6 ms·

Obama is a huge part of why this happened. He promised change and delivered empire.

scarmig 10y ago
Eh, I do have plenty of foreign policy disagreements in particular with him. But he's the best we've had in living memory. Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional capacity to understand or formulate policies relevant to those people. It's a perverse version of the situation people thought Republicans were in in 2012, where they seemed to have driven out most non-white people and thereby lacked the capacity for effective outreach to them. Except in this case, if you're a poor white male in Wisconsin who's done everything right but is still struggling like hell, you're an evil oppressor who just doesn't recognize your privilege. People who can understand where the poor white male perspective is coming from are literally shouted out of discussions for diverting attention from the people uniquely experiencing True Suffering and blessed with progressive sainthood. It's beyond Obama. Who, for what it's worth, has always struck me as the thoughtful type who wouldn't buy into those kinds of fake dichotomies. It's a broader issue with progressive movements where people earn cred by honing their sensitivities enough to maximize the level of offense they can experience.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  I agree with everything you have said. Obama is a thoughtful type and a great orator. I'm sure he would have liked to enact some of the change he promised but he didn't. In many ways America regressed further under his watch and this is the outcome.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    You're too kind to Obama. Obama did troll his opponents on many occasions (like saying snarky things about birth certificates). He ran on a better type of politics, but he gave up on it very quickly, to phrase it charitably.
  - triplesec 10y ago
    I think it's not that he didn't, but he couldn't, with the most obstructive Congress in modern history
    - privong 10y ago
      > I think it's not that he didn't, but he couldn't, with the most obstructive Congress in modern history Ironically, some of that might have been his own doing, though. The healthcare reform was passed essentially without republican support; I think that's a very rare example of major [healthcare] legislation that was not passed with bi-partisan support. Not doing more to bring R's on board likely burned lots of political capital and hardened opposition to him in Congress. I'm not saying Obama didn't try at all to bring R's on board, just that a bit more effort might have result in a more cooperative Congress.
      - jacobolus 10y ago
        The GOP congress decided to bring Obama down from the start, and never gave an inch. He tried valiantly to collaborate and compromise but the GOP didn’t have the political capacity to work with Obama for fear of being challenged in primaries from the right. You’re right that the ACA ended up being a political disaster for the Democrats though. The ACA was basically the same as “RomneyCare” in MA, and was a style of healthcare reform supported by mainstream center-right Republicans and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point), but once Obama’s name was on it they all decided to throw everything they could against it. The GOP campaigned hard against the ACA after it passed, and won massively in the midterm elections in 2010 on the back of wall-to-wall anti-ACA messaging on right-leaning media and a huge amount of organizing and spending (the first post-Citizens United election). They took control of the House, Senate, and many state legislatures, following which they redrew all the district boundaries to cut Democrats permanently out of competition in the House and many state legislatures. After the crushing defeat in 2010, there weren’t enough Senate seats up for grabs in 2012 for the Democrats to regain control. Thus Obama had to deal with 6 years of GOP control, which has been the most obstructionist Congress in US history. As soon as McConnell won in 2010 he publicly declared that his #1 goal was to make Obama a 1-term president. We had multiple government shutdown threats, unprecedented obstruction of executive appointments including judges at every level of the federal court system, bogus investigation after bogus investigation into e.g. Benghazi, and dozens of purely symbolic votes to repeal the ACA.
- lintiness 10y ago
  "He's the best we've had in living memory." uh, WOW. you must have a short memory because reagan, bush sr, and clinton were all superior in almost every way, and none will eat a terrible policy failure like the aca.
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    You might be interested to read http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myth_no_one_had_ever_entered_the_white_house_so_grossly_ill_informed/ http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myt...
    - lintiness 10y ago
      not the least bit interested in partisan "journalism". i was alive then.
      - judahmeek 10y ago
        And what metrics are you basing your statements on?
      - jacobolus 10y ago
        This is an excerpt from a mass-market history/biography book by a renowned historian at UNC Chapel Hill (emeritus), a foremost scholar of FDR’s life and work. It’s not journalism per se (with or without scare quotes) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195176162/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195176162/
    - arethuza 10y ago
      Somewhat surprisingly for a leftish Scot I am a fan of Reagan - for one very important reason. He understood that the standard US view of the Soviets was actually wrong and it was the Soviet leadership who were utterly afraid of the US (perhaps for good reasons) and he changed his approach.
      - jacobolus 10y ago
mrow84 10y ago
I'm no expert on US politics, but wasn't he hidebound by a Republican house and senate?
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  Promises were made. Why they weren't kept is irrelevant. Edit: to clarify this is not my personal position but more a reflection on how I see the electorate behaving.
  - crispyambulance 10y ago
    ... yes, "promises" are how people defend their vote, and now we're going to get a front-row seat to see what happens to "promises" when the bullshit artist, Trump, is in charge.
    - hash-set 10y ago
      Yeah, see you really need to listen to yourself? That article says it all. Now he's a bullshit artist because he can't possibly be competent since he's ostensibly a conservative. It's a fallacy.
      - crispyambulance 10y ago
        No, he's a bullshit artist because he has made promises which he is CLEARLY not going to be able to keep like building a wall between Mexico and USA and getting Mexico to pay for it. I could go on and on, but that's a good, concrete example of a "promise" that will go unfulfilled.
- lintiness 10y ago
  he controlled both houses when he took office. he rammed through ideological policy aca with zero opposition party input or support; he quickly lost his majorities.
  - 10y ago
verbify 10y ago
Which is why he has an approval rating of 55%?
hash-set 10y ago
Obama failed to even fundamentally pretend to enforce the laws of the land.
silverbax88 10y ago
Wait, what? He ran on fixing the economy (done), ending the war in Iraq (done), restoring our relationship with the rest of the world (done), universal health care (done) and improving the acceptance of minority groups (somewhat done - at least the LGBT community). Illegal immigration is down, unemployment is down, crime is down. There are definitely things Obama hasn't done, but he absolutely delivered change, and he did it while facing a completely obstructionist Congress and Senate for most of his tenure. People just get complacent, even when things are going great. No matter how much any president does, or how good things are, people will get antsy just because our human nature forces us to constantly avoid what we perceive as stagnation.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  Ending the war? He has escalated on all fronts and opened new ones too. Obama talks a good game but under it all is more surveillance, more economic inequality and more violence.
  - silverbax88 10y ago
    Escalating on all fronts? Please elaborate how getting the US out of a major war has done that. I certainly won't claim that Obama's foreign policy is golden, but it was said 'empire'...which would mean invading and occupying all over the globe. Obama isn't even close to the imperialist policies we had under Bush.
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      You haven't been paying attention. Ukraine, Syria (and by proxy Iraq), Libya, Arab Spring, Yemen .... now moving clandestine operations into central Africa. We also have Brazil in SA, we've had dronings in countless other countries, even against US citizens without trial which is also a first and I'm sure I'm missing a few on the hit list. Just because the tactics change doesn't mean he gets a green card.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > Wait, what? He ran on fixing the economy (done)... Not really. It's not at the point of collapse, but it sure wasn't a normal recovery. It's better than 2008, but it's still broken in some very real ways. > ... ending the war in Iraq (done)... Sort of. The battle for Mosul was in the news just last week, with US involvement. > ... restoring our relationship with the rest of the world (done)... Russia is fighting against our goals in Syria, and illegally occupied the eastern Ukraine. Iran has a nuclear deal with us, but immediately started thumbing its nose at us. China is trying to see how much influence they can gain at our expense in Asia. North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are, according to their rhetoric, aimed explicitly at us. > ... universal health care (done)... Seen the premium changes for 2017? The law was passed, but "bending the cost curve" sure didn't happen.

Eh, I do have plenty of foreign policy disagreements in particular with him. But he's the best we've had in living memory. Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional capacity to understand or formulate policies relevant to those people. It's a perverse version of the situation people thought Republicans were in in 2012, where they seemed to have driven out most non-white people and thereby lacked the capacity for effective outreach to them. Except in this case, if you're a poor white male in Wisconsin who's done everything right but is still struggling like hell, you're an evil oppressor who just doesn't recognize your privilege. People who can understand where the poor white male perspective is coming from are literally shouted out of discussions for diverting attention from the people uniquely experiencing True Suffering and blessed with progressive sainthood. It's beyond Obama. Who, for what it's worth, has always struck me as the thoughtful type who wouldn't buy into those kinds of fake dichotomies. It's a broader issue with progressive movements where people earn cred by honing their sensitivities enough to maximize the level of offense they can experience.

rorykoehler 10y ago
I agree with everything you have said. Obama is a thoughtful type and a great orator. I'm sure he would have liked to enact some of the change he promised but he didn't. In many ways America regressed further under his watch and this is the outcome.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  You're too kind to Obama. Obama did troll his opponents on many occasions (like saying snarky things about birth certificates). He ran on a better type of politics, but he gave up on it very quickly, to phrase it charitably.
- triplesec 10y ago
  I think it's not that he didn't, but he couldn't, with the most obstructive Congress in modern history
  - privong 10y ago
    > I think it's not that he didn't, but he couldn't, with the most obstructive Congress in modern history Ironically, some of that might have been his own doing, though. The healthcare reform was passed essentially without republican support; I think that's a very rare example of major [healthcare] legislation that was not passed with bi-partisan support. Not doing more to bring R's on board likely burned lots of political capital and hardened opposition to him in Congress. I'm not saying Obama didn't try at all to bring R's on board, just that a bit more effort might have result in a more cooperative Congress.
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      The GOP congress decided to bring Obama down from the start, and never gave an inch. He tried valiantly to collaborate and compromise but the GOP didn’t have the political capacity to work with Obama for fear of being challenged in primaries from the right. You’re right that the ACA ended up being a political disaster for the Democrats though. The ACA was basically the same as “RomneyCare” in MA, and was a style of healthcare reform supported by mainstream center-right Republicans and some center-left Democrats (most Democrats wanted a single payer plan, or at least a public option, but took what they could get because the healthcare system was/is at a breaking point), but once Obama’s name was on it they all decided to throw everything they could against it. The GOP campaigned hard against the ACA after it passed, and won massively in the midterm elections in 2010 on the back of wall-to-wall anti-ACA messaging on right-leaning media and a huge amount of organizing and spending (the first post-Citizens United election). They took control of the House, Senate, and many state legislatures, following which they redrew all the district boundaries to cut Democrats permanently out of competition in the House and many state legislatures. After the crushing defeat in 2010, there weren’t enough Senate seats up for grabs in 2012 for the Democrats to regain control. Thus Obama had to deal with 6 years of GOP control, which has been the most obstructionist Congress in US history. As soon as McConnell won in 2010 he publicly declared that his #1 goal was to make Obama a 1-term president. We had multiple government shutdown threats, unprecedented obstruction of executive appointments including judges at every level of the federal court system, bogus investigation after bogus investigation into e.g. Benghazi, and dozens of purely symbolic votes to repeal the ACA.
lintiness 10y ago
"He's the best we've had in living memory." uh, WOW. you must have a short memory because reagan, bush sr, and clinton were all superior in almost every way, and none will eat a terrible policy failure like the aca.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  You might be interested to read http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myth_no_one_had_ever_entered_the_white_house_so_grossly_ill_informed/ http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myt...
  - lintiness 10y ago
    not the least bit interested in partisan "journalism". i was alive then.
    - judahmeek 10y ago
      And what metrics are you basing your statements on?
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      This is an excerpt from a mass-market history/biography book by a renowned historian at UNC Chapel Hill (emeritus), a foremost scholar of FDR’s life and work. It’s not journalism per se (with or without scare quotes) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195176162/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195176162/
  - arethuza 10y ago
    Somewhat surprisingly for a leftish Scot I am a fan of Reagan - for one very important reason. He understood that the standard US view of the Soviets was actually wrong and it was the Soviet leadership who were utterly afraid of the US (perhaps for good reasons) and he changed his approach.
    - jacobolus 10y ago

mrow84 10y ago

I'm no expert on US politics, but wasn't he hidebound by a Republican house and senate?

rorykoehler 10y ago
Promises were made. Why they weren't kept is irrelevant. Edit: to clarify this is not my personal position but more a reflection on how I see the electorate behaving.
- crispyambulance 10y ago
  ... yes, "promises" are how people defend their vote, and now we're going to get a front-row seat to see what happens to "promises" when the bullshit artist, Trump, is in charge.
  - hash-set 10y ago
    Yeah, see you really need to listen to yourself? That article says it all. Now he's a bullshit artist because he can't possibly be competent since he's ostensibly a conservative. It's a fallacy.
    - crispyambulance 10y ago
      No, he's a bullshit artist because he has made promises which he is CLEARLY not going to be able to keep like building a wall between Mexico and USA and getting Mexico to pay for it. I could go on and on, but that's a good, concrete example of a "promise" that will go unfulfilled.
lintiness 10y ago
he controlled both houses when he took office. he rammed through ideological policy aca with zero opposition party input or support; he quickly lost his majorities.
- 10y ago

verbify 10y ago

Which is why he has an approval rating of 55%?

hash-set 10y ago

Obama failed to even fundamentally pretend to enforce the laws of the land.

silverbax88 10y ago

Wait, what? He ran on fixing the economy (done), ending the war in Iraq (done), restoring our relationship with the rest of the world (done), universal health care (done) and improving the acceptance of minority groups (somewhat done - at least the LGBT community). Illegal immigration is down, unemployment is down, crime is down. There are definitely things Obama hasn't done, but he absolutely delivered change, and he did it while facing a completely obstructionist Congress and Senate for most of his tenure. People just get complacent, even when things are going great. No matter how much any president does, or how good things are, people will get antsy just because our human nature forces us to constantly avoid what we perceive as stagnation.

rorykoehler 10y ago
Ending the war? He has escalated on all fronts and opened new ones too. Obama talks a good game but under it all is more surveillance, more economic inequality and more violence.
- silverbax88 10y ago
  Escalating on all fronts? Please elaborate how getting the US out of a major war has done that. I certainly won't claim that Obama's foreign policy is golden, but it was said 'empire'...which would mean invading and occupying all over the globe. Obama isn't even close to the imperialist policies we had under Bush.
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    You haven't been paying attention. Ukraine, Syria (and by proxy Iraq), Libya, Arab Spring, Yemen .... now moving clandestine operations into central Africa. We also have Brazil in SA, we've had dronings in countless other countries, even against US citizens without trial which is also a first and I'm sure I'm missing a few on the hit list. Just because the tactics change doesn't mean he gets a green card.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> Wait, what? He ran on fixing the economy (done)... Not really. It's not at the point of collapse, but it sure wasn't a normal recovery. It's better than 2008, but it's still broken in some very real ways. > ... ending the war in Iraq (done)... Sort of. The battle for Mosul was in the news just last week, with US involvement. > ... restoring our relationship with the rest of the world (done)... Russia is fighting against our goals in Syria, and illegally occupied the eastern Ukraine. Iran has a nuclear deal with us, but immediately started thumbing its nose at us. China is trying to see how much influence they can gain at our expense in Asia. North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are, according to their rhetoric, aimed explicitly at us. > ... universal health care (done)... Seen the premium changes for 2017? The law was passed, but "bending the cost curve" sure didn't happen.