To the extent that politics has failed, it’s because so many Republicans picked their candidates while they were angry. Now they’ve picked Trump while they’re furious and they expect him to fix things.
I really wonder how much Trump’s speech will move the needle. It was very long, and I’m not certain that anyone but the converted would’ve stayed riveted for the whole thing. Undecideds might get it from post-speech analysis (maybe bad for Trump) or sound bites (doesn’t have the effect of context and his full speech giving prowess).
Yah, the one that puts Iran on the path to a bomb by taking away their uranium and centrifuges, and destroying their breeder reactor(s?).
:rolleyes:
I had typed a lot more, but it really just boiled down to expressing everything encapsulated in the rolleyes emoji over and over, so I just gave in and simplified it.
Well, apparently we all sat through it. It was absolutely riveting in a car wreck kind of way. Tiny, orange Hitler indeed.
Google says the kid’s birthday is March 20, 2006, so 10. I didn’t watch- did he say 9?
Word counts in Trump’s speech:
55 - america|american|americans
33 - country
20 - hillary|clinton
16 - trade
11 - world
11 - violence
10 - jobs
09 - terrorism
09 - immigration
08 - deals
08 - citizens
08 - children
The Republicans should never have won any elections between 2008 and now. They only did because Democrats did business as usual at a time when the public is fed up and they KNEW the public was fed up. That was Obama’s entire distinction from Clinton was that she represented more of the same and he was different. When that proved to be a misrepresentation, the backlash was swift and severe.
Our politics have failed because Democrats misread their mandate as “more of what we did last time we were in power”.
What would you say was the major roadblock to Obama doing distinctive things? I’ll give you a clue. It can be stated in three words and those words begin with R, C and C.
And it’s not Roman Catholic Church 
So, its over? No attacks by ISIS trained BLM commandos? Good.
All the GOP blocked him on was standard Democratic policies. There was no change proposed to block. Plus most change of the political system can be done within branches. Congress didn’t need the President to ban earmarks, that was a rule they could pass on their own. Likewise, the President, on his own, can reform government IT acquisition practices, he can have stricter rules about politicization of agencies, he can make things more efficient and effective throughout the bureaucracy, all without Congress’ help. Most importantly, a change President can set an example by rejecting the standard Beltway methods: spin, lies, misrepresentation, obsession with secrecy and messaging, etc. And Obama always had an amazing opportunity to abandon such methods, because the Tea Party has usually not bothered with such professional political tactics, instead preferring to behave like amateurs. Obama had a perfect opportunity to be a straight talker who actually knew what he was talking about. Except those who know politics tend to also know that in the short term you win more often by doing things the tried and true way. It’s hard to sell policies by being honest about them.
Its crushing when someone you idolize fails you. I only hope you can find the strength to go on.
I’m surprised you say that first part. I’m with leftfield6, which echoes what some media commentators said: his delivery from the TelePrompter is not very effective. Risky though it might have been, he really probably should have just put bullet points up there and riffed on them.
This is my secret shame. (Well, not secret any longer.) There is something really attractive about her, beyond her looks. And I did really like what she said about discrimination in the workplace against mothers! Not that it makes a lick of sense at a GOP convention.
As **DerekMichaels **also noticed, Ivanka did seem to think the inauguration is on January 17, though, which is odd.
I predict a dead cat bounce. One point at the most.
PBS did. Apparently they’re a little behind. He’s still way tall for someone born in 2006.
Ha! Donald Trump totally stole that from Vermin Supreme! In fact, Mr. Trump seems to have learned a lot from Mr. Supreme!
What would it take to get Trump to glitter bomb Hillary during their first debate?
Our politics have failed because the Republican plan to fix government is to do more of the same thing that broke it, and their voters keep falling for it. Each cycle they get angrier, and are more ready to believe their next candidate has all the answers; anything to keep from facing the reality that they put the people in office who fucked things up.
Like any feedback loop, eventually a fuse will blow.
Yeah, that’s why the Trump supporters are so mad, it’s those damn IT acquisition practices. Ooh, how they hate HUSSEIN 0bama for not reforming those IT acquisition practices.
Wouldn’t Democrat policies be, yanno, the policies Obama ran on? And wouldn’t they be different from the policies of the Republicans, such that they would be “change”?
I suspect what you are saying is that the changes Obama tried to push through were Not True Changes. I do agree he wouldn’t look good in a kilt.
All of which would have been far too boring and subtle to be seen as different from business as usual to the Average Joe. And you said he should have done more so as to be seen to be other than business as usual. To make an “I am not just business as usual” splash, he needed to get big ticket legislation that changed things through congress.
The people who don’t think this is a very good description of Obama are some right wing Americans and no one else. Go find the thread where someone asked non-Americans to give an outside perspective on Obama. Everybody is biased except you, I’m sure.
Do I detect a note of sarcasm?
It’s the general attitude. What Trump supporters hate most is immigration and trade, prime examples of where all over the world elites have acted without much public input or consent, and when they have sought it, have often disregarded the very real costs to such policies. And I say that as someone who is in favor of liberal trade and immigration policies.
Now of course the bureaucratic stuff only interests me, but Bill Clinton took it seriously enough, because by doing so and making a public show of doing so he increased voter confidence that he was serious. Voters may not care that this or that process was streamlined, but they do like to hear that the guy they are paying to make all this stuff they find boring actually work is doing his job. Instead, since Clinton, Presidents have been just as bored and disconnected from internal government workings as the public. But that means things don’t work like they should, and when they don’t, guess who gets blamed?
He knows what he is talking about, but straight talker? Obama’s obsession with messaging, spin, and non-transparency are pretty well established and the media has harped on it quite a bit. The only thing that makes him somewhat refreshing is that when other people do it, he describes it perfectly, such as when he responded to Liz Warren by observing that “She’s a politician just like the rest of us.” and dismissing his previous opposition to trade deals as “campaign talk”. Generally politicians are like magicians, they won’t talk about how the spin and messaging get done, or outright admit that they lie to sell policies. Heck, people close to Obama have twice bragged about how they fooled the public, once on health care and once on the Iran deal. So I guess that’s sorta change, the curtain has been pulled away a little by this administration.