• Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    ·
    1 year ago

    Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney are great, when compared to the rest of the party. Let that sink in. That’s how low the bar is now.

  • WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    1 year ago

    Anyone remember the time that Toys R’ Us decided to take out a gigantic loan to pay off the “management fees” of Bain Capital for the fine virtue of being managed into the fucking ground?

    I do.

      • WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        More or less.

        Bain (with Romney at the helm) became masters of the leveraged corporate buyout. That means they use loans to purchase a company. Those creditors would be paid back through bain’s revenue which is made up of management fees from the companies it bought. Then Bain would send in managers to make the company look awesome by boosting revenue and reducing expenses. (You can recognize this when private equity buys something and suddenly one guy is doing the work of four - while the assets are liquidated around him.) Bain uses this performance to say to creditors - look how awesome they’re doing - give us a loan! So they take out an enormous loan and pay all of that money to themselves and let the former shell of the company collapse around them.

        The horribly shitty thing about it is everyone talks about capitalism like it is zero-sum. That’s really not true - economies work together and create new wealth out of our labors. Well, Bain is zero sum. Their money comes from taking from others. That kind of business is fucking evil. Bain is fucking evil. Mitt Romney is fucking evil. People who associate with him (the Mormon Church that enabled him, the Republicans that idolized him) are a mixture of fucking evil and stupid.

    • sab@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      1 year ago

      A political moron with terrible ideas, yes. But I think treasonous is the wrong word, which is what sets him apart from his comrades in the republican party.

      It’s not that people remember him as someone they would have liked to vote for, but he was over of very few republicans to speak out against trumpism.

      Sort of like how Romney was one of few republicans recognizing the election result. It has just gotten to a point where we expect the worst from these people, and it’s somehow worth celebrating when they defy our expectations.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think it’s more an attempt at positive reinforcement, if anything. When you’ve got a bad dog you’re trying to train, you fixate less on punishing the bad behavior and rewarding the good behavior.

        Too bad these people are worse than dogs.

      • timetravelingnoodles@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I was more referring to his actions while he was a PoW and other various things than his tenure as a politician but that didnt help much either

      • Maeve@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I’m still at a loss how my parent was furious at ~W for Iraq and just disowned me for the umpteenth time for telling them * tfg was a fraudster, rapist, insurrectionist and treasonist. The last time I did that, they put me out of the car in sleet, thirteen miles from my home.

        • edited two words
        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The reason is because your parents are shit bags.

          I hope that clears everything up for you.

          • Maeve@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Thanks? Lol. I just meant how they were so outraged at W and not tfg. Mass insanity is real.

          • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            My dad spent his entire life doing sophisticated math for NASA, and did a stint getting atmospheric and oceanic study satellites into space, so he is (or rather was ) super aware of rapid climate change and runaway climate acceleration risks.

            He was a George W. Bush supporter who went full MAGA in 2016 and hates immigrants so much, I think he hates Irish and Italians on sheer principle even though he wasn’t alive then. And now he’s a climate science denier.

            Even super-geniuses can get swayed by the right-wing cult. Granted, we’re right down the Jefferson Davis heritage, but I’m as egalitarian pinko-commu-anarchist as they come. Can’t say it’s midwest fever or boomer madness. He also screams at the television for gridiron football.

            Parents. ☕

            • Coreidan@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              It’s the dunning kruger effect. A lot of people think that because you’re an expert in some field, then that proves that you’re smart and therefore apply the same talent to everything.

              Your Dad may be smart with science, but all that means is he’s good at science.

              The assumption is that if your Dad is smart enough to figure out science then surely figuring out politics is a cake walk. But that just isn’t now it works. The two subjects require completely different skill sets and knowledge bases and at the end of the day you only get from it what you put into it.

              Being terrible at politics doesn’t make you great at science it just makes you bad at politics.

  • hogunner@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    The GOP is its own version of Dante’s Inferno where they’re all evil but some of them are more evil than others.

  • pastabatman@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. Celebrate the good and chastise the bad. You aren’t going to find a 100% always good person.

  • iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s the same for everything… It’s America, treating people like shit and being greedy is exactly how it’s meant to be.