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Davon Magwood
comedian who cares too much about politics

I used to be a ‘Bernie or Bust’ Voter- but then I remembered 2001

In 2001 I was 15, and man what a time to be alive. I was a skateboarder that played Tony Hawk Pro Skate on my N64 while listening to Lifehouse ‘Hanging By A Moment’ and simultaneously wishing Moby and Natalie Portman would break up so our love could blossom. What you might not remember about the great year of 2001, you younger Berniebros (what were you, like 4? 5?), is that 2001 was the year that George W. Bush stole the White House and started destroying America.

Like me, I’m sure you thought the break up of N’Sync and Destiny’s Child were the most terrible things to happen in the 2000s- but no. I was a 14 year old political nerd and I was watching a man who didn’t win the popular vote steal the presidency. This was the start of the shit storm that would be the next 9 fucking years of our American lives.

Strap in baby birds, while Papa Magwood reminds (or enlightens) you of a tale of an under-qualified millionaire who haphazardly ran the country. And no, his name is not ‘Drumpf’. Unfortunately, the stupidity levels seem the same.

How did Bush steal the White House? Google “Hanging Chad” and the purge of 50,000 black voters in Florida. Florida, you say? Yes! The very same Florida where his brother was Governor. And then, the GOP-run Supreme Court stopped the recount that could have given Gore the White House. Yes, children! The same Al Gore that invented the internet.

August 6th 2001, Bush ignored the White House intelligence briefing titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.” which kinda seems important in retrospect. But not if you remember that Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill testified that Bush wanted to invade Iraq almost literally the second he became president.

Now Bush was soooo concerned about starting a war in Iraq, even though the Taliban is located in Afghanistan. He went as far as to lie to the American public about the locations of WMDs, and sent Secretary of State and respected Four Star General Colin Powell to lie to the UN about WMDs and bio-weapons.

A report from 16 U.S. intel agencies all agree that the war in the Middle East made us less safe. You’d think that war would be a thing that’s like, really thought out and well planned, right? Well you would guess wrong. Thanks to Prez W. Bush, not only did our troops not have the right gear, but even the humvees weren’t up to snuff enough to protect our troops from roadside bombs.

Besides the illegal wars that shaped the current, dangerous times we live in now, here are some other sketchy and shitty things President Bush did.

  1. Violated the Constitution and wired tapped American homes without a warrant.
  2. Poor response during the Katrina flood. (Ask Kanye about that one)
  3. Outed a CIA agent for political purpose
  4. Unable to say the word “Nuclear”
  5. Children living in poverty jumped 22% to 14.1 Million
  6. No Child Left Behind, made preparation for standardized tests and resulting test scores the top priority in schools, to the dismay of legions of educators who felt that there was more to learning than taking tests. So you no longer learned anything that wasn’t on a test. I.E. so many stupid people on Facebook
  7. Said that “Evolution” was just a theory.
  8. Cut Pell Grant loans for poor students.
  9. Took the most vacations.

There is so much more. I haven’t even touched on Dick Cheney and how he made billions thanks to these wars, or the joke that is Gitmo, or the fact that Bush told the world “You are with us or against us”- basically twisting the arms of hundreds of world leaders to enter a war that no one had no clue how to exit.

But my point is that Donald J. Drumpf is W. Bush 2.0. He has no idea how to run a business, let alone a country. And so I thought about all of that. I mentally relived 2001–2009 and came to the conclusion that I will support Hillary Clinton for President. I don’t like it, Bernie stands for everything I do. It felt good casting a vote for him. But Bernie has made way too many mistakes, and he’s not going to win this thing.

We have to think about Drumpf or Cruz picking two Supreme Court Justices. We have to think about both of those guys deciding what to do about ISIS. Cruz honestly believes that members of the LGBT+ community are lesser humans than straight cis people. The GOP candidates would do the most damage to our country, and we have to make sure they don’t get in the White House. Unless you first time voters wanna wait 8 more years & try to fix what they inevitably fuck up.