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How Trump’s Election Shook Obama: ‘What if We Were Wrong?’
- Thread starter Meus Renaissance
- Start date
When has Obama ever done this?
Obama did the mean tweets thing where he mocked thatt Trump would never be president. That only empowered Trump supported. If he could have helped at all, he certainly didn't try.
When Obama was elected I will admit I was pretty conservative... certainly more fiscally than socially. I was not a fan and was upset he was elected. But over the course of 8 years I grew to appreciate him as a person and it actually helped change some core beliefs in my life. So at least for this midwestern guy he reached me and that was only possible because he came across very genuine to me. Unlike the guy in the office now.
I also think people like Obama are the toughest on themselves and that is why they are never sitting still or happy to just be in the moment, they want to keep working and I hope he does.
I also think people like Obama are the toughest on themselves and that is why they are never sitting still or happy to just be in the moment, they want to keep working and I hope he does.
It infuriated Trump so that he had to run, it didn't cause Trump to win. Obama would've clowned Trump easily in a debate. The same way he clowned Romney.
He won the most difficult election in America twice by comfortable margins and implemented a pretty sweeping set of legislation in spite of entrenched Congressional resistance for the majority of his two terms, so I don't agree that he is a bad politician.
Objectively, Hillary did clown Trump in every debate. He looked like a complete dumbass lacking in substance. Unfortunately, the debates didn't really matter.
I think Obama will be remembered as the president who presided over the definitive end of America's post-war period. We know that the USA's golden age ended in the early '70s, but there was a 40 year lag between the economic end and the domestic and geopolitical end. The lag was lengthened by about 20 years due to the Cold War, but in hindsight, the mid-90s is when the transition began.
On one hand, I think Trump and his nativist/white nationalist base are a return to the norms of American politics prior to WWII. On the other hand, I can't help but draw a tenuous analogy with Tiberius Gracchus, in the sense that a major seal has been broken in American politics, where former norms & customs are discarded, and a new reality of pure power politics has been ushered into place where the stakes are constantly raised amongst a small coterie of wealthy elites jockeying for power while everything else deteriorates around them.
On one hand, I think Trump and his nativist/white nationalist base are a return to the norms of American politics prior to WWII. On the other hand, I can't help but draw a tenuous analogy with Tiberius Gracchus, in the sense that a major seal has been broken in American politics, where former norms & customs are discarded, and a new reality of pure power politics has been ushered into place where the stakes are constantly raised amongst a small coterie of wealthy elites jockeying for power while everything else deteriorates around them.
Debate is not about, 'Insult, insult, get'em, get'em.' That actually tends to backfire. Anyone rational could see Clinton won those debates handily. But that election was so removed from rationality that didn't. Clinton being a ferious and relentless attack dog wouldn't have changed that and just fed into the double standard she was already fighting against.
This is where you are absolutely wrong. Debates ARE about "insult, get'em, get'em." No one cares about the "rational" part of debates or who had better "policy." It's about theatrics, it's about your charisma and the way your carry yourself. How you respond to your opponents and one up them. Obama's second debate with Romney was all about, "Please proceed, Governor." Nothing else mattered once that happened. After that Romney could have announced a new way in which everyone could get a massive tax break and free hookers and no one would have paid him any attention. He lost. Similarly, Biden made Paul Ryan out to be like a little kid with his old, folksy charm calling Ryan's plan Malarkey. And, when Ryan kept referring to the Prime Minister of Israel as Nethanyahu instead of Bibi like Biden, it painted him as someone not actually in touch with the man personally the same way Biden was.
No one actually cares about the minutiae of policy in a debate. They are there for the sound bites and the snipping at the opponents. The actual time for policy debates was jettisoned after Reagan.
White idiots thinking that somehow black people getting equal treatment puts black people above them. Whitey always pushed back against equality because they realize what fleeting power they have could be (and should be) so easily balanced and thus white folks are at a "disadvantage". It's fucking dumb.
100% agree
Trump came off as a psycho, but he controlled the pace and flow of the debates. Obama was so good at controlling the flow of virtually of his debates on the national stage with the exception of that one against Romney. He rebounded right after in the second debate when he realized literally the same thing, he let Mitt get the last word in far too often
I would have thought it was his administration's inhuman treatment and deportation of immigrants or drone program but that works too
I'm not wrong, but you have your narrative and there's debate that can change that
I agree he was good at winning elections. I guess I look at the failures of waging multiple wars and not delivering a public option (while his party controlled congress) just to name a few. Then I think if he could have been better off learning national politics a little more before hitting the big stage.
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Inhuman treatment and deportation of immigrants? That's new.
It's interesting to see how reflective and sober minded Obama can be in moments which might inspire confusion or even anger in others. I'm sure Obama had his moments post election, but it's still refreshing to read about a president who deserved the respect the office demands.
Please don't be a milkshake duck.
I'm mostly the same. I wasn't as sad to see him elected because I knew the Iraq war was a disaster by then and McCain would be the same, but I couldn't vote for Obama because I thought liberals were bad too. He certainly proved me wrong because even if he wasn't perfect, he was pretty damn close.
The study that came out about US border agents' abuse of minors was conducted with data from during the Obama administration, and he was also behind the statistically largest amount of deportations out of any sitting US president. Obama is an intelligent, charismatic guy and seems genuine on an interpersonal level, but let's not ignore the terrible things that occurred under him.
In America almost everything comes back to racism... (or sexism, homophobia, xenophobia / nativism, etc.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ
You start out in 1954 by saying, "ni--er, ni--er, ni--er." By 1968 you can't say "ni--er"—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "ni--er, ni--er."
--Lee Atwater, RNC Chairman, Campaign Manager to Ronald Reagan
Obama is Luke and America is Vader. But the story always ends with America's death. And we're seeing it with Trump
Not sure how I missed this, but it was exactly what I needed to hear today. Thanks sphagnum.
With the way things are going Kanye would run as GOP or a third party candidate.
I'm sorry but on this you are wrong on this, the results speak for themselves. You overestimate the populace. Whether intentionally or not Trump employs certain debate tactics of just staying on the attack and constantly deflect while saying nothing and it worked well enough. There was never any substance to any of his debates and it didn't matter. That's the reality. Political debates are just about how you make people feel not about the arguments. It's def more theater than an actual intellectual exchange that sways people.
Most people listening to the debates to begin with go in already having picked their sides they just want to see the opponent lose. They're not gonna change their minds.
I still remember reading the discussion for the 2016 debates where people were just talking about how Hillary beat Trump. But likely if I had been on other places people would have said the opposite.
To believe that rationality matters in a debate in a world where Trump won is actually the only narrative pushed here.
Most people that voted for him did so out of feeling not out of actual rationality.
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It's depressing, but true.
And I think the Democrats need to realize that in order to win back the country, they need to be less progressive and more status-quo. For the time being. It sucks, but this country is still probably some 50 years away from an actual progressive shift. Trying to get all done at once will fail, as we're seeing now.
And I think the Democrats need to realize that in order to win back the country, they need to be less progressive and more status-quo. For the time being. It sucks, but this country is still probably some 50 years away from an actual progressive shift. Trying to get all done at once will fail, as we're seeing now.
Obama was not wrong .. Hilary was wrong in not being able to read the political climate at the time. What Trump pulled off was nothing short of genius, I have to hand it to his team.
We don't have 50 years to fix issues that require progressive shifts.
If we're going to wait on meaningful healthcare reform, education reform, housing reform, climate change, and UBI among other ideas for five decades, this country will have literally collapsed on itself. These are all active volcanoes in real time. We're lucky if we have 25 years to fix these things...
Status quo is precisely the problem. Status quo is still running on socioeconomic ideals of a decade ago, which, is nothing more than a literal corpse today. The real thing to do is to name the corpse, and that's something the atypical political left is failing to do.
Naming the beast goes a long way in dealing with it. Not naming it allows the GOP to avoid reality. No candidate on the Democratic ticket should have allowed Trump's empty "immigrants are taking your jobs" card to survive a weekend, and it was not challenged by anyone who was running. This is a huge part of the problem. In fact, this is probably a bigger issue than talking about solutions because the Democratic party does such a pitiful job in the specificity of core issues that shitlords can walk in, say something, and actually convince people that what they're saying is true.
Based on what I've seen I think the real problem is that for some white Americans their self worth is tied directly to the baseline of "am I doing better than a black American". Regardless of how awful their life may seem they could always fall back on "well at least I'm doing better than a n*****" to get them through their day. I think the combination of Obama's election and the jubilation of black America afterwards really damaged a lot of psyches and brought us to this point when literally the worst person they could find was elected into office as if to say "don't forget, our worst is still better than your best".
It still didn't have to happen, I think that it's obvious that even Republicans were surprised that Trump won, but selecting him as their candidate was intended to send a message to brown America that nothing's changed for us and his victory has set the country back decades in any meaningful resolution to our race issues.
Trump had an enormous amount of help, a lot of it seemingly illegal, so don't go overboard with the praise there.
I always thought his biggest failing was the annihilation of Libya through an illegal bombing campaign, but hey. That too I guess.
The public option passed the a House. The Senate was a different beast and they had far less control there.
There was never going to be a good time to start in this country and the "blacklash" was inevitable. Unless America takes stock at some point and owns up to its history of institutional racism this is going to be an endless cycle of one step forward and two steps back.
One of the most depressing things to me is reading articles from the 60s and 70s about the state of American viewpoints on race and listening to the music of that era from artists like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and realizing how little anything has changed.
Saying racist things = "genius." Man the bar really is non-existent for racist white conservatives.
Couldn't Obama's Justice Department have looked into the voter suppression and gerrymandering efforts of the Republicans?
Democrats have taken steps to reverse this, but they pretty much let them run amok for several years and those efforts paid off in the 2016 election.
I love the guy, but I feel he let the Republicans walk all over him. I know he was all "No Drama Obama", but because of that, almost everything that he did is being dismantled by a small child.
Democrats have taken steps to reverse this, but they pretty much let them run amok for several years and those efforts paid off in the 2016 election.
I love the guy, but I feel he let the Republicans walk all over him. I know he was all "No Drama Obama", but because of that, almost everything that he did is being dismantled by a small child.
As an outsider looking in this is my take:
Despite my dislike of Trump it really was he focused on the places he needed to win and quickly understood were the angry people were and managed to get them on board with outrageous claims, while Hillary completely ignored the rustbelt states.
Also Hillary made the biggest mistake of anyone running for office she insulted the voter the basket of deplorables line might have sounded good to the speechwriter, but man did it backfire.
Trump despite making outrageous claims and insulted just about everybody never attacked the voters, what really surprised me after Bernie lost he pandered to Bernie voters and basically said the DNC fucked you over come over to our side we welcome you with open arms.
While on the Hillary side even during the primary the way the Hillary camp treated those who supported Bernie was disgusting a feminist organisation supported Bernie and was told there is a special place in hell if you don't support a woman for president.
And they responded with we would love a woman in the white house but not this particular woman.
Are minorities not voters now because I certainly felt attacked. I'm not a woman so I can't speak for them but I would imagine a fair number weren't happy with his misogynist ramblings either. It's really too bad that so many people felt turned off by the election so they didn't participate but now we now how much effort went into targeting certain groups to stay home.
Of course they are but he was clever enough to get angry white people on board and never offended them I should have specified my apologies, also the 46% who did not vote for any candidate and stayed home also played a major part.
But that part is also on Hillary for not getting folks out to the polls and she really misjudged the anger.
I wonder when will Obama grow a pair and accept the blame. Fall back into their tribes? Obama comes into power waxing poetic about change, and how the american people can inflict that so much needed change. Right off the bat he let the bankers off the hook, and bailed all of them with tax payers money, with plenty of bonuses to go around, and nobody in jail. The so called socialism of the few.
Completely failed to bring forth a restructuring plan for a nation's infrastructure that is stuck on fossil fuels. Obamacare was a bust. And his foreign policy was completely inline with his predecessors, which is, let's just keep those proxy wars going.
Trump is a failure of the democratic process, provoked by the democrats who completely lost their identity. It's no big surprise then, that the only thing being discussed these days are identity politics, by the democrats.
Completely failed to bring forth a restructuring plan for a nation's infrastructure that is stuck on fossil fuels. Obamacare was a bust. And his foreign policy was completely inline with his predecessors, which is, let's just keep those proxy wars going.
Trump is a failure of the democratic process, provoked by the democrats who completely lost their identity. It's no big surprise then, that the only thing being discussed these days are identity politics, by the democrats.
I think that you and I have very different definitions of clever. Hillary misjudged the anger in the white electorate because it was illogical, misplaced and deeply steeped in racism. Most poor people voted for Hillary regardless of their race so "economic anxiety" wasn't the cause for Trump voters' anger, feeling that they were being displaced by minorities, which isn't even close to being true, seems to be the cause. There's nothing new or clever about feeding hatred against those not in a position to defend themselves, the extent to which Americans were willing to embrace that hatred seemed to catch a lot of people off guard though, including Obama.