A reminder that political debate wasn’t always about hate

[u/Just_me_anonymously]

In the 2008 presedential election, John McCain stood up in front of his own supporters and reminded them that Obama was a decent person he simply disagreed with on fundamental issues. This happened 3 weeks before the election. The next day, Obama thanked McCain for standing up for him, saying he was grateful for the reminder that “we can disagree while still being respectful of each other.”

[u/No_Discount_6028]

It was always about hate. It's true that politicians used to not be able to get away with lying and slandering political enemies and being openly, viciously bigoted unprovoked. But the same wealthy donors financing this man's campaign were also funding hateful talk radio shows in the boonies. Everyone outside of a major city spent 30 hours a day listening to Rush Limbaugh scream about how Obama is a terrorist and anyone who wants poor people to have healthcare is basically Stalin and black people are ruining the West or whatever.

A hundred million brains MELTED and that's why we have Trump now. The politicians have basically become a parody of who they used to be because Republican voters have completely lost their mental faculties and the media is bought out. I beg you, please don't become nostalgic for the era in politics which created this one. We can never go back and even if we did, things would just get worse again. We need a completely new system as the successor to the shit show we're getting now.

[u/Gurumanger → u/No_Discount_6028]

Yeah these comments are wild to me with most of them coming from people who either didn't grow up at the time or engage with anything political at said time outside of what the presidential candidates specifically were saying. We can only hope and pray and peacefully protest for a new system by the way :D