to see the parallels and the evolution of the arguments. They are the same. Arguing about degree excluding the rest of the problem. I already know what you all think. I personally find adultery as Trump is guilty of abhorrent. But because accusations of hypocrisy is now the thing most traded with in politics, we get what we havw today. It is apparently impossible to to look at Clinton and see a line from there to here. We'll throw him away! But not because it actually, you know, meant anything. The Moore vs Franken is a good comparison for my point. Franken was thrown aside for something relatively small. Moore was famous for touting the 10 commandments and raped an underage girl and kept republican party support. It was great the people of the state said WTF no and voted him out. But clearly the party has changed. Trump is a special case, he does it all openly, and he has all the sins not just one. Open corruption, check (UAE 500 million personal payout, sure you can have chips against American interest), sexual assaults' (you bet), adulatory (hell we don't even know the amounts because of all the NDAs, and that is just the beginning. On top of that he campaigned on the Epstein list and releasing it all DAY 1! Not only has he been continually trying to hide it, but even the stuff he lets out is still all about him. And not just him but all his advisors, and of course Russia again. He is spectacularly uniquely awful even for American politics. And he just flat out sucks. He is stupid. And look at who he hires and all the dumb shit they do. Like you really think Hegsmeth is qualified? Patel? Tulsi for director of fucking national intelligence? Your country has lost so much, continues to every day he is office. During our life time we might not even understand the full damage he has done, but there is a reason he ranks at the bottom or damn close on every presidential ranking list, not its not TDS. It is that he a stupid, spoiled brat that is a complete embarrassment in everyway possible. Hell even the comics that helped elect him are turning on him because they are starting to figure out he's not edgy, he's a dumbass. edit: I should point out, I don't think you are completely out to lunch on your both sides doing the same thing take. just that the scale is massively different. There's a lot there that is incidental to my point. However, I will remind you that just a few months ago dems in VA elected a man who fantasized about having a political opponent's children killed because he said something nice about someone from the other party. The voters rejected Roy Moore when it cost way more than an AG job in Virginia or a Democratic senator who would be replaced by another Democrat. I have no idea if Trump is a "special case." In many ways I hope so. But you have to at least allow people you disagree with to use the same arguments that were trotted out almost 3 decades ago. How convenient that you happen to have a moral line that falls just where it needs to fall at this present moment! Complaining about the scale of things is just an out, and it won't get you anywhere with people who don't already agree with you. To someone who doesn't think, or doesn't know, if Trump is a pedophile, how are you going to make your case? You can't. On February 04 2026 09:54 Acrofales wrote:On February 04 2026 04:12 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 03:30 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 04 2026 02:34 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 01:11 WombaT wrote:On February 04 2026 00:53 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 00:23 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Remember when we were talking about empeaching a President for having had a blowjob performed on him by a consenting adult (and lying about it). You know because we couldn’t have an adulterer ready to lie to the face of the nation in the White House and all of that.
Those were the days. Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury, but your characterization is exactly the one given in his defense. For the more self-reflective it's Clinton and the shameless defenses of him and his behavior that have led to a steep decline in moral expectations for presidents. Not that thete haven't been awful people in office, but so much of the way Clinton was defended reappears now with Trump. People made excuses for him all day long, pointed to the things they liked that he did, and closed ranks without giving a single inch. Clinton was a moderate dem policy wise and could be forced to work with Congress, but he was disastrous in other respects. I mean does it? Does it really? It’s worth also bearing in mind that this was in a less enlightened era as regards understanding and acceptance around the leveraging of power etc in the sexual domain and how that could be coercive and unethical. So yeah people defended Clinton for getting a blowiob from the young intern, no big deal, here’s a high five but that was almost 30 years agoYou can’t moan about any decline of moral standards in the office and defend Donald Trump, ever. It’s preposterous. Fucking hell Utter lunacy I don’t recall defending Trump's character. But you do know that time runs one way right? And there were people back then who knew it was wrong, they just got sidelined. That’s part of my point. If you are going to make that argument then im going to point out that Trump and Clinton are similar ages and thus might be expected to have similar views of these things, so...his defenders sounded just like the most ardent Trumpist on these matters, but 30 years before. And Trump didn't even so that stuff while in office, but before! On February 04 2026 01:55 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 04 2026 00:53 Introvert wrote:On February 04 2026 00:23 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Remember when we were talking about empeaching a President for having had a blowjob performed on him by a consenting adult (and lying about it). You know because we couldn’t have an adulterer ready to lie to the face of the nation in the White House and all of that.
Those were the days. Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury, but your characterization is exactly the one given in his defense. For the more self-reflective it's Clinton and the shameless defenses of him and his behavior that have led to a steep decline in moral expectations for presidents. Not that thete haven't been awful people in office, but so much of the way Clinton was defended reappears now with Trump. People made excuses for him all day long, pointed to the things they liked that he did, and closed ranks without giving a single inch. Clinton was a moderate dem policy wise and could be forced to work with Congress, but he was disastrous in other respects. No, man, it’s not Clinton, it’s you. Obama was morally as good as it gets as a us president, and Biden was just fine by historical standards. You vote and support a man that is the most garbage human being ever to enter American politics, it just speaks volumes about you. There is no moral decline other than you own. There's a fascinating omission from your list, but I think we both know why. I didn't vote him. Try again. Who says this all happened at once? Part of Bush's appeal was that he seemed a better man than Clinton. The chickens don't all fly back to the roost at once. Nobody here realizes or wants to acknowledge that with a few word tweaks you could transplant so, so many defenses of Clinton onto defenses of Trump. Clinton was morally compromised and imo, that made him unfit to be a good president. That the point republicans forcefully made by then. And honestly, i think they did have a point. In Scandinavia, he certainly would have been removed from office. Trump is literally 15 orders of magnitude worse than him, to the point he makes Clinton look like a saint. Anyone supporting a man that is such an absolute cunt is beyond morally bankrupt. That’s not a decline of American moral values. That’s on the republicans and on maga. Those people have no values, and no morals, period. If that’s the standard you set and expect for the leader of the nation, you are a terrible person. The point is that no one cares anymore. Clinton's approval among Democrats didn't budge. Dems were loath to throw out the first dem to win re-election in decades. Make whatever *relative* judgement you want, the pattern is obvious and the slope was in fact slippery. His critics were more right than they knew, but yes, many of them eneded up adopting the arguments they laughed at. On February 04 2026 03:32 WombaT wrote:
Clinton being a pretty good President otherwise also gives him some leeway Mirror image of what a MAGA person would say. It is literally the exact same argument. Can't say much for opinion in the US, but from where I was at the time, the investigation just seemed like a witch hunt. Who Clinton had sex with is a personal matter, and whether or not he cheated on his wife is a private issue. Go ahead and avoid voting for someone who you think is morally depraved, but it is not something that should be investigated by Congress, and Ken Starr acted as a political hitman when broadening the scope of the Whitewater investigation to include adultery. But then he lied about it under oath and the opinion flipped and it went from a private matter to a public one: lying under oath is a pretty serious issue. And skating by on a technicality may have been enough for Congress Democrats, but it wasn't enough for the court of the public opinion: according to polls and studies at the time, Gore needed to distance himself from Clinton due to the latter's personal negatives, and Bush seemingly gained support for his "moral character". Fast forward 30 years, and the same party that was outraged about the moral depravity is defending something far more depraved. And Ken Starr, so righteous about Clinton's adultery served as a defense attorney for Epstein (lol) and then walked back most of his report from the 1990s when defending Trump in his impeachment trial. It's fucking hilarious how justice for thee but not for me this whole thing is. And you have the gall to blame Clinton for the fact that the GOP decided to embrace Trump. It's farcical. If the party of moral depravity (Democrats) had gone full Trump you might have a point, but it's not. It's the people who persecuted Clinton for his moral depravity that are the most depraved. The special counsel law that was allowed to expire makes a great case for giving most federal laws an expiration date. They had been used for which hunts on presidents of both parties, and when the time came to renew it, Congress declined. So rather than have everything be instantly tribal, where one party supports it for four years and then switches positions later, it must be affirmatively supported. I have not blamed Trump on Clinton. I don't think voter's chose him because because of his moral failure but in spite of them. But the allowance for wayward personal behavior was greatly expanded by Clinton. It can both be true (for the sake of argument) that Trump is an enhancement of of this problem and that Clinton helped pave the way. Again, it's too much of a coincidence that the EXACT same arguments are being made except with a few noun changes. And people over 40 take criticism of his personal behavior less seriously than they otherwise might for this reason. --- More broadly it is funny but unsurprising that the logic of "norms" and the thought that Trump is leading us down the authoritarian path is so nicely ignored the moment we have to look back at someone not named Donald Trump. How can you complain about "norms" when you don't know what they are? It's odd that you think a Canadian was super political in the American system 30 years ago. But even odder that you think for sure I was an apologist. What I do think is that Monica got absolutely trashed for no reason. I also think you severely down play how much Trump is hurting your country, party, and even American evangelical Christianity. It is hard to see it as anything buy ultra hypocritical and unchristian as it treats someone with zero Christian values as some sort of savior. You have turned allies into enemies in such a short time it is amazing. All your allies are making deals with your enemies and Trump can't figure out why. My over arching point is that you are so wrapped up in getting the dems, what about the dems, but the dems, that you do not see that you "winning" is actually you and your country losing amazingly hard. There were people 30 years ago who cared then and cared now. I don't know about you then, but I am reading what you are saying now. For the millionth time in the last year: the tariffs are stupid, talk of invading Greenland was dumb (and counter-productive), saying Canada should be a state was very insensitive to our very sensitive northern neighbors (also, I don't want any part of Canada as a state, thanks). Trump and Vance's comments about Europe are often true and needed, but as usual with Trump the policy with which pursues his agenda makes working with the already difficult Europeans even more difficult. I wouldn't say he's losing, but... That's not at all logically connected. I contend the inverse, you guys are so focused on Trump that you are incapable of seeing how Clinton was a significant step down this road. Abd it's too bad he was, because he was someone who could work with Congress and actually pass legislation, much of it good.
I don’t agree with the slippery slope argument. Bush received votes for “moral character “. Gore had to distance himself. Obama, Biden and Harris all had no sniff of sexual or other impropriety. Trump was unique until he remade the party in his image. Christian values used to mean something to many Republican voters (at least on the surface), the Dems were supposedly the party with the looser morals. Whether it was a shame or an about face it sure reeks of hypocrisy.
You are really under estimating or under selling what Trump has done internationally. I’m not sure if that’s because you’re unaware or what. It is not his words, those are stupid and Canadians, especially the competent ones don’t really care about them. It’s the actions and policy. It’s that no matter how dumb something he says is, he might do it and his army of yes men will tell him it’s brilliant and then claim 7d chess if he backs down.
Canada is the first country to step up in any of your wars. Both in physical support but also at the UN. We arrested Chinese nationals you asked us too, even though it directly hurt us. Both in trade and getting our citizens arrested. We renegotiated the free trade, even more in US favour his first presidency. But it didn’t matter, he wants more and more.
We sell our crude at a huge discount to the US. Now there is a huge push for other markets. Restarting pipeline east and west talks. Even a proposal for a new northern port.
Most companies paid a premium to buy US over other alternatives. The thought was you had stability and safety. But then came the threats and real tariffs out of no where based on a late night tweet because your thin skinned bitch of a president heard a joke he didn’t like or some Fox News host said it would be a good idea. Now my company who once bought 90% US is down to less than 10%. We even invested in metric tooling. It wasn’t the first time, it was like the 10th time that our super policies lot rightwing ownership had to deal with huge swings in currency, pricing that would only be good that day for projects that are months out and tons of other bullshit. Meaning we are not coming back. We now have way more options to buy, it’s cheaper and all our customers get and are doing the same. We are not unique, this is massively common.
The tourism drop is massive, and it’s not just the constant insults. It’s the ever changing border rules. It’s having some border guard ask for you phone. It’s people being held in detention. All the snowbirds selling their place are buying further south. They are not coming back. And as the word gets out about cheaper alternatives with a big Canadian community the new retirees are likely not coming either.
Our military used to just buy American we didn’t even shop around. Now it looks like Sweden is going to get billions in sales and from now on we will be looking at alternatives. And Sweden is going to have us build lots here so massive jobs within Canada. Just one of the huge ways we hurt ourselves to support who we thought was our best most reliable ally.
We lost auto jobs. Well now we are going to allow Chinese EVs, and as a side bonus we can sell our grain there again that we lost the ability to supporting the US.
And there is way more, this is off the top of my head.
There is a similar story happening is most countries that considered the US a reliable ally.
And that you don’t want Canada, who cares? Trump certainly doesn’t. He only cares about his fragile ego and personal gain. He gives zero fucks about America or its people. He doesn’t even hide it and he doesn’t have to because all you sheeple just vote for him no matter how much he fucks you, open corruption doesn’t even matter.
He is not only the most embarrassing world leader, he’s also the worst.
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