this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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The Democrats go further to the center no matter what, but they only win when they run to the left. Obama ran as a radical leftist that was going to deliver universal healthcare and hold the banks accountable, but jettisoned that as quick as he could. The truth is they just want to be in the center, and they'll justify it no matter the turnout or outcome of the election.
Do we live in the same reality?
Off the top of my head, he was going to bailout the mortgage holders, reign in the banks, close Gitmo, end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pass universal healthcare, and end warrantless wiretaps. He either abandoned those objectives (sometimes when he held a super-majority) or technically did something but not really (like ending the warrantless wiretap program but creating a mass surveillance program). Anyway, maybe, "radical leftist," is a little hyperbolic, but he ran further to the left than anyone had since the 70s and he governed slightly to the left of George W.
It's more accurate to say he made leftist promises, and then turned out to be just another conservative asshole with amazing oratory skills.
I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where Obama stripped gay people of their rights
He didn't really do anything for gay rights either. He didn't even support gay marriage until his second term. Gay marriage only became law because of the Supreme Court.
Imagine the privilege of someone unable to tell the difference between casual indifference and outright hostility.
OK, well what the hell are you talking about? Who, "stripped gay people of their rights?" Because in my lifetime, there have been two major changes in gay rights. One was DOMA, which rejected gay marriage, and was passed by a Republican congress and signed by Bill Clinton. The other was the Obergefell v. Hodges, where a conservative leaning Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. So why is this your litmus test? Why does being ambivalent on gay rights for half his Presidency mean Obama can't be a, "conservative asshole?"
I don't even know where to start with this idiocy
You just argued that Obama wasn't a conservative based entirely on the fact that he had a, "casual indifference," towards gay rights, but sure, I'm the idiot.
Yeah. That's centrist, especially for 20 years ago. Republicans literally want to kill all gays. That's conservative.
OK, we'll just set the hyperbole aside for a second, 'cause I really want an answer on this...why is gay rights your only barometer for what a conservative is? Like, if I want to lower taxes on the wealthy, cut social programs, increase military spending and ban abortion, but I don't have any problem with gay people, does that mean I'm not a conservative?
I just picked the first topic that came into my head. There's really a thousand different examples where Democrats are good or neutral but Republicans are mustache twirling evil.
OK, here's the thing; the Republicans are generally mustache twirling bad guys, but the Democrats are rarely good or neutral, especially at the federal level. They have nice rhetoric, but they never live up to it. Clinton gutted welfare, expanded mass incarceration, and ended Glass-Steagall (which directly led to the 2008 housing market crash). Obama abandoned universal healthcare, reneged on his promise to bailout homeowners, and created the largest domestic spying program in human history. Again, even in the topic you came up with, Democrats did literally nothing to advance gay rights, it was the Supreme Court.
It's very tempting to boil politics down to a binary, good/evil choice, especially now that at least half of the Republican party is openly supporting facism, but you can't just assume the Democrats are the good guys. If their voters don't hold them accountable for their broken promises and inaction, the country will continue to slide into this right-wing hellscape we're all facing.
If the voters punish democrats for not immediately bringing utopia, it will ensure a slide into right wing fascism.
You should punish the Democrats when they act like conservatives. If you don't, you don't have ideals, you just like rooting for a team, and you might be happier following sports, not politics.
But you don't understand the difference between "not being Leftist" and "being conservative". There's a big gulf between those two.
You're talking in vagueries and I'm dealing in specifics. Address any of the concrete examples I've given of the Democrats taking explicitly conservative positions or just stop.
I cannot believe how patient you've been.
No, because as soon as I talk about one you'll just immediately pivot and move the goal posts to something else. I'm not dumb. Getting into specifics is a trap. You just cherry pick things to set a false narrative that's not representative of democratic politicians as a whole.
The end result is that every politician must be perfectly in line with everything you want, with no compromise, at all times, or they're just as bad as the people actually opposing you. Which is why Leftists never win elections. No politician is ever good enough for you because politics involves compromise.
LMFAO
Heavy sits the crown
I think it might actually be impossible to remain a good person as a president, even if you manage to somehow be a good person who can become president (also rare)
The president definitely has to be an asshole to some extent, because it's impossible to make everyone happy in this country.
With that said, we've seen presidents do what they say they're gonna do, even as progressives. We sat through four years of Trump using every possible resource to do the awful stuff he did, and there's no good reason why anyone should look at Biden and expect less than that.
Democrats deserve credit for ruling as conservatives. They reinforced the narrative that voting is pointless, at least in terms of federal elections.
Expecting Biden to rule like Trump is absolutely fucking insane. He ignored or broke any rule that stood in his way, and it got many of his policy initiatives shut down by the courts until he went back and did it the proper way, with the end result being that he was so busy fighting in the courts he didn't have time to do everything he wanted. He tried to exploit his powers to persecute his opponents and got impeached over it. He shut down the government over border wall funding and got nothing for it. The only areas he was actually successful in pushing the boundaries of acceptability were in grifting the government by staying at his properties and charging inflated prices I'm violation of the emoluments clause.
I'm a leftist because I believe government can be a force for good, and because I believe in the rule of law and in fighting against corruption. If Biden or any democrat acted like Trump did, I'd vote them out in a heartbeat.
Youre right. I lived so long under Obama the president i'd forgotten Obama the candidate
Right? I was there man, what the fuck is this take?
By my understanding, radical left for Americans and also slightly less so but also Canadians is kinda center right for the rest of the world. I've also heard people start calling politicians radical when they bait and switch even though that's not really how that word works.
radical right/far right, is pushing neo nazi territory. Radical left/far left, is people who like socialism and communism.
"Radical" just means "outside the status quo". "Extremist" is more the term you want there.
Radical has a customary meaning in this context - someone calling for systemic change
That is a better way of putting it, thanks. Not just outside the status quo but pushing to change it. I still think it carries a milder connotation than neo-Nazis or Anarchists and different language should be used for the fringe than just further-than-mainstream politics.
I don't know many honest people for whom the current system is working great, so I'd warrant that not being some kind of radical might be the more extreme position
You wouldn't be the first to float some form of "centrism is an extreme position" and I can't say I disagree.
if we're talking extremists we're talking our boy the unambomber, and uh, the people that bombed abortion clinics, maybe.
I dont actually have a good second handle for extremists on the right lol. I guess hate criming nazis? That kind of shit.
"Terrorist" works fine.
i was thinking explicit actions, more so than vague terms, kind of defeats the whole point of describing "radical right/left wing" if we simply go back to using another vague term doesnt it?
Anything that's not fascism is running to the left now.
He didn't jettison his healthcare plans, he was railroaded by an uncooperative Congress. The fact that he was able to get the ACA passed, even as neutered as it is, is nothing short of miraculous compared to the relative lack of delivery of even a single campaign promise by any president in recent history.
He had a huge margin in the House, a super-majority in the Senate, and he chose to pass the Heritage Foundation's Healthcare proposal. Clinton didn't even have that majorities like that his first term. If Obama couldn't get that congress to cooperate he wasn't fit to lead.
He lost the super majority very quickly, and it was rarely an effective supermajority. Having 60 geriatric men in a room at one time is hard. Byrd was in the hospital, and frankin had been denied his seat for months. By the time the aca passed they'd lost the "super" part of the majority anyway.
I'm pretty sure that the ACA passed before Scott Brown took office, which as I remeber it was the end of his Super Majority. But even if I'm wrong, then why don't they end the filibuster? If the Republicans are determined to be the obstructionist party, why aren't the willing to limit their ability to obstruct? They've been willing to do it to get nominations through, so why won't they do it to pass legislation?
Someone being the same party doesn't mean they will co-operate.
Yeah, again, he had 60 in the senate, a big majority in the house, and a huge mandate from the voters. If he couldn't pass his legislation under those circumstances he wasn't fit to lead.
What more should Obama have done on the front of universal healthcare than to draft a universal healthcare plan and try to get Congress to pass it? Which is what he did. They didn’t have the votes and the president doesn’t write laws. They got healthcare reform as far as they could with a few asshole Democrats and a totally stonewalling GOP. Also how is that platform radically leftist
He had huge majorities in both houses, and he had a 57% approval rating at the time. Had he wanted to, he could have twisted some arms and gotten the public option through. He just didn't care. And as I said in another comment, I was being a little hyperbolic with, "radical leftist," but he ran farther left than anyone in 20 or 30 years and governed center-left to center-right.
Ah, so you’re another person speaking from ignorance with great confidence. In order for major healthcare reform to pass, it had to overcome a Senate filibuster. That requires 60 votes, and the Senate had exactly 60 non-GOP votes for all of 2 months and some change in 2009. And one of those 60 Senators (who later left the Democratic Party) wouldn’t even support the public option on the ACA. They were barely able to get the ACA voted for before Ted Kennedy kicked the bucket and they lost vote 60. They then had to use the bill they did manage to pass along with reconciliation to get the ACA signed into law. It was by the skin of their teeth.
But based on your confident ignorance I’m sure you’ll just give some excuse and completely gloss over or ignore the fact that you are just factually wrong about the specifics of your criticism.
Ignorant bullshit!
I wish I could find the tweet to credit the guy, but someone once said something to the effect of, :"The number of Democrats needed to do anything is N+1, where N is number number of Democrats currently in office." 50 votes in the Senate? Well, nothing can get done because of Joe Manchin. Need one more. 60 votes on the senate? Well, that's barely a super-majority, need one more. Oh, Ted Kennedy died! Need one more so we can have a super-majority again! Could the Democrats eliminate the filibuster? Don't think about it! Elect one more Democrat.
You can call me ignorant all you want (I'm not by the way, I lived in MA at the time, I remember Scott Browns election better than you), but at the end of the day, these are just more excuses. Two houses, a President with a strong mandate, and a year of filibuster proof majority, and they couldn't pass their own agenda. Either it wasn't important to them or the party isn't fit to govern.
Bro really doubled down then cited a tweet 💀
LOL, wait, do you think the thing I cited is supposed to be a fact? You get that it was a joke, right? I'm trying to credit a guy who made a good joke about how Democrats always have an excuse not to do anything. Bro really thought it was a real mathematical formula 💀