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>Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe. What do you mean by this?

notepad0x90 1y ago
I think history would agree eventually that his timing was unfortunate. The changes in technology (social media, smartphones,etc..) and the 2008 financial crisis culminated in large scale social changes and dissatisfaction. That along with aging politicians stuck in their old ways was a huge challenge. And he could have maybe overcome all that except for the fact that even in Obama's own lifetime, half the country didn't want black people to have the same rights as whites, so he had to deal with the racism. It all comes down to money and the gravity center of finance. Those who wanted in on commerce and rising wealth used racial attacks against him to inflame a discontent society, and the figurehead of that inflammation seized power. As they say, "America sneezes and the rest of the world catches cold", it would have been britain, ottomans,hispania, portugal, baghdad,ctesiphon, karakorum,venice,rome,etc.. in different times of history. but it is the US now, and as a result the world caught the fascism fever. I think that means Obama inadvertently was instrumental in the collapse of US-centric world older and in the shifting of center of gravity once again. I don't see beijing picking up the slack, it would be less chaotic if it were that simple. but i'm concerned the US itself won't make it till the end of this decade and I don't know what will come afterwards. China has been in times past set to take on the throne but they've been complacent and isolationist. That I think means a contraction of US's reach and influence with an unfilled vacuum, starting in Europe and spanning the globe. It might be decades before there is any kind of stability. It's basically wealthy people of the west not wanting to accept reality that's keeping things afloat so far. If McCain won in '08 and Obama won in '12, the swing may have been wildly different. If Romney won '12 there wouldn't be a trump admin. You'll notice that a lot of people agree that things started going really bad around 2013-15, that's on Obama's second term, after the snowden leaks. Brexit and other far right movements also peaked then. He isn't responsible and he didn't mean to, but the current state of things wouldn't have occurred without him. One thing he could have helped though. He could have avoided making fun of an insecure billionaire at the white house correspondent's dinner. and that certain billionaire (with a long documented history of discriminating against blacks and working for the russians), wouldn't have made it his mission in life to dismantle reverting that represented Obama.
- Arainach 1y ago
  There's never a "right time". This is akin to arguing that LBJ passing the Civil Rights Act was "a catastrophe". Sure, it energized generations of racists to become angry, flip the south, abuse the filibuster, and cause lots of pain, but these people never go away, and if the choice is "no progress" or "progress with some pain" the latter is very much preferable. The sentiment wasn't because of Obama, it was because of the Koch brothers and others like them funneling billions to corrupt American discourse. Over decades they funded conservative think tanks and academia to make their libertarian ideals more widely accepted. They funded the tea party and divisive mentalities. Others like Rupert Murdoch built up media empires to drive lies, outrage, and manufactured stories to build anti-government sentiment. None of that was Obama's doing.
  - chipsrafferty 1y ago
    I think the financial crisis was a pretty big thing and Obama handled it about as poorly as humanly possible. It set the stage for everything getting much worse.
    - Arainach 1y ago
      There are many, MANY ways things could have gone dramatically worse. There are things that could have been done better, but "as poorly as humanly possible" is a trivially wrong statement. Here's one way he could have handed it dramatically worse with a huge amount of empirical evidence: started lobbing random tariffs and abandoning trade deals and going isolationist.
    - notepad0x90 1y ago
      People in general had a very high expectation of him. The right expected him to fail because he's black, the left expected him to be better than white democratic presidents because he was black. He was just a well meaning decent human being trying to lead a country. there are worse and better presidents for sure. But he wasn't the disruptive and young new leader people hoped for.
  - notepad0x90 1y ago

notepad0x90 1y ago

I think history would agree eventually that his timing was unfortunate. The changes in technology (social media, smartphones,etc..) and the 2008 financial crisis culminated in large scale social changes and dissatisfaction. That along with aging politicians stuck in their old ways was a huge challenge. And he could have maybe overcome all that except for the fact that even in Obama's own lifetime, half the country didn't want black people to have the same rights as whites, so he had to deal with the racism. It all comes down to money and the gravity center of finance. Those who wanted in on commerce and rising wealth used racial attacks against him to inflame a discontent society, and the figurehead of that inflammation seized power. As they say, "America sneezes and the rest of the world catches cold", it would have been britain, ottomans,hispania, portugal, baghdad,ctesiphon, karakorum,venice,rome,etc.. in different times of history. but it is the US now, and as a result the world caught the fascism fever. I think that means Obama inadvertently was instrumental in the collapse of US-centric world older and in the shifting of center of gravity once again. I don't see beijing picking up the slack, it would be less chaotic if it were that simple. but i'm concerned the US itself won't make it till the end of this decade and I don't know what will come afterwards. China has been in times past set to take on the throne but they've been complacent and isolationist. That I think means a contraction of US's reach and influence with an unfilled vacuum, starting in Europe and spanning the globe. It might be decades before there is any kind of stability. It's basically wealthy people of the west not wanting to accept reality that's keeping things afloat so far. If McCain won in '08 and Obama won in '12, the swing may have been wildly different. If Romney won '12 there wouldn't be a trump admin. You'll notice that a lot of people agree that things started going really bad around 2013-15, that's on Obama's second term, after the snowden leaks. Brexit and other far right movements also peaked then. He isn't responsible and he didn't mean to, but the current state of things wouldn't have occurred without him. One thing he could have helped though. He could have avoided making fun of an insecure billionaire at the white house correspondent's dinner. and that certain billionaire (with a long documented history of discriminating against blacks and working for the russians), wouldn't have made it his mission in life to dismantle reverting that represented Obama.

Arainach 1y ago
There's never a "right time". This is akin to arguing that LBJ passing the Civil Rights Act was "a catastrophe". Sure, it energized generations of racists to become angry, flip the south, abuse the filibuster, and cause lots of pain, but these people never go away, and if the choice is "no progress" or "progress with some pain" the latter is very much preferable. The sentiment wasn't because of Obama, it was because of the Koch brothers and others like them funneling billions to corrupt American discourse. Over decades they funded conservative think tanks and academia to make their libertarian ideals more widely accepted. They funded the tea party and divisive mentalities. Others like Rupert Murdoch built up media empires to drive lies, outrage, and manufactured stories to build anti-government sentiment. None of that was Obama's doing.
- chipsrafferty 1y ago
  I think the financial crisis was a pretty big thing and Obama handled it about as poorly as humanly possible. It set the stage for everything getting much worse.
  - Arainach 1y ago
    There are many, MANY ways things could have gone dramatically worse. There are things that could have been done better, but "as poorly as humanly possible" is a trivially wrong statement. Here's one way he could have handed it dramatically worse with a huge amount of empirical evidence: started lobbing random tariffs and abandoning trade deals and going isolationist.
  - notepad0x90 1y ago
    People in general had a very high expectation of him. The right expected him to fail because he's black, the left expected him to be better than white democratic presidents because he was black. He was just a well meaning decent human being trying to lead a country. there are worse and better presidents for sure. But he wasn't the disruptive and young new leader people hoped for.
- notepad0x90 1y ago