Mark Rubio has calledObama the most divisive figure in US politics. Where do conservatives get this stuff? It’s as though there is no such thing as reality anymore. Hell, it’s hard to think of a president who has acted less divisively. His big crime is promoting a health care bill that was similar to one the Republican’s themselves advocated not long ago, and almost identical to what was signed into law by the presumptive nominee of the Republicans.
Nixon, the guy that called Obama a liar, and Sara “Death Panel” Palin are divisive. I can see how the blunt Barney Frank and some other Democrats can be seen as divisive, but Obama?
Regardless of political philosophy, I don’t see how anyone with a modicum of intelligence could remain connected to the Republicans when they just make stuff up. How can democracy work in this environment?
He actually called him the most divisive figure in “modern American history”!
Apparently calling for a partial return to Clinton era tax rates makes you more divisive then Malcolm X, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Nixon, LBJ, George Wallace, etc.
Rubio doesn’t remember those people, so they’re not* his* “modern American history.” You don’t understand how right-wing history works. There are four periods, in order:
THE BIBLE
MY IDYLLIC CHILDHOOD
THE USSR (which is identified with both Orwell’s 1984 and all Maoist movements everywhere)
WHAT I LIVED THROUGH AS AN ADULT
Quite the contrary: Obama is a uniter, not a divider.
The Right hates him for being a hardcore tax-and-spend liberal with an old-school socialist agenda who wants to soak the rich to benefit the layabout poor, muzzle Wall Street, gut the military, weaken our position on the world stage, negotiate with our enemies, disengage from Israel, and outlaw the private ownership of firearms. The Left hates him because none of that is true.
I think that with the evolution of online media and blogs, EVERY NEXT PRESIDENT will be the most divisive figure ever. When Nixon was in office he didn’t have the Occupy Movement, and Carter didn’t have the Tea Party, both groups able to spew their nonsense on a hundred web pages.
They’re sort of right. Not that Obama has done anything to justify it, or acts in a divisive manner - but if half the country decides that he is the guy who is most responsible for all that is wrong in the world, and they absolutely hate him at their core, and they spend 10 hours a day passing around e-mails about his evil socialist plans and posting yahoo news comments about the end of America, he’s a divisive figure.
It’s just ironic because he’s amongst the most concilliatory, and quite frankly, borderline spineless politicians we’ve seen - he’s far more inclusive and nice to them than they deserve.
This is probably the biggest gap between actual divisive behavior, and perceived divisiveness that we may ever see. I don’t see how it could be any larger. The right wing echo chamber has been amazingly successful in working up everyone who chooses to be in it into a frothing rage over absolutely nothing. In 50 years, with some historical perspective, this could be taught in history classes as a new type/level of propoganda success.
But this isn’t from some wild eyed TPer. It’s from a Senator who is on everyone’s short list for the VP slot. If Romney is elected, do you think we’ll hear that from a similar Democraic Senator in 2016?
Well, that kind of thing is older than the telegraph (though not much older, since modern democracy is not much older). It is always in a candidate’s interest to convince the voters, or at least his base, that the next election is the most important make-or-break event in their lives to date, that’s how you fire 'em up.
To me, he’s about as divisive as George Bush was through most of his presidency (I admit that at the end he went from being divisive to mostly reviled and avoided even by many in his own party). The left ABSOLUTELY hated him, the right generally liked him and supported him. You can make the argument that he was rightfully divisive for starting the Iraq war where Obama hasn’t made many truly divisive actions, but I’m not seeing a huge difference between the two in how much hate and vitriol there is spewed at them on a daily basis.
About half the country supports Obama and thinks he’s doing a decent job. I don’t know anyone who is absolutely crazy about him. This is pretty much how Bush was for a long time.