Why was there no anti-anti-Bush contrarian left during the Bush years?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've always found that Greenwald/Taibbi/Tracey crew perplexing and there was definitely no such equivalent during Bush. Then anyone on the left was (rightfully!) calling out Democrats for being too weak on Bush and anyone who spent most of their time defending Bush from scandals and insisting they weren't true but also insisting they didn't support Bush would be written off as a joke or right-wing astroturf. I guess such a take was common but it was from bland Moderate Hero centrist types, not people supposedly to the left of the Democratic Party.

So why under Trump did a bunch of supposed leftists decide that attacking Trump is somehow worse than Trump and actually get a following?

[Person Man]

I don’t know. One of my best friends and his wife are exactly that.

[Kuumo]

Twitter and the Intercept are not real life. If Twitter had been a thing in the Bush years, you might have seen some of these weirdos then too.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

I've always found that Greenwald/Taibbi/Tracey crew perplexing and there was definitely no such equivalent during Bush. Then anyone on the left was (rightfully!) calling out Democrats for being too weak on Bush and anyone who spent most of their time defending Bush from scandals and insisting they weren't true but also insisting they didn't support Bush would be written off as a joke or right-wing astroturf. I guess such a take was common but it was from bland Moderate Hero centrist types, not people supposedly to the left of the Democratic Party.

So why under Trump did a bunch of supposed leftists decide that attacking Trump is somehow worse than Trump and actually get a following?

Because TDS is real and scary.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Its cause during the Bush years the mainstream media did give him favorable coverage for his first 3 years as president(though the last 5 years were just as tough on him as they are to Trump) and much of the establishment was fully behind him till 2006.

Many of these people are anti establishment so just take the opposite positon as them

[Skill and Chance]

Probably because the anti-establishment left has been hardcore anti-war above all else since at least Vietnam.  It's fascinating.  Virtually all of the emphatically anti-establishment, conspiracy oriented writers were opposed to Bush in that era, including a slice of today's Trump base.  

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Twitter and the Intercept are not real life. If Twitter had been a thing in the Bush years, you might have seen some of these weirdos then too.

I mean they also have one member of Congress (even if her Presidential campaign was a joke and she's leaving at the end of this term) so it's not just a handful of weirdos on Twitter.

[Kuumo]

Twitter and the Intercept are not real life. If Twitter had been a thing in the Bush years, you might have seen some of these weirdos then too.

I mean they also have one member of Congress (even if her Presidential campaign was a joke and she's leaving at the end of this term) so it's not just a handful of weirdos on Twitter.

The fact that she has no political future says something about how relevant these people are. You're not going to see this wing of the left get anywhere close to the amount of success the "Trumpist" wing of the GOP has had in the last five years. Tulsi Gabbard was their best bet at getting a seat at the table, and she blew it.

[Person Man]

Twitter and the Intercept are not real life. If Twitter had been a thing in the Bush years, you might have seen some of these weirdos then too.

I mean they also have one member of Congress (even if her Presidential campaign was a joke and she's leaving at the end of this term) so it's not just a handful of weirdos on Twitter.

The fact that she has no political future says something about how relevant these people are. You're not going to see this wing of the left get anywhere close to the amount of success the "Trumpist" wing of the GOP has had in the last five years. Tulsi Gabbard was their best bet at getting a seat at the table, and she blew it.

I think it really depends on nothing weird happening in 5 days.

[John Dule]

Does Chris Hitchens count? He supported the War on Terror.

[pikachu]

Just guessing as someone who's too young to remember the first Bush term:

• A lot of the intra-left fighting today has its roots in the 2016 primary and the divisive, ideologically-fueled sh**show that was. The 2000 Democratic primary was a lot different in that respect.
• Going off that, I don't think that 2000 viewed as being the bag for Gore as 2016 was Hillary, and I think tribalism kicked in with the way the election was resolved. I'm guessing most partisan Democrats and lefty people probably felt that the election being straight-up stolen was a big reason Gore lost.
• Being anti-Bush was a minority position for a long time, so probably more solidarity among smaller numbers of people.
• Twitter and Facebook didn't exist, and more online discussion happened on places like this which are less vitriolic.

[Alben Barkley]

I've always found that Greenwald/Taibbi/Tracey crew perplexing and there was definitely no such equivalent during Bush. Then anyone on the left was (rightfully!) calling out Democrats for being too weak on Bush and anyone who spent most of their time defending Bush from scandals and insisting they weren't true but also insisting they didn't support Bush would be written off as a joke or right-wing astroturf. I guess such a take was common but it was from bland Moderate Hero centrist types, not people supposedly to the left of the Democratic Party.

So why under Trump did a bunch of supposed leftists decide that attacking Trump is somehow worse than Trump and actually get a following?

Because TDS is real and scary.

No it is not. Trump is the worst and most dangerous president in centuries at least. Openly flirts with authoritarianism, including literal flirtations with dictators. It’s far more “deranged” to not be repulsed and horrified by him. You know what an actual example of a “Derangement Syndrome” is? Clinton Derangement Syndrome, believing everything the moderate Bill Clinton did was communism and that he and his wife were both evil Satanist murderers or something. Or “Obama Derangement Syndrome,” reacting hysterically to the reasonable statements of this calm, clean-cut family man and calling him the anti-Christ.

[Alben Barkley]

Does Chris Hitchens count? He supported the War on Terror.

He was a classic example of someone who went through the Trotskyist to neocon pipeline, so I don’t think he really counts.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A war criminal who once had a 91% approval rating is far more dangerous than Trump ever was.

[Tintrlvr]

As others have clued in on, because one of the most fundamental defining features of anti-establishment movements on the left is being dovish, anti-war and anti-interventionist, and Bush was strongly interventionist.

[Alben Barkley]

A war criminal who once had a 91% approval rating is far more dangerous than Trump ever was.

Literally anyone would have had a sky high approval rating after 9/11. That did not last and had nothing to do with his “war crimes” as you disingenuously make it sound like.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A war criminal who once had a 91% approval rating is far more dangerous than Trump ever was.

Literally anyone would have had a sky high approval rating after 9/11. That did not last and had nothing to do with his “war crimes” as you disingenuously make it sound like.

It's a lot easier to start wars for no reason when the media is terrified of criticizing you.

[Alcibiades]

Does Chris Hitchens count? He supported the War on Terror.

He was a classic example of someone who went through the Trotskyist to neocon pipeline, so I don’t think he really counts.

He went to his grave identifying as a Marxist (though not a socialist).

[RFayette 🇻🇦]

The anti-anti-Trump contrarian left tends to be suspicious of established institutions like the big media outlets, intelligence agencies, foreign policy think tanks, etc. that are also very critical of Trump.  Under Bush, those institutions were not seen to be particularly hostile to Bush (the NY Times for example even supported the Iraq War), particularly in his first term, so there was no sense of mutual animosity that we see with Trump. 

[Alben Barkley]

Does Chris Hitchens count? He supported the War on Terror.

He was a classic example of someone who went through the Trotskyist to neocon pipeline, so I don’t think he really counts.

He went to his grave identifying as a Marxist (though not a socialist).

He also expressed unwavering support for Paul Wolfowitz and praised the policy/ideas of the neocons repeatedly. Maybe he identified still as a Marxist, but in practice towards the end he was for all intente and purposes a neocon.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

As others have clued in on, because one of the most fundamental defining features of anti-establishment movements on the left is being dovish, anti-war and anti-interventionist, and Bush was strongly interventionist.

The notion that Trump is some sort of dove and non-interventionist though is downright laughable. I doubt even Bush would've been willing to openly assassinate a high level Iranian military official.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

The anti-anti-Trump contrarian left tends to be suspicious of established institutions like the big media outlets, intelligence agencies, foreign policy think tanks, etc. that are also very critical of Trump.  Under Bush, those institutions were not seen to be particularly hostile to Bush (the NY Times for example even supported the Iraq War), particularly in his first term, so there was no sense of mutual animosity that we see with Trump. 

To add to this, in some ways the segment of the left that is presently anti-anti-Trump exists because of the Bush Era and perceived insufficient liberal opposition to the Iraq War, the Patriot Act and other post 9/11 national security/military decisions.

What really rubs me the wrong way about those people is how freely they make common cause with the anti-interventionist segments of the right and with libertarians, including providing a lot of votes to Gary Johnson in 2016. They seem to be saying, "I'm okay with returning to a 1920s economic policy and taking a hatchet to the New Deal and the Great Society as long as some terrorist in Afghanistan doesn't have his daughter's wedding ruined by a drone strike."

[Kuumo]

I've always found that Greenwald/Taibbi/Tracey crew perplexing and there was definitely no such equivalent during Bush. Then anyone on the left was (rightfully!) calling out Democrats for being too weak on Bush and anyone who spent most of their time defending Bush from scandals and insisting they weren't true but also insisting they didn't support Bush would be written off as a joke or right-wing astroturf. I guess such a take was common but it was from bland Moderate Hero centrist types, not people supposedly to the left of the Democratic Party.

So why under Trump did a bunch of supposed leftists decide that attacking Trump is somehow worse than Trump and actually get a following?

Because TDS is real and scary.

No it is not. Trump is the worst and most dangerous president in centuries at least. Openly flirts with authoritarianism, including literal flirtations with dictators. It’s far more “deranged” to not be repulsed and horrified by him. You know what an actual example of a “Derangement Syndrome” is? Clinton Derangement Syndrome, believing everything the moderate Bill Clinton did was communism and that he and his wife were both evil Satanist murderers or something. Or “Obama Derangement Syndrome,” reacting hysterically to the reasonable statements of this calm, clean-cut family man and calling him the anti-Christ.

I literally had no idea what scary thing this TDS abbreviation stood for until now. Goes to show how scary it is. I forgot that some people think that so-called "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is scarier than Trump.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I've always found that Greenwald/Taibbi/Tracey crew perplexing and there was definitely no such equivalent during Bush. Then anyone on the left was (rightfully!) calling out Democrats for being too weak on Bush and anyone who spent most of their time defending Bush from scandals and insisting they weren't true but also insisting they didn't support Bush would be written off as a joke or right-wing astroturf. I guess such a take was common but it was from bland Moderate Hero centrist types, not people supposedly to the left of the Democratic Party.

So why under Trump did a bunch of supposed leftists decide that attacking Trump is somehow worse than Trump and actually get a following?

Because TDS is real and scary.

No it is not. Trump is the worst and most dangerous president in centuries at least. Openly flirts with authoritarianism, including literal flirtations with dictators. It’s far more “deranged” to not be repulsed and horrified by him. You know what an actual example of a “Derangement Syndrome” is? Clinton Derangement Syndrome, believing everything the moderate Bill Clinton did was communism and that he and his wife were both evil Satanist murderers or something. Or “Obama Derangement Syndrome,” reacting hysterically to the reasonable statements of this calm, clean-cut family man and calling him the anti-Christ.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Existed too with even people like Vincent Bugliosi calling for Bush to be prosecuted for Murder !!

[GeneralMacArthur]

They seem to be saying, "I'm okay with returning to a 1920s economic policy and taking a hatchet to the New Deal and the Great Society as long as some terrorist in Afghanistan doesn't have his daughter's wedding ruined by a drone strike."

The U.S. bombed a pair of weddings in 2008.  One was a mistake and killed 47 civilians.  The other killed 37 civilians but also killed 26 insurgents.

And yet people today, 12 years later, still act like that's the sum of all U.S. foreign policy.  It's been over a decade since we bombed a wedding.  And bombing a wedding full of innocent civilians is a thing that only happened once.

It's very aggravating.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Existed too with even people like Vincent Bugliosi calling for Bush to be prosecuted for Murder !!

I remember when I was in high school I was doing a presentation on Franco, and I pulled this chart from Google Images that was basically a list of people killed by murderous leader.  And it had Franco and his hundreds of thousands of victims right around the middle, but I missed that it also had not just George W. Bush but also Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman.  Pretty cringe.