Because everyone here already knows that other recent US presidents like Bush and Trump were horrible. But many people mistakenly believe Obama was a morally good president simply because they’re the best of a bad bunch. It’s important to understand that even Obama presided over large-scale, avoidable atrocities.
Obama was the “change” guy that libs thought was gonna make everyone’s lives better. The rest of them are known to be evil pieces of shit, but libs with zero principles need to be reminded of their naivety. Notice how Obama deported the most Mexicans of any president ever and libs dont even give a fuck lmao.
You do remember who preceded Obama, right? At the time, W. was the dumbest president the world had ever seen. In comparison to that, I’d say Obama delivered on the hope and change.
I’m not saying that I can excuse his take on deportation, or the fact that he’s also an establishment democrat, but at this point, who the fuck cares? I’d take another Obama over Trump in a heartbeat. I’d rather have someone in office that I agree with 40% of their takes than 0%.
Obviously he’s neither perfect now, nor was he at the time, but why are people still talking about him at all? Same with Biden. His administration shit the bed and got us in the current situation, but there’s not anything we can do about it now.
We need to be looking forward, and dunking on someone who was (in comparison to US presidents) always ranked in the top 20% of most progressive of ALL presidents, and only behind Carter in the last 50 years… it seems like in order to get more left, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and Obama would be in the correct direction.
W. was the dumbest president the world had ever seen.
Went to Harvard and Yale. First president with an MBA. SAT score was good. His folksy act was just that. An act. He was told to dumb down his language by Karl Rove and others. There are videos of him speaking before he became a presidential nominee, and the difference is obvious.
Relatively intelligent man pretending to be stupid.
And to his credit, it worked. Got elected twice and to this day people are more likely to blame the Iraq war on evil mastermind Cheney. And unlike plenty of supposedly intelligent leaders, he’s smart enough to keep a low profile now he’s retired.
Were you alive and old enough to remember GWB’s term? Or are you going entirely on second hand information?
Yes. I was studying political science at the time.
No, I am not going by second hand information. I’m going by how he spoke before Karl Rove told him to dumb it down.
Donald Trump went to Wharton
At least one of Donald Trump’s professors has said he’s an idiot. Not true for Bush, who scored relatively well on his SATs. IRC John Kerry’s transcript scored lower than W Bush’s. IRC Bush’s air force qualifying test was also relatively high.
To be clear, I’m not saying he’s a good president. If anything I’m saying stupidity isn’t an excuse for what happened during his tenure.
Relatively intelligent man pretending to be stupid.
You can actually look up footage from when he was Governor of Texas in the 1990s and he was well-spoken and intelligent (despite his saying very little that I agreed with). Did he have an aneurysm prior to the 2000 election? Not very likely, especially when Republicans have been consciously targeting their rhetoric at a fifth-grade reading level for decades.
I don’t understand why we’re so willing to believe that the people who have completely taken over the United States of America with minimal effort have somehow done this while being literally stupid.
I don’t understand why we’re so willing to believe that the people who have completely taken over the United States of America with minimal effort have somehow done this while being literally stupid.
Overused, but might be Dunning Kruger. Less intelligent people, overestimating their own intelligence, and underestimating that of others. If so, it would explain why the same people who are certain Bush is a moron, are often unwilling to change their minds when presented with evidence to the contrary. That and it feels nice to think you’re smarter than other people. Vanity is the Devil’s favourite sin.
Not that I like Bush, just want to make that clear.
Also, Trump likely is stupid, from what I can tell. Although I have heard critics say he has or at one point had a measure of cunning, which certainly may be true given he won the presidency twice.
Not that this changes Trump being a dangerous man.
Trump is literally a reality TV star, which means his public persona is sort of loosely based on who he really is but also heavily improvised and scripted at the same time in order to increase his entertainment value. Based on my familiarity with him from before all of this bullshit (in the '80s), he’s no genius but he’s not especially stupid either. Like a lot of rich people, he doesn’t bother being smart because intelligence is of no real use to him.
He is good at flooding the zone/firehosing/deadcatting. That’s for sure.
Not a great way to run a country, not sure if it’s always deliberate and/or pathological, but good for ratings and helped get him elected twice.
I do think he has declined mentally since the 80s. He’s an old man, doesn’t always look well, and appears increasingly erratic. Not a doctor though, so what do I know. I’ve grown cynical about his supposedly imminent demise, just like I’ve become cynical about his supposedly imminent jail sentence.
Oh look, another plain-speaking “smart” republican that needs interpretation and rationalization to tell us who he really is and what he really means.
Sure man. Canned speeches vs real time. Not even in the same league as Obama. Dude got the job because of the family name and thought it would be an easy ride until reality hit him right in thr nose. Then he got all fundy and stubborn. Know who else graduated from prestigious schools and is president? Yeah, bet you can guess.
Nope. Saw him speaking off the cuff before he was a presidential nominee.
Relatively high SAT score. Score higher on his transcript than John Kerry. IRC scored relatively high on his air force qualifying test too.
He purposely dumbed down his language and it helped him get elected.
As opposed to Donald Trump, where at least one professor has said he’s a moron.
To be clear, I’m not saying Bush was a good president. Quite the opposite. If anything him being relatively intelligent makes him more culpable for what happened.
Obama wasn’t a progressive, he just sounded progressive. He had a mandate, a majority in both houses, and what does he do?
Continue everything the last guy did, pass the healthcare plan from the creators of project 2025, and attempt to “reach across the isle” towards people openly racist towards him
If we had another Obama, we’d just be putting fascism on hold for another 8 years. We can’t keep splitting the difference with the far right
These people refuse to acknowledge a step in the right direction. And from bush to obama is an obvious step in the right direction, just wish we didnt do a double backflip with a twist that is trump
I refuse your defeatist nonsense. There’s 3 years left, progressives are making huge inroads into both local governments and the party machinery, and the old guard is being changed out
Even if I were wrong about it, that’s still the only way out. Obama-like means nothing changes, Biden was Obama-like - we didn’t recover from Trump I, Biden just stabilized the new normal and insisted it’s fine now.
We have to demand better, starting now. While we have the time
I don’t think you understand politics or progression.
Your entire take is that Obama just held the ground. We forget we could have had Mitt Romney who would have been just as worse if not far worse a choice than Obama.
I see tons of comparisons, we need better! We need to do better! And everyone is comparing the president how to Obama and the president then to Obama. America did absolutely better picking Obama over Mitt Romney and I am confused as to why we aren’t comparing the president then to the competitor then.
You can disagree with 60 percent of what a president did and argue people on the opposite side are going to react and just push the change back but if you want real change you pick the person that has 40% of what you agree with and you do that time and time again <until it is 50 percent and so on so forth.
Feel how you want but setting here and going, Everyone praises Obama and he did the shit those people complain about is just a dumb ass way of looking at what Obama brought to the table. It took one idiot in office to destroy the good he did and the good Biden tried to hold on to.
Sitting here and spouting nonsense that Obama would still be a worse choice is just a shit view. It would 100% still be better than the fucking moron we have in office now and I would take 40 Obama’s for the next 10 years over 40 Trumps. It is a common sense statement to act self righteous with, “we gotta do better than Trump or Obama.” Yeah, we get it. That is the obvious statement. But to say Obama was a bad choice given the margin of difference between him vs Trump is just fucking stupid no matter where you stand. To say if we had Obama vs Trump and we shouldn’t pick another Obama is stupid because “we have to do better.” That isn’t how shit works either. You pick what is good in the moment.
I am not sure why people suddenly forget the president doesn’t run the whole country when it comes to decision making. So suddenly we start just comparing the presidents but the office in power with the president is a big deal as well.
Obama may have made many decisions the majority of libs are complaining about but the problem is Libs liked him because of what he stood for on the better side of things versus the shit in office now. The Obama standard is the good we had until Trump and that is why it is the still wanted standard because it meant something even with the bad.
So feel how you want but taking the stance of, “we got a do better.” Isn’t a winning case. It is just a statement. Getting people to see some of the good that was done then is what matters and Obama had some of that and that is the point. You have to have something to look at and compare too. Who would you suggest would be better now? How would we do better? Could you help run a country with all of your wisdom? No, Obama would still be 100 times better and I would pick and Obama any fucking day even if it just meant slowing cons down or holding their ridiculous mind set off for a thousand years.
This is such a strange world view. It’s as though you think politics and society are on a linear track and they can only go forwards or backwards and any progress in your preferred direction is preferable because the other direction is diametrically opposed to the only other option which is sliding the train the other direction.
That’s not how any of this works. No, Obama did not move the country in the right direction. Obama continued the violent brutal genocidal policies of the USA, continued reinforcing the dominance of the owners over the workers, and continued the domestic policy of bread and circuses for the working class to avoid unrest.
Romney being worse than Obama would have been LITERALLY the same program with different details.
Obama was LITERALLY the same program as Bush with different details.
I have read your comment and I have determined. This, you are trying to find common ground like one of those people shouting, “guys they are the same they are all bad” and I am here to tell you. Even with what you are saying above is you can feel how you want but you are just wrong. You don’t have to like it but you absolutely are.
Firstly, not all progress is linear. No one here doesn’t agree that progress can diverge or go multiple complicated routes but progress absolutely and 100% can be linear. Seeing it the opposite or trying to come up with some reason progress can never be linear is also wrong. I will give you an example a basic one. Amending bills and rights.
Let’s look at the Miranda rights these protect you from getting tossed in jail if you don’t understand the rights or laws of the U.S. Albeit, it took a guy from another country committing a brutal act for the U.S. to get to a point where it said, “hunh, what if as an American I don’t even know my own rights because they change.” And so we got the Miranda rights --> this right here is linear it is progress forward. Doesn’t matter how many ways you want to sit here and talk about trains and bread and circuses. Now Obama doesn’t have anything to do with the Miranda rights. However, as we speak the current administration and President absolutely are trying to undo the Miranda rights. This protects you, me, and came from a legal case that moved the U.S. forward not backwards. This is absolutely linear progress. Which all sound like BS answers to Obama somehow being equal to Bush when Obama’s presidency was far more complicated than that trying to clean up Bushe’s shit.
So when you talk about progress and you talk about who you would pick.you can absolutely pick people that don’t push progress backwards.i would have picked Biden or Obama or even fucking Bush again over Trump if it meant not picking a piece of shit looking at amending or straight up removing a basic right that moved the U.S. forward.
We can talk about something going on in the U.S. that kills Americans every year. Let’s talk about progress there and Obama is relevant and you should like this one because it is one of those sliders that doesn’t exist. Gun violence.
During Obama’s presidency. Obama tried just changing background checks on guns and just looking at providing statistics on gun violence he tried this on multiple occasions just so people were more educated. Each time the NRA filed a cease and desist. Obama was halted every step of the way he even has a really good talk on it.
This attempt by Obama is a progress and it isn’t exactly linear but it could have had some linear progress. Meanwhile the current administration chooses to do nothing because nothing is wrong. Each time someone tries to do nothing this doesn’t push your figmental train back but it holds the train in place and prevents it from budging forward or hitting a different track to figure something out. This is holding progress and that is the same as pushing it back every time we do nothing to try and figure out how we manage it. The same administration is also shouting on X to kill it’s political competition. This is not the same. The current administration said, “give them more guns” and is now shouting, “kill the political opposition” this is backwards. It’s fucking stupid to sit here and tell me Obama was just as bad as the rest of them or shit to set here and tell me Romney or Bush was just as bad and they are all the same. It is just a defeatist point of view in of itself because it isn’t acknowledging the whole picture or taking ownership of the shit the current admin is doing.
“Obama was literally the same program as Busy” you can sit here and say this because Obama had principals that didn’t move the dial in some direction. But there was 100% linear progress from Busy no matter. How you want to look at it. Progress that things like Obama care absolutely and 100% helped poorer states like I come from but my own state voted against it. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t linear but it was a step in some direction. And now the same administration has changed it because it had a black man’s name on it. Obama and Trump not the same. Obama and Bush not the same.
Progress has all sorts of divergent paths. I get your point but it is stupid to think that their isn’t some linear progress that comes with some of the change you want. You are always going to pick someone that doesn’t have something you want but when it comes to who is in office now and who has been in office I would pick Obama time and time again.
We can look at some of the stuff Obama moved forward.
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: Signed into law in 2010, this legislation implemented sweeping financial regulatory reforms in response to the subprime mortgage crisis. --> not linear but good for its time. Current admin is fucking with this. Houses are less affordable than they have been for years. Not progress. So yeah I would Pick Obama here because he figured something out.
Tax Policy: Allowed the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for the highest income earners, while cutting taxes for working families and small businesses, which reduced after-tax income inequality. --> every dem does this but lately it has been a dem wanting to make this move. Meanwhile the current admin is doing exactly what you are accusing Obama of. Reinforcing dominance of owners over workers I believe is how you put it? Doesn’t really seem like the two are the same so far.
Auto Industry Rescue: The administration provided support to the U.S. automobile industry, which helped prevent its collapse and preserve jobs. Hunh another good thing. That the current admin is fucking up with terriffs.
You can spout Obama being shit at attempts to help foreigners crossing borders. I don’t disagree but to think his foreign policies weren’t also an improvement would be a lie this would be one of those complicated processes that aren’t a slider. While border management may not have been good he made progress I would consider linear elsewhere.
Iran Nuclear Deal: Negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and other world powers to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.
Paris Climate Agreement: The U.S. adopted this international accord in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.
“Cuban Thaw”: Eased travel and monetary restrictions and began normalizing relations with Cuba after decades of estrangement.
Intervention in Libya: The U.S. participated in a NATO-led intervention in 2011.
These all seem like linear progress bars to me while the current admin fucks up foreign relationships. Literally left the fucking Paris Climate Agreement while the world burns. Is siding with Russia. Etc the list goes on. We could get into Obama’s take on Gay rights also a movement forward while the current administration and Bush tried to fight them. Not the same app progress the current administration is fucking up also the sake shit Romney didn’t want.
Not the same and sure I am open to discussing the bad from Obama and maybe the good from Trump. Trump’s take on foreign adversaries like China stealing intellectual property was good his first term. However, he is fucking it up this term. Holding back changes in the automotive industry. Preventing foreigners from going to school where and diversity proves to be beneficial when it comes to progress.
My entire point is this “Obama was no different than the rest” is just bullshit and it always will be. I don’t disagree that a man in a suit is going to be a man in a suit. What will absolutely disagree on is what we see as progress. And I understand not all progress is linear in that complications come from it all. But to sit here and tell me Obama is the same as busy with a different name badge is lying to me and honestly to yourself.
To tell me Obama and Romney were the same and we didn’t pick Romney because they were absolutely not the same is also bullshit. I don’t think you understand politics and why right now more than ever it is important to understand and create a distinction that you pick and choose battles and Obama gets the praise he does because he did make some progress on human rights figured out ways to avoid entire financial crises that Bush created and started for common people. The current administration tears that down more and more each day. Progress isn’t always linear but when you look at moving forward making things easier on people less poor and people with less rights. It is very easy to compare and contrast the differences in progress Obama alone did not do what he did alone and he did do great things all while having policies that were not great.
Kamala’s take on prisons and foreign immigration wasn’t great either but God damn she would have been a 1000% better pick than the shit administration now. And to tell me even she would have been the same would also be shit. Because progress is complicated but Bush wasn’t progressing the way I wanted and the current administration is currently dismantling the process that came from people I do want. There is no ideal president that is going to do everything you want.
This is why I think you are just another bystander shouting “they are all corporate greed and the same.” When in reality what you are saying is understood on the greed part but absolutely fucking nonsense on the being the same part.
The fuck excuses? We can do better than this, but you’ve gotta look at everything in context. Until we have a (most likely violent) revolution, the core values of our leadership isn’t going to swing very wildly. Incremental change is all that voting will get you. Obama wasn’t some god that was suddenly going to change what this country is, but he was a step away from Bush and in the right direction. It’s shocking to me how far from normal Trump is and its fucking infuriating that instead of looking forward, part of the left is all “b-b-b-but Obama wasn’t perfect!”
It’s like I agree with your observations but come to different conclusions about what is to be done. I agree Obama, nor any other politician can deliver the change we need given the system we have. To me the lesson isn’t Obama was so much better than Bush or Trump, but that we need to look to ourselves and not for some great leader to save us.
In comparison to that, I’d say Obama delivered on the hope and change.
That’s not how that works. Either he delivered on hope and change or he didn’t; there’s no “in comparison.”
but why are people still talking about him at all?
Because libs will gladly lap up/force on everyone else another Obama (see how they talk about Newsom). It’s important to remember the failures of the past so that when corporate lizards and their party hacks pretend another establishment liberal will change things they’re not taken seriously.
We need to be looking forward
This “looking forward” schtick only means that known bad faith actors can keep influencing politics. It’s simply a bad idea.
Obama would be in the correct direction.
Absolutely not. Obama was and remains an establishment stooge whose job is to stifle progress wherever it can be found. Obama rode a wave of progressive resurgence and killed it; he shares only slightly less of the blame for the current situation than people like Bush and Reagan. Incremental change through the likes of Obama is a myth built on the assumption that reactionaries won’t reverse every bit of change made and more.
Because he made a lot of dumb kids believe he would be the good one, the was just another bog standard piece of shit, except better at talking.
He made people hope, then murdered that hope¹ with a hellfire missile launched from a drone, to the point we dare not hope on days with a clear blue sky.
¹for anyone who paid literally any attention or had a memory longer than 12 seconds. Also all the people he murdered, but neither of us care about them.
If any liberal has ever done any wrong ever, made any misstep, caused any negative emotion; thats because the speaker personally architected the american fascist movement.
You cannot fail, only be failed. You cannot wrong, only be wronged. It’s a beautiful perfect little solipsistic victim complex that requires a perfectly hitlerian reading of every text, every event.
Never mind who actually architecture the rise of trump, or why.¹
¹for those not old enough: in 2016 Hilary Clinton helped him through his party’s primaries and built a huge chunk of his machine, on the assumption she’d have an easy win, because 2016 was her turn and she’d ‘earned it’.
But like Obama was still better by leagues among his peers. Sure Obama killed a few people, you think Bush didn’t? What about Biden? Carter? At least he didn’t sick his ICE troopers on American citizens, we got accessible healthcare, a black president, repealing some war on drug laws. Obama is a saint compared to his peers. Sorry he killed a few people while ensuring a generation could have healthcare. Powerful people do bad things 🥱. Acting like the Pope hasn’t killed people lol
Yes, so I’m an anarchist, and I dont suck their dicks about it
so he killed a few people while ensuring
That the banks got bailed out and people lost their homes. That none of the problems were fundamentally fixed. That occupy was stepped on har. He promised hope, and then murdered it. Along with a bunch of people.
I’m not interested in what an ignorant boot licker with no memory has to say about politics or history.bi doubt you can comprehend either topic.
Cool so acknowledging that a president moved the needle means that I cannot also support a revolution. Thanks for saying X means Y and Z, it really widens people’s perspectives. I upvoted your comment in another thread, we’re all friends here but truly thanks for calling me an ignorant bootlicker
I’d respond to your points, but the way you speak makes me confident that our values are too different (read: your values are too disgusting). I’m sure you wouldn’t be saying that if you had family among those “few people” Obama killed.
I’m not a fan of screaming at walls so I won’t write a wall of text (pun not intended), but Obama’s healthcare policy was literally written by the Heritage Foundation. Yes, the Project 2025 Heritage Foundation. Obamacare is literally Romneycare. Dwell on that for a bit.
This is the discourse I like to see. I had no clue Obama was endorsed by the Heritage Foundation. Instead of assuming people are stupid and can’t comprehend something start with compassion and patience. Sure I started sounding like an Obama ‘apologist’ but I also didn’t vote for him, I was 8 and 12, respectively, when he was elected into office. Before I was 18 I was staunchly alt right by way of social media and YouTube ragebait. I disappointedly voted liberal in the last few elections because… yeah 2 party systems suck.
the point is to drive a wedge between leftists (who see him as just another imperialist figurehead) and liberals (who see him as the most progressive president we’ve had since lbj)
Since your party has spent the last year trying to kill the president by sucking his dick like the offspring of Nancy reagan and a jet engine til he has a heart attack, I presume you’ve decided to back left projects, the projects of your allies, until there’s a viable lib option again.
What are your mutual aid projects? How do you support your local socialist groups? Are you going more militant/insurrectionist and arming the most marginalized in your community? No need to be too overly specific.
Since your party has spent the last year trying to kill the president by sucking his dick like the offspring of Nancy reagan and a jet engine til he has a heart attack, I presume you’ve decided to back left projects, the projects of your allies, until there’s a viable lib option again. What are your mutual aid projects?
How do you support your local socialist groups? Are you going more militant/insurrectionist and arming the most marginalized in your community? No need to be too overly specific.
Please answer. Or so you mean ‘rightful owner’ rather than ‘ally’? Like, when I’m in a place where I don’t feel like being seen out and about doing my own thing and don’t have local anarchist friends, I’ll cook for local tankie meetings or see what I can offer DSA.
You’re making a claim, that we’re close enough a wedge is needed to part us politically. How is that claim true? Tell me.
Unless its not. That’s fine. This is the internet; you can always lie. Thats allowed. We don’t literally crucify you if you’re caught. Honestly we kind of all know you’re lying; nobody here is retarded enough to think a shitlib is actually the ally of anyone but billionaires,
The right can’t attack the left because the left just laughs at them, but the right can attack the left by pretending to be the most left and then call out the left for not being left enough.
Liberalism is not strictly left or right.
It’s anti-authoritarian, and authoritarianism is a type of political inequality maintained by a social hierarchy of political subjugation.
Political scientists and other analysts usually regard the left as including anarchists, communists, socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, left-libertarians, progressives, and social liberals.
Modern US liberalism consists of progressives & social liberals.
Liberal socialism is a liberal variety of socialism.
Social democracy is a form of socialism within liberal democracy.
All these ideologies are liberal & leftist, and some are even socialist.
The link you provided doesn’t really back what you’re saying. The anti-authoritarian element is only part of a specific branch of French Liberalism according to this source (not a real source btw) so you aren’t even correct about that really.
Any dipshit knows that an ideology that is pro-capitalism can’t be leftist. That’s just basic politics really.
You’re basically admitting to poor reading comprehension & ignorance of references cited in the articles.
Any dipshit knows that an ideology that is pro-capitalism can’t be leftist. That’s just basic politics really.
Not talking about capitalism, talking about liberalism: liberal leftists exist.
Some are socialist.
Political scientists recognize them as leftist.
Deal with it.
As the article you mischaracterize states
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy
not an economic one.
liberalism is about liberty from unlimited authority
As the name indicates, liberalism concerns liberty: it’s essentially the position that
governments exist for the people
individual human rights & liberties are fundamental
authority is legitimate only when it protects those fundamental rights & liberties
the people have an inherent right to obtain a government with legitimate authority.
In particular, when their government lacks or loses legitimacy, the people have a right & duty to replace or change that government until it obtains legitimacy.
Such a government prohibits unlimited authority, so it’s mutually exclusive with authoritarianism.
The article continues that liberalism is
based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law
which reaffirms earlier points & then some.
It emerged from the Enlightenment when the authoritarianism of its time was the exclusive power & social hierarchy of feudal, absolute monarchy & aristocracy.
Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law.
Anyone who read history or philosophy & thought seriously would know this.
Why do people keep dunking specifically on Obama for this? Isn’t this the same as every US president ever?
Because everyone here already knows that other recent US presidents like Bush and Trump were horrible. But many people mistakenly believe Obama was a morally good president simply because they’re the best of a bad bunch. It’s important to understand that even Obama presided over large-scale, avoidable atrocities.
Maybe because he’s the only one who made someone happy?
Propaganda
Obama was the “change” guy that libs thought was gonna make everyone’s lives better. The rest of them are known to be evil pieces of shit, but libs with zero principles need to be reminded of their naivety. Notice how Obama deported the most Mexicans of any president ever and libs dont even give a fuck lmao.
You do remember who preceded Obama, right? At the time, W. was the dumbest president the world had ever seen. In comparison to that, I’d say Obama delivered on the hope and change.
I’m not saying that I can excuse his take on deportation, or the fact that he’s also an establishment democrat, but at this point, who the fuck cares? I’d take another Obama over Trump in a heartbeat. I’d rather have someone in office that I agree with 40% of their takes than 0%.
Obviously he’s neither perfect now, nor was he at the time, but why are people still talking about him at all? Same with Biden. His administration shit the bed and got us in the current situation, but there’s not anything we can do about it now.
We need to be looking forward, and dunking on someone who was (in comparison to US presidents) always ranked in the top 20% of most progressive of ALL presidents, and only behind Carter in the last 50 years… it seems like in order to get more left, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and Obama would be in the correct direction.
Went to Harvard and Yale. First president with an MBA. SAT score was good. His folksy act was just that. An act. He was told to dumb down his language by Karl Rove and others. There are videos of him speaking before he became a presidential nominee, and the difference is obvious.
Relatively intelligent man pretending to be stupid.
And to his credit, it worked. Got elected twice and to this day people are more likely to blame the Iraq war on evil mastermind Cheney. And unlike plenty of supposedly intelligent leaders, he’s smart enough to keep a low profile now he’s retired.
Were you alive and old enough to remember GWB’s term? Or are you going entirely on second hand information?
Because I am, and he was definitely a fucking idiot.
For fuck sake, Donald Trump went to Wharton. It just means they had rich and well connected parents.
Yes. I was studying political science at the time.
No, I am not going by second hand information. I’m going by how he spoke before Karl Rove told him to dumb it down.
At least one of Donald Trump’s professors has said he’s an idiot. Not true for Bush, who scored relatively well on his SATs. IRC John Kerry’s transcript scored lower than W Bush’s. IRC Bush’s air force qualifying test was also relatively high.
To be clear, I’m not saying he’s a good president. If anything I’m saying stupidity isn’t an excuse for what happened during his tenure.
Remember when Dubya was the dumbest one?
You can actually look up footage from when he was Governor of Texas in the 1990s and he was well-spoken and intelligent (despite his saying very little that I agreed with). Did he have an aneurysm prior to the 2000 election? Not very likely, especially when Republicans have been consciously targeting their rhetoric at a fifth-grade reading level for decades.
I don’t understand why we’re so willing to believe that the people who have completely taken over the United States of America with minimal effort have somehow done this while being literally stupid.
Overused, but might be Dunning Kruger. Less intelligent people, overestimating their own intelligence, and underestimating that of others. If so, it would explain why the same people who are certain Bush is a moron, are often unwilling to change their minds when presented with evidence to the contrary. That and it feels nice to think you’re smarter than other people. Vanity is the Devil’s favourite sin.
Not that I like Bush, just want to make that clear.
Also, Trump likely is stupid, from what I can tell. Although I have heard critics say he has or at one point had a measure of cunning, which certainly may be true given he won the presidency twice.
Not that this changes Trump being a dangerous man.
Trump is literally a reality TV star, which means his public persona is sort of loosely based on who he really is but also heavily improvised and scripted at the same time in order to increase his entertainment value. Based on my familiarity with him from before all of this bullshit (in the '80s), he’s no genius but he’s not especially stupid either. Like a lot of rich people, he doesn’t bother being smart because intelligence is of no real use to him.
He is good at flooding the zone/firehosing/deadcatting. That’s for sure.
Not a great way to run a country, not sure if it’s always deliberate and/or pathological, but good for ratings and helped get him elected twice.
I do think he has declined mentally since the 80s. He’s an old man, doesn’t always look well, and appears increasingly erratic. Not a doctor though, so what do I know. I’ve grown cynical about his supposedly imminent demise, just like I’ve become cynical about his supposedly imminent jail sentence.
Oh look, another plain-speaking “smart” republican that needs interpretation and rationalization to tell us who he really is and what he really means.
Sure man. Canned speeches vs real time. Not even in the same league as Obama. Dude got the job because of the family name and thought it would be an easy ride until reality hit him right in thr nose. Then he got all fundy and stubborn. Know who else graduated from prestigious schools and is president? Yeah, bet you can guess.
Nope. Saw him speaking off the cuff before he was a presidential nominee.
Relatively high SAT score. Score higher on his transcript than John Kerry. IRC scored relatively high on his air force qualifying test too.
He purposely dumbed down his language and it helped him get elected.
As opposed to Donald Trump, where at least one professor has said he’s a moron.
To be clear, I’m not saying Bush was a good president. Quite the opposite. If anything him being relatively intelligent makes him more culpable for what happened.
Obama wasn’t a progressive, he just sounded progressive. He had a mandate, a majority in both houses, and what does he do?
Continue everything the last guy did, pass the healthcare plan from the creators of project 2025, and attempt to “reach across the isle” towards people openly racist towards him
If we had another Obama, we’d just be putting fascism on hold for another 8 years. We can’t keep splitting the difference with the far right
But the choice will be Trump-like or Obama-like. There is no “progressive revolution” option at this time.
Complaining about Obama-like is pushing a both sides narrative, which suppresses democrat voters.
If you want things to be less shit, stop doing that.
These people refuse to acknowledge a step in the right direction. And from bush to obama is an obvious step in the right direction, just wish we didnt do a double backflip with a twist that is trump
I refuse your defeatist nonsense. There’s 3 years left, progressives are making huge inroads into both local governments and the party machinery, and the old guard is being changed out
Even if I were wrong about it, that’s still the only way out. Obama-like means nothing changes, Biden was Obama-like - we didn’t recover from Trump I, Biden just stabilized the new normal and insisted it’s fine now.
We have to demand better, starting now. While we have the time
I don’t think you understand politics or progression.
Your entire take is that Obama just held the ground. We forget we could have had Mitt Romney who would have been just as worse if not far worse a choice than Obama.
I see tons of comparisons, we need better! We need to do better! And everyone is comparing the president how to Obama and the president then to Obama. America did absolutely better picking Obama over Mitt Romney and I am confused as to why we aren’t comparing the president then to the competitor then.
You can disagree with 60 percent of what a president did and argue people on the opposite side are going to react and just push the change back but if you want real change you pick the person that has 40% of what you agree with and you do that time and time again <until it is 50 percent and so on so forth.
Feel how you want but setting here and going, Everyone praises Obama and he did the shit those people complain about is just a dumb ass way of looking at what Obama brought to the table. It took one idiot in office to destroy the good he did and the good Biden tried to hold on to.
Sitting here and spouting nonsense that Obama would still be a worse choice is just a shit view. It would 100% still be better than the fucking moron we have in office now and I would take 40 Obama’s for the next 10 years over 40 Trumps. It is a common sense statement to act self righteous with, “we gotta do better than Trump or Obama.” Yeah, we get it. That is the obvious statement. But to say Obama was a bad choice given the margin of difference between him vs Trump is just fucking stupid no matter where you stand. To say if we had Obama vs Trump and we shouldn’t pick another Obama is stupid because “we have to do better.” That isn’t how shit works either. You pick what is good in the moment.
I am not sure why people suddenly forget the president doesn’t run the whole country when it comes to decision making. So suddenly we start just comparing the presidents but the office in power with the president is a big deal as well.
Obama may have made many decisions the majority of libs are complaining about but the problem is Libs liked him because of what he stood for on the better side of things versus the shit in office now. The Obama standard is the good we had until Trump and that is why it is the still wanted standard because it meant something even with the bad.
So feel how you want but taking the stance of, “we got a do better.” Isn’t a winning case. It is just a statement. Getting people to see some of the good that was done then is what matters and Obama had some of that and that is the point. You have to have something to look at and compare too. Who would you suggest would be better now? How would we do better? Could you help run a country with all of your wisdom? No, Obama would still be 100 times better and I would pick and Obama any fucking day even if it just meant slowing cons down or holding their ridiculous mind set off for a thousand years.
This is such a strange world view. It’s as though you think politics and society are on a linear track and they can only go forwards or backwards and any progress in your preferred direction is preferable because the other direction is diametrically opposed to the only other option which is sliding the train the other direction.
That’s not how any of this works. No, Obama did not move the country in the right direction. Obama continued the violent brutal genocidal policies of the USA, continued reinforcing the dominance of the owners over the workers, and continued the domestic policy of bread and circuses for the working class to avoid unrest.
Romney being worse than Obama would have been LITERALLY the same program with different details.
Obama was LITERALLY the same program as Bush with different details.
I have read your comment and I have determined. This, you are trying to find common ground like one of those people shouting, “guys they are the same they are all bad” and I am here to tell you. Even with what you are saying above is you can feel how you want but you are just wrong. You don’t have to like it but you absolutely are.
Firstly, not all progress is linear. No one here doesn’t agree that progress can diverge or go multiple complicated routes but progress absolutely and 100% can be linear. Seeing it the opposite or trying to come up with some reason progress can never be linear is also wrong. I will give you an example a basic one. Amending bills and rights.
Let’s look at the Miranda rights these protect you from getting tossed in jail if you don’t understand the rights or laws of the U.S. Albeit, it took a guy from another country committing a brutal act for the U.S. to get to a point where it said, “hunh, what if as an American I don’t even know my own rights because they change.” And so we got the Miranda rights --> this right here is linear it is progress forward. Doesn’t matter how many ways you want to sit here and talk about trains and bread and circuses. Now Obama doesn’t have anything to do with the Miranda rights. However, as we speak the current administration and President absolutely are trying to undo the Miranda rights. This protects you, me, and came from a legal case that moved the U.S. forward not backwards. This is absolutely linear progress. Which all sound like BS answers to Obama somehow being equal to Bush when Obama’s presidency was far more complicated than that trying to clean up Bushe’s shit.
So when you talk about progress and you talk about who you would pick.you can absolutely pick people that don’t push progress backwards.i would have picked Biden or Obama or even fucking Bush again over Trump if it meant not picking a piece of shit looking at amending or straight up removing a basic right that moved the U.S. forward.
We can talk about something going on in the U.S. that kills Americans every year. Let’s talk about progress there and Obama is relevant and you should like this one because it is one of those sliders that doesn’t exist. Gun violence.
During Obama’s presidency. Obama tried just changing background checks on guns and just looking at providing statistics on gun violence he tried this on multiple occasions just so people were more educated. Each time the NRA filed a cease and desist. Obama was halted every step of the way he even has a really good talk on it.
https://youtu.be/6imFvSua3Kg
This attempt by Obama is a progress and it isn’t exactly linear but it could have had some linear progress. Meanwhile the current administration chooses to do nothing because nothing is wrong. Each time someone tries to do nothing this doesn’t push your figmental train back but it holds the train in place and prevents it from budging forward or hitting a different track to figure something out. This is holding progress and that is the same as pushing it back every time we do nothing to try and figure out how we manage it. The same administration is also shouting on X to kill it’s political competition. This is not the same. The current administration said, “give them more guns” and is now shouting, “kill the political opposition” this is backwards. It’s fucking stupid to sit here and tell me Obama was just as bad as the rest of them or shit to set here and tell me Romney or Bush was just as bad and they are all the same. It is just a defeatist point of view in of itself because it isn’t acknowledging the whole picture or taking ownership of the shit the current admin is doing.
“Obama was literally the same program as Busy” you can sit here and say this because Obama had principals that didn’t move the dial in some direction. But there was 100% linear progress from Busy no matter. How you want to look at it. Progress that things like Obama care absolutely and 100% helped poorer states like I come from but my own state voted against it. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t linear but it was a step in some direction. And now the same administration has changed it because it had a black man’s name on it. Obama and Trump not the same. Obama and Bush not the same.
Progress has all sorts of divergent paths. I get your point but it is stupid to think that their isn’t some linear progress that comes with some of the change you want. You are always going to pick someone that doesn’t have something you want but when it comes to who is in office now and who has been in office I would pick Obama time and time again.
We can look at some of the stuff Obama moved forward.
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: Signed into law in 2010, this legislation implemented sweeping financial regulatory reforms in response to the subprime mortgage crisis. --> not linear but good for its time. Current admin is fucking with this. Houses are less affordable than they have been for years. Not progress. So yeah I would Pick Obama here because he figured something out.
Tax Policy: Allowed the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for the highest income earners, while cutting taxes for working families and small businesses, which reduced after-tax income inequality. --> every dem does this but lately it has been a dem wanting to make this move. Meanwhile the current admin is doing exactly what you are accusing Obama of. Reinforcing dominance of owners over workers I believe is how you put it? Doesn’t really seem like the two are the same so far.
Auto Industry Rescue: The administration provided support to the U.S. automobile industry, which helped prevent its collapse and preserve jobs. Hunh another good thing. That the current admin is fucking up with terriffs.
You can spout Obama being shit at attempts to help foreigners crossing borders. I don’t disagree but to think his foreign policies weren’t also an improvement would be a lie this would be one of those complicated processes that aren’t a slider. While border management may not have been good he made progress I would consider linear elsewhere.
Iran Nuclear Deal: Negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and other world powers to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.
Paris Climate Agreement: The U.S. adopted this international accord in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.
“Cuban Thaw”: Eased travel and monetary restrictions and began normalizing relations with Cuba after decades of estrangement.
Intervention in Libya: The U.S. participated in a NATO-led intervention in 2011.
These all seem like linear progress bars to me while the current admin fucks up foreign relationships. Literally left the fucking Paris Climate Agreement while the world burns. Is siding with Russia. Etc the list goes on. We could get into Obama’s take on Gay rights also a movement forward while the current administration and Bush tried to fight them. Not the same app progress the current administration is fucking up also the sake shit Romney didn’t want.
Not the same and sure I am open to discussing the bad from Obama and maybe the good from Trump. Trump’s take on foreign adversaries like China stealing intellectual property was good his first term. However, he is fucking it up this term. Holding back changes in the automotive industry. Preventing foreigners from going to school where and diversity proves to be beneficial when it comes to progress.
My entire point is this “Obama was no different than the rest” is just bullshit and it always will be. I don’t disagree that a man in a suit is going to be a man in a suit. What will absolutely disagree on is what we see as progress. And I understand not all progress is linear in that complications come from it all. But to sit here and tell me Obama is the same as busy with a different name badge is lying to me and honestly to yourself.
To tell me Obama and Romney were the same and we didn’t pick Romney because they were absolutely not the same is also bullshit. I don’t think you understand politics and why right now more than ever it is important to understand and create a distinction that you pick and choose battles and Obama gets the praise he does because he did make some progress on human rights figured out ways to avoid entire financial crises that Bush created and started for common people. The current administration tears that down more and more each day. Progress isn’t always linear but when you look at moving forward making things easier on people less poor and people with less rights. It is very easy to compare and contrast the differences in progress Obama alone did not do what he did alone and he did do great things all while having policies that were not great.
Kamala’s take on prisons and foreign immigration wasn’t great either but God damn she would have been a 1000% better pick than the shit administration now. And to tell me even she would have been the same would also be shit. Because progress is complicated but Bush wasn’t progressing the way I wanted and the current administration is currently dismantling the process that came from people I do want. There is no ideal president that is going to do everything you want.
This is why I think you are just another bystander shouting “they are all corporate greed and the same.” When in reality what you are saying is understood on the greed part but absolutely fucking nonsense on the being the same part.
We are looking forward by making excuses for our past? Lol okay.
The fuck excuses? We can do better than this, but you’ve gotta look at everything in context. Until we have a (most likely violent) revolution, the core values of our leadership isn’t going to swing very wildly. Incremental change is all that voting will get you. Obama wasn’t some god that was suddenly going to change what this country is, but he was a step away from Bush and in the right direction. It’s shocking to me how far from normal Trump is and its fucking infuriating that instead of looking forward, part of the left is all “b-b-b-but Obama wasn’t perfect!”
It’s like I agree with your observations but come to different conclusions about what is to be done. I agree Obama, nor any other politician can deliver the change we need given the system we have. To me the lesson isn’t Obama was so much better than Bush or Trump, but that we need to look to ourselves and not for some great leader to save us.
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Yeah how dare we dislike murder, that’s clearly too much purity testing.
That’s not how that works. Either he delivered on hope and change or he didn’t; there’s no “in comparison.”
Because libs will gladly lap up/force on everyone else another Obama (see how they talk about Newsom). It’s important to remember the failures of the past so that when corporate lizards and their party hacks pretend another establishment liberal will change things they’re not taken seriously.
This “looking forward” schtick only means that known bad faith actors can keep influencing politics. It’s simply a bad idea.
Absolutely not. Obama was and remains an establishment stooge whose job is to stifle progress wherever it can be found. Obama rode a wave of progressive resurgence and killed it; he shares only slightly less of the blame for the current situation than people like Bush and Reagan. Incremental change through the likes of Obama is a myth built on the assumption that reactionaries won’t reverse every bit of change made and more.
Quiet, liberal.
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I can’t tell if this is a bit. It’s perfect.
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I still can’t tell. You need a full orchestra following you playing ‘hall of the mountain king’ nonstop.
What in gods name are you doing in a community called “leftymemes”??
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Because he made a lot of dumb kids believe he would be the good one, the was just another bog standard piece of shit, except better at talking.
He made people hope, then murdered that hope¹ with a hellfire missile launched from a drone, to the point we dare not hope on days with a clear blue sky.
¹for anyone who paid literally any attention or had a memory longer than 12 seconds. Also all the people he murdered, but neither of us care about them.
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If any liberal has ever done any wrong ever, made any misstep, caused any negative emotion; thats because the speaker personally architected the american fascist movement.
You cannot fail, only be failed. You cannot wrong, only be wronged. It’s a beautiful perfect little solipsistic victim complex that requires a perfectly hitlerian reading of every text, every event.
Never mind who actually architecture the rise of trump, or why.¹
¹for those not old enough: in 2016 Hilary Clinton helped him through his party’s primaries and built a huge chunk of his machine, on the assumption she’d have an easy win, because 2016 was her turn and she’d ‘earned it’.
How did you get that from the comment?
But like Obama was still better by leagues among his peers. Sure Obama killed a few people, you think Bush didn’t? What about Biden? Carter? At least he didn’t sick his ICE troopers on American citizens, we got accessible healthcare, a black president, repealing some war on drug laws. Obama is a saint compared to his peers. Sorry he killed a few people while ensuring a generation could have healthcare. Powerful people do bad things 🥱. Acting like the Pope hasn’t killed people lol
Don’t know whether this is good ragebait or vile shitlib slop ^^’
Where am i acting like that?
Yes, so I’m an anarchist, and I dont suck their dicks about it
That the banks got bailed out and people lost their homes. That none of the problems were fundamentally fixed. That occupy was stepped on har. He promised hope, and then murdered it. Along with a bunch of people.
I’m not interested in what an ignorant boot licker with no memory has to say about politics or history.bi doubt you can comprehend either topic.
Cool so acknowledging that a president moved the needle means that I cannot also support a revolution. Thanks for saying X means Y and Z, it really widens people’s perspectives. I upvoted your comment in another thread, we’re all friends here but truly thanks for calling me an ignorant bootlicker
Sorry maybe I missed the bit?
I’d respond to your points, but the way you speak makes me confident that our values are too different (read: your values are too disgusting). I’m sure you wouldn’t be saying that if you had family among those “few people” Obama killed.
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I’m not a fan of screaming at walls so I won’t write a wall of text (pun not intended), but Obama’s healthcare policy was literally written by the Heritage Foundation. Yes, the Project 2025 Heritage Foundation. Obamacare is literally Romneycare. Dwell on that for a bit.
This is the discourse I like to see. I had no clue Obama was endorsed by the Heritage Foundation. Instead of assuming people are stupid and can’t comprehend something start with compassion and patience. Sure I started sounding like an Obama ‘apologist’ but I also didn’t vote for him, I was 8 and 12, respectively, when he was elected into office. Before I was 18 I was staunchly alt right by way of social media and YouTube ragebait. I disappointedly voted liberal in the last few elections because… yeah 2 party systems suck.
Spicy take from a guy named after a Dilbert character.
Damn I really need to start looking at usernames more… That dude is a chud
the point is to drive a wedge between leftists (who see him as just another imperialist figurehead) and liberals (who see him as the most progressive president we’ve had since lbj)
What an insane false dichotomy.
it’s not a dichotomy in the first place lol
Ah yes, liberals. Known for being famously aligned with leftism.
…yeah that’s the point.
Your comment makes more sense after you edited it. Otherwise it read as “typical leftist infighting with liberals” sentiment
I presume you’re a shitlib?
What of our programs are you on board with?
Since your party has spent the last year trying to kill the president by sucking his dick like the offspring of Nancy reagan and a jet engine til he has a heart attack, I presume you’ve decided to back left projects, the projects of your allies, until there’s a viable lib option again.
What are your mutual aid projects? How do you support your local socialist groups? Are you going more militant/insurrectionist and arming the most marginalized in your community? No need to be too overly specific.
why?
Thinking libs are allied with the left, presumably because you don’t understand that gaighting is rude. Vut back to my questions; I asked first
what?
My question.
Please answer. Or so you mean ‘rightful owner’ rather than ‘ally’? Like, when I’m in a place where I don’t feel like being seen out and about doing my own thing and don’t have local anarchist friends, I’ll cook for local tankie meetings or see what I can offer DSA.
So how are you an ally? In what way?
lol i thought you were doing a bit about how confrontational and entitled lemmings can be over the most innocuous comments, you’re serious?
You’re making a claim, that we’re close enough a wedge is needed to part us politically. How is that claim true? Tell me.
Unless its not. That’s fine. This is the internet; you can always lie. Thats allowed. We don’t literally crucify you if you’re caught. Honestly we kind of all know you’re lying; nobody here is retarded enough to think a shitlib is actually the ally of anyone but billionaires,
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[citation needed]
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Sure Jan.
The right can’t attack the left because the left just laughs at them, but the right can attack the left by pretending to be the most left and then call out the left for not being left enough.
tell me, if liberals are “the left”, then why are they fighting so damn hard against people like mamdani for being leftists?
if you’re gonna be a fucking idiot, do it somewhere else, so the rest of us don’t have to step in your drool.
Liberals are the right. Please read a book for once in your life…
Liberalism is not strictly left or right. It’s anti-authoritarian, and authoritarianism is a type of political inequality maintained by a social hierarchy of political subjugation.
Political scientists recognize leftist liberals
Modern US liberalism consists of progressives & social liberals. Liberal socialism is a liberal variety of socialism. Social democracy is a form of socialism within liberal democracy. All these ideologies are liberal & leftist, and some are even socialist.
Maybe you should pick up that book.
The link you provided doesn’t really back what you’re saying. The anti-authoritarian element is only part of a specific branch of French Liberalism according to this source (not a real source btw) so you aren’t even correct about that really.
Any dipshit knows that an ideology that is pro-capitalism can’t be leftist. That’s just basic politics really.
You’re basically admitting to poor reading comprehension & ignorance of references cited in the articles.
Not talking about capitalism, talking about liberalism: liberal leftists exist. Some are socialist. Political scientists recognize them as leftist. Deal with it.
As the article you mischaracterize states
not an economic one.
liberalism is about liberty from unlimited authority
As the name indicates, liberalism concerns liberty: it’s essentially the position that
In particular, when their government lacks or loses legitimacy, the people have a right & duty to replace or change that government until it obtains legitimacy. Such a government prohibits unlimited authority, so it’s mutually exclusive with authoritarianism.
The article continues that liberalism is
which reaffirms earlier points & then some. It emerged from the Enlightenment when the authoritarianism of its time was the exclusive power & social hierarchy of feudal, absolute monarchy & aristocracy.
Anyone who read history or philosophy & thought seriously would know this.