# Obama vs. Trump - Any overlapping opinions?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-vs-trump-any-overlapping-opinions/813056>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 24, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-vs-trump-any-overlapping-opinions/813056 "2018-04-24T18:23:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 66

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-vs-trump-any-overlapping-opinions/813056/66 "2018-04-25T15:02:36Z")

</div>

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> You’re in favor of obstructing efforts to make it work. What do \*you \*call that?

I didn’t call it “failure” like you claimed. You dodged my question rather than answering that. I’ll take that as a tacit admission that you were just making shit up when you said I was “calling it failure” in post #52. This is a recurring problem for you: claiming people said something that they didn’t say. It’s REALLY hard to believe _anything_ you say when you make shit up like that. I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage you to stop doing it.

Now, as for your other questions:

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> When did that happen, and why?

Sometime in the last few decades. I don’t have a precise date, as I see it as more of a long-running escalation in partisanship by both sides.

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Can you be more specific? \*Which \*Senators? And, again, why?

I suspect most of them have voted against cloture, or would if they were in the minority when something came up. I’m not going to take the time to go research every single senator and confirm which votes they cast against cloture, but I’m comfortable with my understanding that it’s pretty much all of them.

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> It’s even cuter blaming the other party for yours’ failures when your party has complete control.

I don’t know how many times and how many ways it can be explained but a Senate majority is insufficient to unilaterally do whatever one party wants, at least so long as the cloture threshold is 60 votes.

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Then it should be easy to point out a few of your favorite examples of what Democrats are obstructing, and why it’s out of sheer obstructionism.

I never claimed “it’s out of sheer obstructionism”. Both sides obstruct when they’re in the minority. I think they both do so with the belief that they’re protecting or advancing some higher principle or greater good.

> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> Now: \*Why \*do you want government to fail, as you so obviously do, unless “My party good, your party bad” is an even higher principle for you? And why aren’t you out and proud about it, instead of calling it failure and blaming the other guys for it?

I don’t want government to “fail”. I want it to advance conservative goals and principles. The second best thing it can do is nothing. The worst thing it can do is advance liberal goals. And there’s a vast distance separating these last two. I don’t call it “failure” when they do a little bit of the first, a lot of the second, and none of the third.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-vs-trump-any-overlapping-opinions/813056)._