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Americans voted for Obama because of hope; did good times come about? I don't think so. Then Americans voted for Trump because of fear; did bad times come abo

Americans voted for Obama because of hope; did good times come about? I don't think so. Then Americans voted for Trump because of fear; did bad times come about? Definitely. You might be onto something with the fear part, but I don't think the hope part really works. People buying into hope can easily just be misguided hope and not based on reality. People buying into fear means things really have gone bad.

thelock85 4y ago
> I don’t think the hope part really works. What other emotion than hope could have as much mass appeal as fear?
- midoridensha 4y ago
  How about not relying on emotion, and using logic and reason instead? Of course, that won't win votes, which is why human society is doomed.
mrhands556 4y ago
Before covid the trump presidency had good times to those not paying attention to news articles specifically about trump or late night talk shows.
- olliej 4y ago
  For example…? Because I see children in cages, wanton grift, federal aid based on favors and similar to trump personally.
  - GuardianCaveman 4y ago
    keyword "trump presidency had good times" so yeah him and his family and inner circle had GREAT times.
  - xkbarkar 4y ago
    If you look at every single precidency pretty awful things were done. Fake child immunization setup to get Usama during Obama administration. Has caused an unveleivable amount of harm to children. Not in cages, just no linger vaccinated for fear of US pursuit. Yell bad man Trump all you want. He was never the problem, he was a symptom of what is really going on. Same with Swedish and now Italian elections. Get all the social media upvotes for adhering to the woke and bow to twitter as much as you want. This is what is actually going on. I blame super shitty journalism also for this. Thats just a personal irk I have for how oblivious and grossly overconfident and incompetent the media actually is
    - notafraudster 4y ago
      I think most people are going to find a moral equivalence drawn between "locked up children in cages" and "tricked Osama Bin Laden's relatives into taking a blood test" pretty hollow, even if an argument can be made that the latter led to a complex downstream set of externalities.
      - dapf 4y ago
        The "locking down children in cages" was already being done during the Obama period.
        _8j50 4y ago
        Separating them from their mothers? Nope
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        >I think most people are going to find a moral equivalence drawn between "locked up children in cages" and "tricked Osama Bin Laden's relatives into taking a blood test" pretty hollow He's not talking about OBL's blood relatives, he's talking about all the children in Pakistan who aren't vaccinated now because the US's actions caused them to distrust vaccines and those who provide them.
  - AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
    Just off the top of my head: - made hospitals disclose healthcare prices - cleaned up asylum rules - banned Chinese equipment from 5G networks - enacted criminal justice reform And the most important: he's the only recent president who didn't start a new war. That alone would be enough to write his name in golden letters.
    - Toxygene 4y ago
      > he's the only recent president who didn't start a new war Not for a lack of trying. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani was authorized by Trump and led to several direct attacks on each other and only stopped after Iran accidentally shot down a commercial passenger plane originating from their own country.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        He is the first republican in a long time that didn't start a war only because there were already two undrerway and his generals stopped him from starting wars. He was a DC outsider so he didn't know the war starting protocol I guess?
        AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
        Would be good if our next president doesn't know the war starting protocol as well.
        _8j50 4y ago
        Not if there is a good reason to wage a war. Everyone complains about wars but every war since vietnam had widespread public support at the time it was started.
        midoridensha 4y ago
        That's not a good reason to start a war. The Iraq War (2003, not the Gulf War of the 90s) had widespread public support because the CIA fabricated evidence of WMDs to create that support.
- cromwellian 4y ago
  Those “good times” were large an extension of Obama’s term. If you look at the GDP and job numbers of this period and fit a regression line, Trump did not meaningfully alter the slope of the curve, which means he largely inherited a growing economy and road the coattails.
- _8j50 4y ago
  I disagree. Riots and protests every few months, half the country losing its shit. Everyday some messed up thing happens, it was like watching a house burn across the street. I mean, I think it is widely known that policies and actions on one term will usually show fruit in the next term. People start spending and investing money slowly once they see things looking up. Look at bush relaxing as many restrictions as he could and getting rid of taxes as much as he could before the 08 crash. Your second term is when the product of your policies are seen. Their first year is spent getting campain promises done as much as possible and getting used to the job (like any employee it takes 6mo-year to be productivr) and 4th year is election year. So it is usually the second and third year after they appointed all the important officials they do anything which means when things take effect is months or a 1yr+ down the road and then you see whatever metric's graph either start going down or up but it is rare for it to peak immediately, could happen but you really can't take credit for economic stuff at least in the first 2 yrs. Also, keep in mind that americans take away the president's party's majority in congress mid way in the term usually so republican or democrat it is difficult to get things done in their 3rd and 4th year. So their efforts peak at the end of 2nd year and first half of 3rd year and the fruits of those efforts are seen down the road in their last year or the year or two after their last term.
cromwellian 4y ago
Obama inherited an economy in free fall. By the time he left, the deficit had been cut in half (thanks to sequester), we had more quarters of 3%, 4%, even 5% GDP growth not since the 90s. Unemployment fell from 10% to 4.7%. Home prices and the stock market appreciated considerably. Trump largely inherited a good economy from Obama, passed a reckless tax cut, and then failed to beat Obama’s final 3 years in terms of gdp growth or job growth. Those tax cuts blew a hole in the deficit before COVID and triggered a plethora of stock buyback activity depleting corporate cash reserves just in time for the pandemic leaving them with nothing to fall back on, and needing quicker and bigger bailouts that might have been necessary if they had bigger nest eggs. (Airlines especially) Obama had international inspectors in Iran’s nuke plants, Trump pulled the US out and now the situation is far worse with respect to th nuke profliferation issue. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/ https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/
- panick21_ 4y ago
  It always amazing how Americans think presidents have much of an impact on things like economics and housing markets. It the same mistake people make everywhere, correlation is not causation. The Great Depression was not Hoovers fault. Hitler was not some amazing economic genius its just that he got to power after the worst of the recession was over. Trump certainty did some thing bad things in terms of trade, but that likely doesn't explain most of the numbers. > Obama had international inspectors in Iran’s nuke plants, Trump pulled the US out and now the situation is far worse with respect to th nuke profliferation issue. That actually is something the president has much influence on.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    They have some influence. The fed chief is nominated by them. Laws they support get priority. Their policies can have effects on consumer confidence and economic activity, I mean americans belive the president is powerful so true or not their economic behavior is affected, and that isn't just consumers but investors as well. Let's say biden threatened nuke war against russia, that will crash stocks or mention tariffs on China which will affect some stocks more than others. CEOs also use what they say as an excuse to do things.
krapp 4y ago
Hope and fear are opposite sides of the same coin. Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again" was explicitly hopeful, but the hope of populism always rests on a fear of (and disgust for) modernity and its implied future. Obama's message of hope was also predicated on the ideal of moving American culture away from fear, in that case fear of the persistence of America's past. Fear of progress vs. fear of regress. People buying into hope are by definition buying into the mitigation of fear.
_8j50 4y ago
Sure did. The economy bush screwed up recovered, a lot of stimulus packages helped many americans. Obamacare passed, bin laden getting killed in '11 was good too. Of course I said Obama in 08 for a reason, Obama in '12 not so much and of course '16 was a shitshow.

thelock85 4y ago

> I don’t think the hope part really works. What other emotion than hope could have as much mass appeal as fear?

midoridensha 4y ago
How about not relying on emotion, and using logic and reason instead? Of course, that won't win votes, which is why human society is doomed.

mrhands556 4y ago

Before covid the trump presidency had good times to those not paying attention to news articles specifically about trump or late night talk shows.

olliej 4y ago
For example…? Because I see children in cages, wanton grift, federal aid based on favors and similar to trump personally.
- GuardianCaveman 4y ago
  keyword "trump presidency had good times" so yeah him and his family and inner circle had GREAT times.
- xkbarkar 4y ago
  If you look at every single precidency pretty awful things were done. Fake child immunization setup to get Usama during Obama administration. Has caused an unveleivable amount of harm to children. Not in cages, just no linger vaccinated for fear of US pursuit. Yell bad man Trump all you want. He was never the problem, he was a symptom of what is really going on. Same with Swedish and now Italian elections. Get all the social media upvotes for adhering to the woke and bow to twitter as much as you want. This is what is actually going on. I blame super shitty journalism also for this. Thats just a personal irk I have for how oblivious and grossly overconfident and incompetent the media actually is
  - notafraudster 4y ago
    I think most people are going to find a moral equivalence drawn between "locked up children in cages" and "tricked Osama Bin Laden's relatives into taking a blood test" pretty hollow, even if an argument can be made that the latter led to a complex downstream set of externalities.
    - dapf 4y ago
      The "locking down children in cages" was already being done during the Obama period.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        Separating them from their mothers? Nope
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >I think most people are going to find a moral equivalence drawn between "locked up children in cages" and "tricked Osama Bin Laden's relatives into taking a blood test" pretty hollow He's not talking about OBL's blood relatives, he's talking about all the children in Pakistan who aren't vaccinated now because the US's actions caused them to distrust vaccines and those who provide them.
- AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
  Just off the top of my head: - made hospitals disclose healthcare prices - cleaned up asylum rules - banned Chinese equipment from 5G networks - enacted criminal justice reform And the most important: he's the only recent president who didn't start a new war. That alone would be enough to write his name in golden letters.
  - Toxygene 4y ago
    > he's the only recent president who didn't start a new war Not for a lack of trying. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani was authorized by Trump and led to several direct attacks on each other and only stopped after Iran accidentally shot down a commercial passenger plane originating from their own country.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      He is the first republican in a long time that didn't start a war only because there were already two undrerway and his generals stopped him from starting wars. He was a DC outsider so he didn't know the war starting protocol I guess?
      - AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
        Would be good if our next president doesn't know the war starting protocol as well.
        _8j50 4y ago
        Not if there is a good reason to wage a war. Everyone complains about wars but every war since vietnam had widespread public support at the time it was started.
        midoridensha 4y ago
        That's not a good reason to start a war. The Iraq War (2003, not the Gulf War of the 90s) had widespread public support because the CIA fabricated evidence of WMDs to create that support.
cromwellian 4y ago
Those “good times” were large an extension of Obama’s term. If you look at the GDP and job numbers of this period and fit a regression line, Trump did not meaningfully alter the slope of the curve, which means he largely inherited a growing economy and road the coattails.
_8j50 4y ago
I disagree. Riots and protests every few months, half the country losing its shit. Everyday some messed up thing happens, it was like watching a house burn across the street. I mean, I think it is widely known that policies and actions on one term will usually show fruit in the next term. People start spending and investing money slowly once they see things looking up. Look at bush relaxing as many restrictions as he could and getting rid of taxes as much as he could before the 08 crash. Your second term is when the product of your policies are seen. Their first year is spent getting campain promises done as much as possible and getting used to the job (like any employee it takes 6mo-year to be productivr) and 4th year is election year. So it is usually the second and third year after they appointed all the important officials they do anything which means when things take effect is months or a 1yr+ down the road and then you see whatever metric's graph either start going down or up but it is rare for it to peak immediately, could happen but you really can't take credit for economic stuff at least in the first 2 yrs. Also, keep in mind that americans take away the president's party's majority in congress mid way in the term usually so republican or democrat it is difficult to get things done in their 3rd and 4th year. So their efforts peak at the end of 2nd year and first half of 3rd year and the fruits of those efforts are seen down the road in their last year or the year or two after their last term.

cromwellian 4y ago

Obama inherited an economy in free fall. By the time he left, the deficit had been cut in half (thanks to sequester), we had more quarters of 3%, 4%, even 5% GDP growth not since the 90s. Unemployment fell from 10% to 4.7%. Home prices and the stock market appreciated considerably. Trump largely inherited a good economy from Obama, passed a reckless tax cut, and then failed to beat Obama’s final 3 years in terms of gdp growth or job growth. Those tax cuts blew a hole in the deficit before COVID and triggered a plethora of stock buyback activity depleting corporate cash reserves just in time for the pandemic leaving them with nothing to fall back on, and needing quicker and bigger bailouts that might have been necessary if they had bigger nest eggs. (Airlines especially) Obama had international inspectors in Iran’s nuke plants, Trump pulled the US out and now the situation is far worse with respect to th nuke profliferation issue. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/ https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/obamas-final-numbers/

panick21_ 4y ago
It always amazing how Americans think presidents have much of an impact on things like economics and housing markets. It the same mistake people make everywhere, correlation is not causation. The Great Depression was not Hoovers fault. Hitler was not some amazing economic genius its just that he got to power after the worst of the recession was over. Trump certainty did some thing bad things in terms of trade, but that likely doesn't explain most of the numbers. > Obama had international inspectors in Iran’s nuke plants, Trump pulled the US out and now the situation is far worse with respect to th nuke profliferation issue. That actually is something the president has much influence on.
- _8j50 4y ago
  They have some influence. The fed chief is nominated by them. Laws they support get priority. Their policies can have effects on consumer confidence and economic activity, I mean americans belive the president is powerful so true or not their economic behavior is affected, and that isn't just consumers but investors as well. Let's say biden threatened nuke war against russia, that will crash stocks or mention tariffs on China which will affect some stocks more than others. CEOs also use what they say as an excuse to do things.

krapp 4y ago

Hope and fear are opposite sides of the same coin. Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again" was explicitly hopeful, but the hope of populism always rests on a fear of (and disgust for) modernity and its implied future. Obama's message of hope was also predicated on the ideal of moving American culture away from fear, in that case fear of the persistence of America's past. Fear of progress vs. fear of regress. People buying into hope are by definition buying into the mitigation of fear.

_8j50 4y ago

Sure did. The economy bush screwed up recovered, a lot of stimulus packages helped many americans. Obamacare passed, bin laden getting killed in '11 was good too. Of course I said Obama in 08 for a reason, Obama in '12 not so much and of course '16 was a shitshow.