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Hubris and poor leadership. It was always rare to have control of all three.you use it when you have it. Instead of acting on key agenda, there was hardly anyt

Hubris and poor leadership. It was always rare to have control of all three.you use it when you have it. Instead of acting on key agenda, there was hardly anything done given the power they had. Say what you will about the republicans with similar control they will absolutely enact a lot of changes in their agenda. I may not like their agenda at all, but I can appreciate how they go about it.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
From up here in Canada it was weird to watch. Obama spoke really loud about his agenda and desires and was extremely popular and they controlled all three and then turned around and didn't really get much done for fear of the moderates in their own party, or something, I don't know. The ACA looks really... like... huh? Neo-Feudal health care. Or they weren't really interested in doing the things they said they were going to do and in fact the Democratic party is in general far more to the right than it claims to be to win elections. And I think that's the more likely and more concerning aspect of American politics is this "ratcheting effect" towards the right; the Republicans come in with a fairly extreme agenda (in the context of the rest of the western world's politics), do a bunch of fairly extreme things, then the Democrats gain some modicum of power and do very little to reverse it, and the cycle continues. It doesn't bode well for the upcoming election.
- manquer 6y ago
  Spot on. Bernie's rise in 2016 was partly in response to that . The actual left is powerless despite the response Bernie got in both his runs without large contributions. Joe Biden is very much in the centre at best, given the new focus on trying to woo republican voters the party is shifting to the right.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    Unfortunately the Obama era (or maybe the coming Biden gov't) reminds me of another prominent historical liberal/social democratic gov't that came to power in a declining but powerful imperialist country with huge promises of ending war, resolving social and economic injustices, etc. but then governed weakly with poor compromises and bad leadership... That gov't I'm thinking of would be the Weimar Republic.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

From up here in Canada it was weird to watch. Obama spoke really loud about his agenda and desires and was extremely popular and they controlled all three and then turned around and didn't really get much done for fear of the moderates in their own party, or something, I don't know. The ACA looks really... like... huh? Neo-Feudal health care. Or they weren't really interested in doing the things they said they were going to do and in fact the Democratic party is in general far more to the right than it claims to be to win elections. And I think that's the more likely and more concerning aspect of American politics is this "ratcheting effect" towards the right; the Republicans come in with a fairly extreme agenda (in the context of the rest of the western world's politics), do a bunch of fairly extreme things, then the Democrats gain some modicum of power and do very little to reverse it, and the cycle continues. It doesn't bode well for the upcoming election.

manquer 6y ago
Spot on. Bernie's rise in 2016 was partly in response to that . The actual left is powerless despite the response Bernie got in both his runs without large contributions. Joe Biden is very much in the centre at best, given the new focus on trying to woo republican voters the party is shifting to the right.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Unfortunately the Obama era (or maybe the coming Biden gov't) reminds me of another prominent historical liberal/social democratic gov't that came to power in a declining but powerful imperialist country with huge promises of ending war, resolving social and economic injustices, etc. but then governed weakly with poor compromises and bad leadership... That gov't I'm thinking of would be the Weimar Republic.