# Obama: Do not underestimate Trump **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 16, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312 "2017-01-16T13:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/21 "2017-01-16T16:41:34Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Well, regarding the ACA I would have to say that it saved my life. So I will be here to remind you of that inconvenience. And I’m very pleased it did. But that does not make it the right thing for the whole nation. We could save many more lives if we were prepared to spend endless amounts of public money on healthcare but there has to be a balance. The Democrats got the balance wrong. The Republicans deserve a chance to get it right, and thanks to the election they have been given that chance. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/22 "2017-01-16T16:41:34Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > The right and the wrong directions are a matter of opinion, true? It will take years to undo the havoc the suave and personable Obama wreaked. In my opinion, of course. 🙂 Care to detail this “wrong direction”? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/23 "2017-01-16T16:43:45Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Care to detail this “wrong direction”? Already done that in another thread at great length. I think it was one of the ‘why vote for Trump’ threads although I have neither the time nor the inclination to track it down. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/24 "2017-01-16T16:49:35Z")
Trump is a loudmouth dipshit. He doesn’t know anything about policy, he’s driven by shit like Breitbart and Infowars. He’s a billionaire because his dad gave him a bunch of money and property, and he’s a confident asshole. Not because he’s especially sharp. He’s president not because people underestimated him, it’s because people underestimated how gullible and empty the GOP voters (in general) are. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/25 "2017-01-16T16:50:59Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > And I’m very pleased it did. But that does not make it the right thing for the whole nation. We could save many more lives if we were prepared to spend endless amounts of public money on healthcare but there has to be a balance. The Democrats got the balance wrong. The Republicans deserve a chance to get it right, and thanks to the election they have been given that chance. The Republicans for many years had that chance and the result was an early version of the ACA. So you are not even wrong. > **[The irony of Republican disapproval of Obamacare](https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2013/1028/The-irony-of-Republican-disapproval-of-Obamacare)** > > The Democrat's version of health insurance would have been cheaper, simpler and more popular. But we enacted the Republican version. So why are they so upset? Because it an achievement for the Obama administration. > [@](#): > > In February 1974, Republican President Richard Nixon proposed, in essence, today’s Affordable Care Act. Under Nixon’s plan all but the smallest employers would provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty, an expanded Medicaid-type program would insure the poor, and subsidies would be provided to low-income individuals and small employers. Sound familiar? > > Private insurers were delighted with the Nixon plan but Democrats preferred a system based on Social Security and Medicare, and the two sides failed to agree. > > Thirty years later a Republican governor, Mitt Romney, made Nixon’s plan the law in Massachusetts. Private insurers couldn’t have been happier although many Democrats in the state had hoped for a public system. > > When today’s Republicans rage against the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, it’s useful to recall this was their idea as well. > > In 1989, Stuart M. Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation came up with a plan that would “mandate all households to obtain adequate insurance.” > > Insurance companies loved Butler’s plan so much it found its way into several bills introduced by Republican lawmakers in 1993. Among the supporters were senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa (who now oppose the mandate under the Affordable Care Act). Newt Gingrich, who became Speaker of the House in 1995, was also a big proponent. > > Romney’s heathcare plan in Massachusetts included the same mandate to purchase private insurance. “We got the idea of an individual mandate from [Newt Gingrich], and [Newt] got it from the Heritage Foundation,” said Romney, who thought the mandate “essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need.” The reality is that before ACA I had no heath insurance to speak of, and when I got an attack of a resistant infection I then had access to prompt care and survive without being a burden to my family. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/26 "2017-01-16T16:54:55Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I don’t think it’s accurate to suggest that liberals were laughing at Trump – some were but the ones who were truly following the horse race realized that Trump had a chance to win and that the pysche of the electorate was such that he was to be taken quite seriously. I guess those guys were not "truly following the horse race". ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/27 "2017-01-16T16:55:22Z")
It has not been the Left who has underestimated Trump. Folks ain’t out there protesting in the streets just because they want some fresh air. They know how fucked we are. It’s the folks on the Right who need to pull their heads out of their asses and start paying attention. Like the folks who voted for a platform with “REPEAL OBAMACARE” on the top of its agenda, despite the fact that they or their family enjoy the benefits of Obamacare. Or the folks who keep downplaying the intelligence leaks as “fake news” and who aren’t bothered by Trump’s lack of divestment based on the shoddy reasoning that he’s supposedly “unbribable”. These are the people who need to wake up. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/28 "2017-01-16T16:58:32Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It has not been the Left who has underestimated Trump. Folks ain’t out there protesting in the streets just because they want some fresh air. They know how fucked we are. > > It’s the folks on the Right who need to pull their heads out of their asses and start paying attention. Like the folks who voted for a platform with “REPEAL OBAMACARE” on the top of its agenda, despite the fact that they or their family enjoy the benefits of Obamacare. Or the folks who keep downplaying the intelligence leaks as “fake news” and who aren’t bothered by Trump’s lack of divestment based on the shoddy reasoning that he’s supposedly “unbribable”. These are the people who need to wake up. QFT. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/29 "2017-01-16T17:02:45Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I really don’t get the liberals. If they want to fight against Trump then, as Obama implied, they need to take him seriously. They laugh at him at their peril. The two are not mutually exclusive. Liberals are perfectly capable of taking seriously the dangers the Trump administration poses to our society and the world, while **also** laughing at Trump’s narcissistic, shallow, spiteful pettiness, lack of self-discipline and overweening greed and conceit. Conservatives don’t want us laughing at Trump not because they’re genuinely worried about its impacting our ability to fight against him (awww, how nice of you to be concerned :rolleyes: ), but rather because Trump’s buffoonery also makes them look bad for being on his side, and they’d prefer that people just not talk about it. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/30 "2017-01-16T17:07:27Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Still, mock on, guys. It serves all of us on the right well. 🙂 Hey…! Kids…! Rock and Roll…! Mock Trump…! _ **Block Trump!** _ ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/31 "2017-01-16T17:16:07Z")
I had never underestimate the SOB! I knew he was going to win and I kept telling people this and they didn’t want to hear it. The guy scare me to death and I don’t scare very easy ! But this doesn’t keep me from still mocking him! I just wish the news wouldn’t keep reminding us how many days are left before the SOB moved in the White House . I refuse to call him the ‘P’ word ! ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/32 "2017-01-16T17:20:29Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > I refuse to call him the ‘P’ word ! My wife had an aunt that refused to say the word “cancer”. It still killed her. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/33 "2017-01-16T17:20:46Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > We could save many more lives if we were prepared to spend endless amounts of public money on healthcare And that would be awful wouldn’t it. Far better to spend endless amounts of money on taking lives. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/34 "2017-01-16T17:29:06Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > I had never underestimate the SOB! I knew he was going to win and I kept telling people this and they didn’t want to hear it. The guy scare me to death and I don’t scare very easy ! But this doesn’t keep me from still mocking him! I just wish the news wouldn’t keep reminding us how many days are left before the SOB moved in the White House . I refuse to call him the ‘P’ word ! Well, I did call him [Pendejo](http://mexicanspanish.com/pendejo/) in the pit once… ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/35 "2017-01-16T17:30:08Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > My wife had an aunt that refused to say the word “cancer”. It still killed her. I trust I don’t have to spell out the President Trump analogy. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/36 "2017-01-16T17:36:49Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > And that would be awful wouldn’t it. Actually, yes it would. If for example we ran the defense budget down to next to nothing to save even more lives and left the country with nothing to protect itself. Or slashed other parts of the federal budget to pump more and more into health. As I said there has to be a balance. And the balance needs adjustment. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/37 "2017-01-16T17:38:18Z")
I don’t think most people on the left are underestimating him, as monstro noted, it’s the people on the right who are. I think he’s a dangerous, dangerous man. I half expect him to push through universal healthcare just to get many on the left on his side-- to further lull people into trusting him before delivering us into the hands of Russia and/or World War III. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/38 "2017-01-16T17:38:32Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > The danger he poses to civilization cannot be overstated. He is more evil than Nixon, more corrupt than Reagan, dumber than W. He made a deal with another demon to gain the presidency in exchange for allowing the USSR to be rebuilt, first the Crimea, then the remainder of the Ukraine, then the Baltics… > > Anyone who voted for this monster needs to know this will be on your conscience and for those who are of a religious nature, will be what you will be judged upon in your final accounting. Wow. Threatening your political opponents with eternal damnation. Even Jerry Falwell never stopped so low. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/39 "2017-01-16T17:39:23Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Wow. Threatening your political opponents with eternal damnation. Even Jerry Falwell never stopped so low. You haven’t talked to my Trump-loving cousins. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312/40 "2017-01-16T17:47:15Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Actually, yes it would. If for example we ran the defense budget down to next to nothing to save even more lives and left the country with nothing to protect itself. Or slashed other parts of the federal budget to pump more and more into health. > > As I said there has to be a balance. And the balance needs adjustment. Considering that the USA does outspent other nations in military expenses many times over, the balance that you talk is a very irresponsible one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-do-not-underestimate-trump/777312.md?page=3)