re: Off Topic: Governor's race. Walt Maddox vs. Kay Ivey

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I think criticisms are fair and I have many. It's just that all the ignorant bullshite that was slung against him just made it difficult to talk about legitimate problems with his presidency.

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Here's the deal with Obama, and why I made the comment about him being black being why he people didn't like him. He had a near impossible burden when he was elected. A lot of black Americans looked to him as a sort of savior. 40 years after the Civil Rights movement, there was finally a man of color in the White House fighting for their cause. On the other side, a lot of white people voted for him hoping it would put to rest a lot of the racial tension in this country. The idea that see, we elected a black president, we're not racist. There was just no way he was going to please both sides, and he failed both sides tremendously, especially his first 4 years.

But for the former group, I think Obama never truly grasped their issues. He was raised by his white mother in a relatively privileged world, and he had a white grandfather that guided him through the world of white privilege. He moved in circles 90%+ of black Americans never did, and because of that he was able to campaign in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, and many other predominantly white states and relate to those voters.

For a lot of white people, and especially in his second term, they saw a guy that gave legitimacy to the Black Lives Matter movement. He dared show compassion for Trayvon Martin. He actually started acting more black, and lamenting the continuing problems with racial issues in this country. In short, they felt he betrayed them. He was supposed to be their proof that this country had put its racist past behind them, but instead he used his position to magnify racial issues still present. And for a lot of black people(at least many I've talked to) they felt his talk was a little too little, too late.

That said, most black people I know and converse with still love Obama. They're disappointed with how he handled certain things, but even given his background they feel he a voice for them. Many white people I know always hated him though, and if I had a dime for ever time someone I was around used the n-word when talking about him, well you know the rest.

We can talk about his policy decisions all day, and he made many mistakes as every president does. We can never escape the underlying racial tension that permeated his 8 years in office, and helped give rise to the current president.

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The Spleen

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My vote for the best post in this thread.

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Clarence Thomas was a dissent vote

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He didn't write the dissenting opinion, that was O'Connor.

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If Thomas was one of the most brilliant to ever serve on the court, why he has he not written a single majority or dissenting opinion in any landmark case over the last 27 years?

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Why was he literally mute for most of this period as well???

Obama was truly a cruel hoax. He ran against the Iraq War, but kept us in Iraq too long and even covertly or directly started new wars in Libya, Syria, Ukraine (no, it wasn't Russia who started that mess. Obama let Victoria Nuland engineer regime change there), and subsidized the Saudi war on Yemen and Israel's undying and illegal occupation of Palestine (along with several massacres against Palestinians while this supposed hater of Israel was president). He bailed out the banks, AGAIN, and failed to hold anyone who caused the mess accountable. He was primarily for himself, not the nation. And he was the liar in chief giving any credence to BLM. Research has proven that Black suspects are actually LESS likely to be shot by cops. And profiling only happens because of the higher rate of criminality among the Black population. There is a reason Asians are not profiled. Obama is beloved for ONE reason. He is Black.

With that said, most Republicans who hate Obama, hate him for all the wrong reasons, just as most who hate Trump hate him for all the wrong reasons. Obama was NOT meek with Russia. Again, he engineered regime change on Russia's doorstep and installed an anti Russian regime to take over there in Ukraine. He was NOT anti Israel in any policy position. He may have hated Netanyahu, but Israel never had a better butt kisser till Trump came along. He placed crushing sanctions on Iran, despite the fact that Iran did not even have a nuke weapons program. Obama enriched the top 1 per cent more than any Republican ever did by going along with the QE sham that gives basically free money to banks. I could go on and on.

Jimmy Carter is very thankful for Obama. It prevents him from being the worst damn President in past 100 years.

If you can look at what the Democratic leadership has been saying and doing the past 2-3 years and still vote for a Democrat I have no possible argument that can persuade you.

This is not the Democratic party of 50 years ago or even 30 years ago.

The parties no longer disagree about policy matters, like what the top tax rate should be or military spending or anything relatively mundane like that. The parties disagree fundamentally about the very nature of the country.

The Democratic party is determined to remake America into socialist state by any means necessary, and their primary weapon is identity politics.

The idea that Republicans somehow are the party that changed is absurd. The Democratic party has moved radically to the left big time and somehow accuses the Republicans of being further right, it's objectively insane.

Many old school Democrats have woken up to this and have begrudgingly started voted Republican, which is why Trump won states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Trump would have been labeled a moderate Democrat 30 years ago.

The Republican party has its flaws but at the end of the day they are your standard political flaws we've always had. The Democratic party is now actively hostile to America's fundamental values and institutions because they view America as a racist, evil country that should be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up 'properly'

Your children are going to have to live with the consequences of this conflict. If you want them to live in a bigger, fancier Venezuela so be it. You can vote however you want and no message board post is going to change your mind unfortunately.

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If you want them to live in a bigger, fancier Venezuela so be it.

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The Democratic party has moved radically to the left big time 

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I see this stuff all the time but there really isn't any evidence to support it. The progressive movement has essentially no voice within the party or on Capitol Hill. You can pull up cherry-picked polls but the only ones that really matter, election polls, show very clearly that the party has remained moderate. Bernie Sanders lost by several million votes. Progressive dems very rarely even make it past their primaries, which are far more likely to have radical voters participate in. Every democratic nominee for president since essentially forever has been extremely centrist. This might change in the near future, but it sure hasn't happened yet. Historically, when people felt that the change was right around the corner, it flopped dramatically (1944 Vice President DNC vote is the most dramatic, and sad imo, example of this).

You say that:

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The idea that Republicans somehow are the party that changed is absurd

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But the far right literally has its own caucus on the Hill, something that the left isn't even close to having. Additionally, alt-right rhetoric has been hugely on the rise and contributed, to at least some extent, to Trump's victory.

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Trump would have been labeled a moderate Democrat 30 years ago. 

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Not true. Moderate Dems are very much defined by market globalism and international realism, two genres of thought that Trump is vehemently against.

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 because they view America as a racist, evil country that should be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up 'properly' 

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I don't know many dems who think this. I certainly don't. I love America.

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If you want them to live in a bigger, fancier Venezuela so be it

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Not many people are supporting that far of a drift into socialism, and most support post-Keynesian economic policies, which are largely supported within economic academia.


I feel that, since it is all largely unfounded, that this "the left is trying to destroy this country with their radical views" thing is just a meme created to ignite an emotional response, and avoid an intellectual perspective, in order to cheaply win votes or contribute to our nation's divisiveness.