Hate is a powerful weapon.
So is apathy.
The outcome was so disastrous that I can understand asking this. But a more cautious Obama would have been attacked just as viciously as a cowardly do-nothing caretaker president. It might have made Trump’s wild promises even more effective. I just don’t see how not daring to act on his campaign themes and move the country forward for fear of inciting the entrenched plutocracy and hateful, ignorant third of the voters who made Trump happen would have produced a better outcome. Dude, Obamacare was not what made all those idiots say “I want my country back.” The country they wanted back was a country where a black man couldn’t be president and the McDonald’s menu didn’t have any Spanish on it and you could tell dirty jokes at work. Those were frightening and incomprehensible changes to the scum, as absurd as it seems to the normals. So they came boiling out of their sewers when a demagogue as scummy as they were showed up.
One thing I noticed about people who are resistant to change is how they embrace the change after it happens. They are terrified of change even though the status quo is negative. I’ve seen it with my home town with the revitalization of our downtown. They go to great length to justify the decay rather than see any improvements. I seen one person commenting how the decay was history and should be preserved. However, after the project is completed, I bet they will say “What a wonder thing it is!”
What do Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump both have in common?
They both beat Hillary Clinton in Presidential elections.
And if Obama had been able to run for a third term, he would have destroyed Trump.
Should have, could have, would have
20/20 hindsight
Probably should have been ABC
anybody but Clinton
Barack Obama is the reason why we are where we are today. His legacy (to me) is that he gave us Trump. He capitulated at almost every turn. Sorry, but IMO Obama was the ultimate Republican wet dream, brought to us by the pseudo democrats that supported him in 2008.
Nonsense. ACA and LGBT equality, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to start with, and that’s barely scratching the surface. Those are hardly “ultimate Republican wet dreams.” Obama simply could not be the fierce partisan like a Reagan or FDR; it is not in his nature, and he could never be The Angry Black Man. I do wish he had become a fierce partisan when he was briefed on Russian interference and would have told McConnell to screw himself.
It’s not hindsight at all to say that Obama would have beaten Trump handily, since I said it all during the election, too. And it disproves the theory that Obama went too far during his presidency, thereby causing Trump’s election.
You are kidding about ACA right? What happened to single payer? Where are all those who think Bernie’s single payer plan should be adopted when Obama had a majority in both houses of congress and refused to even have a debate on this idea. Sorry, but ACA does make Obama a republican wet dream… Just ask Mitt Romney.
Very well articulated.
Progress is not a straight line. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Obama was the 2 steps forward, Trump is the 1 step back.
If Obama’s policies were wrong, then wrong is the right place to be.
So well put.
A) Bernie didn’t propose a single payer bill when the ACA was being debated. Hell, Bernie didn’t even propose a coherent single payer plan on the campaign trail. It was all smoke and mirrors without any details. And it still is. His “Medicare for all” plan now is essentially Hillary’s public option plan, and not in fact an actual single payer plan.
B) There was never wide spread support for single payer in that Congress. Just like Sanders never had enough votes to win the nomination. There still isn’t,.
Now get back up on your unicorn and ride away, little berniebro.
Obama is lauded and lionized on the Left. However, he made some major mistakes in his eight years. The worst of them was the unfathomable bungling of the 2010 redistricting wars after the Census. Read:
Many or most of the problems we have today have their genesis in the 2010 Census redistricitng wars. And Obama went into that war wholly unprepared, clueless and possibly dismissive of any need to attend to the matter.
As if single payer were in the cards. Please. Mitt Romney lost in '12.
“Sorry, but ACA does make Obama a republican wet dream… Just ask Mitt Romney.” is a level of infantile ranting enough to suggest you were in a coma in '12, when Mitt Romney refutiated (thanks, Sarah) and would have repealed.
You show your white privilege here, and that you don’t work in the automotive industry.
Did you read The Daily Kos at all from '09 - '17, where Obama was routinely vilified?
People seem to forget that in the 8 years Obama served, he only had a majority in the Senate and House for a very brief period of time in which to get many of the advances to public policy from a genuinely left-leaning point of view and one that any of us could at best hope for. That was in his first two years, with slim majorities at that. That’s when we got Pelosi working hard at getting all Dems onboard with Obamacare…not exactly an easy task as many lost their seats following that vote. Also, Ted Kennedy was ill. Arlen Specter changed parties. Lots was going on during that period and the Obama administration was no slouch. They had policy wonks up the wazoo prepared to act on a number of issues from clean energy to nuclear disarmament. Obama also had to move fast to fix a major hole in the economy that was destroying lives after the financial markets were in free-fall as homes and bank accounts of ordinary Americans were put at risk. The Iraq War needed to be ended as promised. And then the fucking midterms came all-too-soon in 2010 with the Freedumb caucus, which gave us our first inklings as to how racist a lot of those boneheaded assholes were that managed to get elected to office. It was a heady time and fast moving but also a time of rising rightwing hysteria based on racial animus towards our first black President.
Personally, I think Obama is being too hard on himself.
Don’t forget FDL! Many of which migrated to DKos when FDL finally shutdown.