Former President Barack Obama said Republicans have been “cowed into accepting” a way of thinking about democracy that would have been “unrecognizable” five to ten years ago in an interview that aired Monday.
It’s nice to see Obama has taken a break from eating babies to talk to the nation.
Let’s just have a cage match between Mr. Obama and T****. Pay-per-view.
I must respectfully disagree. We can recognize them as the same party that vowed to make Obama a one term President, and then blocked judicial nominees, including Merrick Garland. They’re just more upfront about it today.
Oh right - they found the pizza parlor with no basement and shut it down.
Yep. They embraced a new idol (golden statue and all) and Trump has no filter whatever - the new RepubliQan standard.
Just like the old RepubliQan, just more brazen.
If the Republican party were one person, they would look like a Charles Ponzi wanted poster.
Same GOP, new crazy. 5-10 years ago they were willing to decimate our economy using the debt ceiling. Today, they’re working on demolishing our democracy via the Big Lie.
I didn’t expect that there would be so few people who would say, ‘Well, I don’t mind losing my office because this is too important. America is too important’"
Hmm…after watching the GOP over the last 4 years, this unfortunately is really not so surprising.
Oh Hell the GOP was just as bad in his days.
I am afraid that Obama has not been paying attention… GOP has been full of fascists for quite a long time.
Obama’s book A Promised Land featured a GOP on the way to where it is now…but far less reprehensible.
The Republican party was on this path from the days of Nixon as Ornstein and Mann chronicled.
The authors describe the party as “an insurgent outlier – ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
ETA: Others have noted this but the main impact of Trump was to make the reality of Republican ethnic authoritarianism and revanchism overt: as a vulgar bullshit artist and predatory abuser, this was his talent.
“Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” ― Upton Sinclair
What is surprising to me is the speed at which the GOP openly went full White Nationalist and fascist. The party was clearly heading in both directions but I expected the transformation to be slower and more secretive.
It’s the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
These political (so-called “public servants”) are molded by and also enjoying…
$$$$$$$$
In the case of the current GOP, it’s that, extortion, fear and power.
When Bill Miller finished his 1964 run for VP with Barry Goldwater there was not an industry milking and finding celebrity in all aspects of politcal life.
In the case of Bill, he even poked fun at himself with a “Do you know me?” commercial for American Express…fast forward to Sarah Palin…
In my view Obama has always attempted to remain above the fray; he knows that if he is seen as ‘the angry black man’, he loses, and his message is lost to those who need to hear it.
Perhaps he’s just trying to be tactful and diplomatic and give non-Trumpie Repubs a safe harbor of sorts and avoid coming across as too partisan and whatnot, but this is obviously and facially ridiculous. The GOP is unfortunately very recognizable right now, more so than it’s been in decades. THIS is the real GOP, not the mythical one that Dems could supposedly work with in the recent past. That GOP hasn’t existed since the mid-90’s, and isn’t coming back. Today’s GOP may be led by a ridiculous monster, but it was ridiculous and monstrous before he took it over, which is why he was able to take it over so easily.
Obama, being Obama and a former president, feels that he has to do his thing. Fine. Whatever. But I’m not going to indulge this revisionist nonsense. Today’s GOP is and has been for decades the party of ridiculous monsters, racists, misogynists and fascist thugs for decades, going back to Gingrich, Reagan and Nixon, and the only thing that’s changed is that it’s no longer even trying to pretend otherwise. But at its core it’s been this way for decades.
I hate to say it but this is the root of Obama’s weaknesses as a president. The nature of the GOP was obvious well before Obama was a national figure. While he was running, while he was in office he often seemed naive about all this.
