“Cite?” Are you joking? I was expressing my opinion. “I gotcher cite right heah!”
ETA: And yes, “the people” *are *a problem, quite often. We see it not only with the reduced off year participation, but with the nomination of an embarrassment like Drumpf.
Last election cycle, little more than a third of those eligible Americans exercised a right that people in some countries, still in this day and age, would give precious body parts to be able to exercise.
I’ll see your :rolleyes: and raise you a :smack:
I wonder if Obama realizes the contradiction between an informed voting population and taking down barriers to voting, which aren’t really barriers, but more like speed bumps? The people without IDs or who can’t be bothered to find their polling place aren’t the types to know who their local district attorney is. Unless he or she prosecuted them.
Jesus, you crack me up. That treatise as as unbiased as one can get. It mentions nothing about political parties or policy positions, but since Obama said it, there must be something wrong with it.
That same speech could have been given by any Republican (Trump excepted (that friggin’ moron)) and you’d be lapping it up like pablum.
Did he try to keep uninformed people from voting? No. He just tried to get them to become more informed. There’s no contradiction.
Because the one thing you can’t do in a democracy is try to prevent the people who you disagree with from being allowed to vote! That allows whoever is currently in charge to prevent themselves from being voted out. It’s as fundamental as not being able to limit their freedom of speech, for the exact same reason.
And, for fuck’s sake, we’ve already dismantled the idea that voting ID is an easy thing to fix. And the idea that they must be criminals? Classism much?
Guess what? I don’t own a valid ID. And I vote with a web browser in front of me, so I can look up every single candidate.
While I have quibbles with Obama’s arguments (like I do not see knowing names as a proxy for political engagement–names are easily googleable), the main problem I have is in trying to turn this into yet another way to bash your political opponents. It wasn’t cool when adaher was doing it, and it’s not cool when the OP does it. There’s a fucking reason Obama didn’t attack any one side in particular in his speech.
Bernie Bros are as much a thing as SJWs. It’s just a contemptuous term to shit on the other side. And that contempt is what is creating the divisions. It is not easy to get people you show contempt for to join you. Yeah, maybe they logically should, but people are emotional creatures, not just logical ones. And you can’t fucking treat them like shit and then whine because they won’t join you.
The way to get Sanders supporters on your side is to show how much you agree with their goals, not to belittle them for being idealists. And that’s what I feel Obama is trying to do in this speech. I don’t know if he quite succeeded, but he at least did not attack anyone directly.
No, that was the Clinton supporters, who used it as yet another way to attack the Sanders supporters. And now the Sanders supporters will continue to attack the Clinton supporters. Neither side will actually try to unite.
And that is ultimately the problem.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone could read this transcript and not see it as a broadside against young Bernheads. Fascinating. (Did you read the more extended excerpts I posted?)
You don’t prevent people from voting. The rules for voting were totally uncontroversial until Democrats realized they had a turnout problem. Then those normal rules became “barriers”.
Okay, that’s BS. I have come down on the side of requiring ID (though also making it easily available, something the GOP drags its feet on for obvious reasons), but it is just not factual to pretend there haven’t been new rules passed in very recent years, or to act as though they weren’t passed for pretty obvious partisan reasons, to try to drive down Democratic turnout.
And I don’t agree that we have a “turnout problem”, not in presidential years. I never thought I’d see, in my lifetime, African Americans voting in higher percentages than whites.
This is how you get them riled up and wanting to vote–you give speeches that encourage them to. Nagging/creating a sense of obligation and guilt is pretty classic because in certain contexts, it works.
Well, among other things, he’s giving a commencement speech at a HBCU. Do you think there’s a lot of Bernie supporters in the audience? I think he’s dealing with the broader issues with youthful idealism/recreational outrage and how adulthood means putting those things aside. “Bernie Bros” may be an example of that sort of thing, but they aren’t the first or the last or even the best. It’s good topic for a commencement speech, especially at a school that attracts people likely to be leaders. These are things all young people on the cusp of full adulthood need to be thinking of–not just Bernie supporters.
When do you think these voter ID laws were created, and by whom? Then tell us why. This “totally uncontroversial” allegation of yours is not consistent with the world of mere fact that so constrains the rest of us.
For pity’s sake, man.
It isn’t “against” them; it’s actually for them - he’s urging them to learn how progress is made in the real world.
He’s right, too, you know.
What makes you say this? Turnouts below 50% are okay?
The two countries I’m familiar with both get 90% + turnout in parliamentary elections.
To me, US turnout is nothing less than abysmal.
New voter ID laws, yes. The ones that have been on the books in the majority of states forever were not controversial until now. And even the new ones are upheld more often than struck down, so they are quite legal. A true “barrier” to voting would not be legal.
Like which ones?
Jim Crow.
To repeat: For pity’s sake, man.
34 states require voter ID.
Thanks so much for posting this speech. I love this part:
[QUOTE=Obama]
But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not enough. It requires changes in law, changes in custom. If you care about mass incarceration, let me ask you: How are you pressuring members of Congress to pass the criminal justice reform bill now pending before them? If you care about better policing, do you know who your district attorney is? Do you know who your state’s attorney general is? Do you know the difference? Do you know who appoints the police chief and who writes the police training manual? Find out who they are, what their responsibilities are. Mobilize the community, present them with a plan, work with them to bring about change, hold them accountable if they do not deliver. Passion is vital, but you’ve got to have a strategy.
[/QUOTE]
I knew a guy who fancied himself a social justice warrior. He would write op-eds and send out e-mails about how it was important to care about certain topics, like unjust wars and veterans’ rights. Then he would get angry if he thought you didn’t care enough. The thing is, I agreed with his causes and I would have been happy to sign a petition or write my congresspeople for or against a bill, but he never suggested any concrete actions that we could take. What a wasted opportunity to mobilize people-- he had assembled a huge e-mail list.
He wasn’t an agent of change; he was an outrage machine. It was pointless.
adaher: Yes, and?
Have a cup of coffee before you answer.
Who needs whom? Does Obama, who’s probably financially set for life, need us? Does he need our vote? Or is it the people who desperately need a government that serves their interests going forward? More importantly, how do you achieve that – by sitting around and waiting for the ideologically pure candidate to show up? By waiting for that once in a lifetime opportunity when a super majority of the electorate votes the same way?
In the meantime, there are millions of 40 and 50-somethings who once proudly brought home a paycheck and are now subsisting on unemployment benefits – benefits which have been cut or threatened to be cut every time the opposition and obstructionist congress throws one of its ideological tantrums over a budget. The point is, there are real people, right here and right now, who don’t have the luxury of waiting for that ideal candidate to come along. They’re trying to protect what they have. What they’ve unfortunately not had over the past 8 years are voters who consistently participate and fight for their interests. Instead these voters have been let down by people who believe that democracy’s like an Olympiad, a made-for-TV spectacle that happens once every four (or is it 8?) years. What they have had is a president who has basically stood his ground and used what leverage he has had to protect those benefits and interests for the most part. No thanks to the ideologically pure who keep waiting for the political equivalent of the magic pumpkin.
Not in presidential years. But what about providing a congress that the president can work with? How is that NOT critical? And we’re not even talking about statewide races like governor’s and state legislature races. People say that Obama didn’t get anything done and yet there is very clear evidence that a fairly large chunk of the Sanders crowd never voted in 2014 and 2010, that they never provided Obama a congress that he could work with. There is strong evidence to show that at least some of the people who rant and rave about how badly the machine is broken are not really knowledgeable about how to use the machine in the first place. That’s like complaining about how your new smart phone or state-of-the-art computer sucks but not reading the owner’s manual. Before you decide it’s time to put the machine in the recycle bin, maybe take some time to understand how it works and what it can do when used the right way.