RetroFedEvery week was wondering what dumb shit he'll do next
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VetOfTheSeas
Kinda like now, only now there’s a lot more dead bodies
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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.
Not most Americans.
Not even most voting Americans. He only won a plurality, didn’t even get 50% of presidential votes.
I was a full grown adult in 16 and I can confirm that it was not at all the same. 16 was “oh wow, this is really stupid and is going to take a lot of fixing”. 26 is “oh wow, this is absurdly evil and will take a lifetime to fix, if ever.
2016 was testing the waters to see what he could get away with, 2026 is an insane bigot that has been told that he has no rules.
I was a full grown adult by 1990..been a prepper since they called us survivalists.
This is the worst I’ve seen our society. Things are far worse now than 2016.
I could see this coming in 2016, but it hadn’t arrived yet.
2016 had him surrounded by people who could stop or at least delay his dumb ideas until he forgot about them. He then spent the next several years being courted by white nationalists, grifters, and sycophants who not only don’t resist his blatantly illegal orders, but are the ones pushing for them behind the curtain.
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.
Trump’s first term was a meme because it was just him slamming into government red tape every 5 seconds he wanted to do something stupid.
He learned his lesson and made sure to nuke every administration his second term with his own cronies lol.
When his first term ended, you could almost taste the relief that he never managed to do anything terrible and its like it was a 4-year lesson the world had to learn… Then the dipshits in charge failed to put the diaper-stain in jail to rot for his corruption.
During that time I mentioned that Biden should have just jailed him over Jan 6. No trial needed, it was clear as day.
Got downvoted hard cause of mah process
Process matters more than outcome.
Justice is glacial or non-existent against people with money. It would have happened if he didn’t win a second term.
People underestimate how much SCOTUS helped.
We have 6 people there that no longer care about the Constitution.
Most people didn’t believe he’d win in 2016, so they had no plan. They were ready for the second time.
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 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.
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 disagree with you, but I feel like we’re talking about different things. My focus is on what the general population sees and feels, yours is in on the legislative impact of the administration. The effects of those laws are of course felt now, but not many can draw the line back to the Bush administration when making the next voting decision. Contrast this to the Iran war, where the gas prices rose within weeks or days.
It did, but its verifiably worse now
2026 is definitely worse. I was 36 in 2016, and there were some people in the government that weren’t abject cowards, but not anymore.
2016 sucked too, but less than 2026 does. AND you were younger, potentially more oblivious to many of the world’s issues (depending on age).
Both can be true at the same time. Nostalgia plays a big role here, but it’s by no means the only role.
Also it sucked way less because there were a lot of people helped mitigated the damage by having spines
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 was 30 in 2016. That term was awful, so was GWB’s entire double term in the aughts. But today is, unfortunately, materially and symbolically worse by almost every measure.
If I remember correctly, it began to suck in 2001.
It took a pretty solid nosedive then, but the groundwork was laid by Reagan.
Or Nixon. Or the Red Scare. Or the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction. Or in fourteen-hundred-ninety-two when Columbus sailed the ocean blue…
I’m just talking about things sucking in America, we can easily expand to the world’s issues just by tracking the unchallenged expansion of Europe’s influence or the Abrahamic religions.
It’s always 2 steps forward, at least 1 step back but most of the biggest problems that are happening now are specifically the coming from seed planted by the Reagan administration.
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.
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.
ICE wasn’t on rampage.
They probably were, but it probably wasn’t getting as much attention
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.
It was better the first time around, fight me.
Atleast we had 8 years of relative sanity within the government. Like it was trash but atleast it was painted a nice colour. Now it’s just them shitting on the trash.
It was better the first time around because they were incompetent noobs. Now, they know the levers better and are wrecking shit faster and harder.
I don’t deny that it did, 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.
Yes, I was younger, but not young. Unless 50 is young.
People always want to stay the bad times started in 2016, but the 2 key events that lead to Trump getting elected were 9/11-war on terror and the 2008 financial crash. People forget but Occupy Wall Street started in 2012 and that was the real wake up call for the entire American political establishment that the status quo was not working for most people. Instead the DNC rigged the 2016 democratic primary and Trump ended up winning the election.
Things have been shit for a while for most people, but 2016 was the first time we had the opportunity to acknowledge it.
Buddy…
If you’re playing that game go back to McCarthyism.
Or the Bonus Army even. The Class War never ended, it’s just when the people win they raise kids who don’t understand what it cost to give them what they have. So they trade it away.
Even if we win again, the Class War won’t end. It’s a constant fight to hold Smaug at bay.
Yeah that’s fair. Tbh I think the last opportunity for American society to save itself was the 1960s/70s. We’ve basically been unsalvageable since Reagan got elected.
If you look at human history, its kinda hard to find a place and time that someone isn’t consrtruing as shitty.
On days when I am feeling good and optimistic, I can convince myself that this is because humanity is constantly getting better. The fact that so many Americans can look back in history and recognize the foundations of colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, etc means that these people have grown. Just as I can look at myself fro 20 years ago and see how much worse of a person I was- that means that I’ve grown and gotten better. I hope to grow and get better in the future, that the person 20 years from now will look back at me today and see someone with a lot of flaws.
But I’m not feeling that right now. Today unjust feel like the world has been doomed to cycles of violence, oppreaion, and chaos since the first single-cell organisms evolved from the primordial soup.
Don’t forget 2010’s Citizens United
That’s when it started sucking really bad.
I guess, but even 50+ year olds feel this way. Anyways, what time period WAS better than now? Surely not every decade in human history has coincidentally 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.
I used to wake up every morning with a feeling of existential dread over what middle of the night drug fueled rant he would’ve gone on that would dismantle some part of society.
I was an addict and in mild psychosis in 2016. Doing way better now
Congrats!
At least the first time around he had appointees with actual government experience. This time it’s all low wattage knuckle dragging sycophants drawn from the storied ranks of podcasters, bloggers and pundits
2026 is worse simply because none of the 1st term shitfuckery was ever addressed, let alone fixed.
‘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.’
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.
Riiight….
Read the room. Smh.
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”
I was 14 in 2016; I lived in a red town back then & all I knew was “funny old blonde realtor who says dumb memeable shit on TV & Twitter is gonna be president? PEAK COMEDY ROFLMFAOOL”
10 years later, I have since been thoroughly disabused of that immature, uneducated teenage mindset.
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.
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.
Worst time of my life, it definitely sucked. This is more systemic suckage though.
/r/fuck2016 was subreddit of the year.
2012 though? Shit was tight.