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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Ultimately, I cannot know what was going on in his mind, so we are theorizing. But here's my counter-theory. He was frustrated because he believed in bipartisanship, in both parties working together for a better country despite neither getting everything it wanted, and he discovered the other side would literally burn the country down for an edge. I think he was an idealist, but his ideal was "one country, one people" instead of this Plymouth/Jamestown contrast we still seem to represent. To that end, he was willing to sacrifice almost anything, and only started playing hardball when he realized after he gave EVERYTHING, the other side smiled and said "so we're going to vote against that".
You're not wrong. I don't like that we can't have successful left-loudmouths. I like to say/think it's because a large part of the Democratic base is interested in truth and facts, but that doesn't explain the lazy people who are willing to allow for alt-right nonsense but not leftist discussion.
I used to think that Roe being overturned would be the last nail, that Red states would spontaneously turn Blue from people who suddenly realized they were in Gilead. I used to actually think they wouldn't let their best tool to rally the alt-right go away. And I was right that it hurt them now that people are living in the hell of abortion being illegal, but it hasn't been the wave I expected. I really hope you're right, but look at Texas. It was supposed to be purple already, and quickly turning Blue in the next 20 years. And that was before Dobbs. I just don't see that motion yet. I hope to see it soon.
Sad, but true. I swear, there's a mile-long list for why the Republican party should be failing. And they KNOW it. They hate Trump as much as we do. Coming in to 2016, Republicans were internally talking about looking more moderate because they were afraid they'd alienated too many people. Trump wasn't supposed to have a chance in the Primary. They're like a zombie party. Things that would destroy almost any other party in the world are reinvigorating them. Non-stop sex scandals? MORE VOTES.
Regarding Obama, that's a fair take. There was a hefty amount of naivety in his belief that Republicans would sincerely reach across the aisle and work together for the common good. Those days were long over, and they'd happily slap his hand down every time while accusing him of being partisan. It just happened over and over again. And because right-wing media has such a grip on America, the general apathetic citizen didn't recognize this, and by the time Obama realized it, he had lost his strength in Congress.
True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. Unfortunately his "pragmatic progressive" approach did not work out. Though you know on hindsight I can't really fault him. At the time we needed a leader to bring back stability and rebuild the country on the brink. He had to fix the broken puzzle, but lacked the circumstances to build upon it. Two of the biggest faults to his presidency was not prosecuting the bankers and not listening to Ambassador Ford's advice to support the FSA and put an end to the Assad regime — but for the latter, again I somewhat understand in the context of seeking withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Texas is tricky. It's my view that New Mexico is 10 years ahead of Arizona politically-speaking, while Arizona is 10 years ahead of Texas. AZ had yet to even shed Arpaio at the time while the thought of having "2" Democratic US Senators seemed a far-away concept (hopefully AZ remedies the disaster that is Sinema). I still have some hope for Texas, but of course change never comes soon enough.
What's crazy is that the idiots could've likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system. All the "moderate" Republicans initially too scared to vote for someone as crazy as Trump split their votes across something like 8 other "normal" candidates. This party sustains itself off ignorant fear, anger, and greed. Ethics and reason have no place beneath their banner.
Your reply deserves more time than I have, I'm sorry. I am really grateful for this type of conversation where nobody reduces to name-calling. It's refreshing after reddit.
But I do want to point to 1 thing. "True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. " I don't think that's actually true.
I used google historical search a couple years back to look at what Obama ACTUALLY campaigned as and proclaimed. Surprisingly, he wasn't saying a ton of progressive things. He campaigned heavily on words that could be taken multiple ways, but on the issues he seemed fairly conservative. When I pulled up even slightly over, lots of news articles from unbiased (or left-biased) sources referring him to a Party Moderate.
I think the wool was pulled over our eyes, and I go back and forth between thinking he did it, thinking his campaign staff did it, and between thinking our optimism did it.
I didn't follow it as closely as I'd like to. Didn't it go like Primaries usually do, with the bottom-polling candidate trying to step out and redirect their votes towards their favorite... with a lather-rinse-repeat? The final vote was apparently down to 4 candidates. And Trump got more votes than the other 3 combined, nearly 50% of the Primary Votes. RCV doesn't beat him basically having a majority vote among the field.