Racism, bigotry, violence, and class warfare all increased dramatically during the Obama years, to levels we haven’t seen on this wide scale and to this extent since the 1960s. Quite ironic, given our first black President.
Did I do that? Where? Seriously.
With the name calling and JHS antics, I was referring to others’ behaviors in many other threads.
No doubt his approval ratings will continue to rise, as he steadfastly abandons every hare-brained campaign promise he uttered, and has so far done absolutely nothing to change anything he pledged to change – in fact reinforced our resolve to not change them. We finally have what we had always hoped for – a hands-off president who just makes amusing public pronouncements, and the republic proceeds despite him. The emperor with no clothes, jeered and taunted.
Well, when the final polls showed Trump trailing Clinton nationally by a few points, and then the election had Trump trailing Clinton nationally by a few points, I think one can fairly say that the polls were accurate, but not measuring the right thing.
Ah, yes, the “both sides do it” false equivalency thing again. You do understand that the folks promoting these things were the SAME PEOPLE during the Obama years that are doing it today, right? And that the current President and many of his staff are the ones doing it now (which was NOT the case during the Obama years, right?).
But yes, I agree with, the Right was loathesome during the Obama years, too. But the Trump/GOP socipathy has gotten far worse now that they hold all the power.
Why does EVERYONE cherry pick data like this?
Just ONCE, I’d like to see a sober-minded, neutral OP referencing data on an easily statistically quantified topic by looking at ALL data on the issue, and not just cherry-picking one [poll, in this case] out of the myriad available.
Just once. Is that too much to ask?
No, not ironic. We should have expected to see racism and bigotry to get worse under our first black president. Indeed, racial resentment in no small part fueled the rise of Trump. Why would seeing black people in a place of power make racists less engaged, exactly?
Honestly, this particular game is just kind of gross. Yes, racism, bigotry, violence, and class warfare all increased under Obama. Now let’s ask the crucial follow-up question: why did they increase? Is it because of things Obama did? Or is it because of the public backlash to Obama’s very existence? Because I’ll tell you this - the Birther movement was not Obama’s fault. The Bundys were not Obama’s fault. The rash of anti-gay laws were not Obama’s fault. The rabid backlash to Obergfell was not Obama’s fault. Occupy Wall Street was not Obama’s fault, and it’s hard to even call that class warfare. The constant and unending stream of right-wing scandal-mongering and bullshit, from the birthers to the sandy hook truthers to the fucking witch hunt that was the endless Benghazi hearings was not Obama’s fault. The increasingly unhinged and fact-free nature of the right-wing media was not Obama’s fault.
The police violence in Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore, and many other places, and #BlackLivesMatter was not Obama’s fault, although without Obama’s DoJ policies, we probably never would have learned about how extensive these abusive practices were, and never would have implemented policies aiming to fix them. Indeed, the Trump DoJ wants to undo and unmake these policies, and Jeff Sessions dishonestly dismissed the DoJ’s reports on Chicago and Baltimore as “anecdotal” after admitting he hadn’t read them. So I guess you can blame Obama for bringing a long-standing injustice for light. God, what a divisive, terrible president. Next thing you know, he’s going to be saying something awful* like, “When I look at that kid who was shot by a vigilante, I imagine them being my own son” just because him and that kid are both black**. No really, this is something that right-wingers bitched and pissed and moaned about at length.
*Note: not actually awful
**Note: total fucking conjecture
So why did Obama oversee such a divisive time, with so much more racism, bigotry, hatred, and violence? Gee, I wonder. :rolleyes:
Do you have a cite for these (especially the nebulous “class warfare”)? Incidents of racism against black people significantly increased, but that really shouldn’t be surprising, looking at our history. Considering things like the church bombings during the Civil Rights movement, racist violence probably statistically increased during that period as well.
It’s funny how many more bugs you see when you start turning over rocks. But the bugs were always there whether you turned the rocks over or not.
With the acknowledgement that Clinton had numerous liabilities of both the integrity and likeability varieties, exactly how did she have more flaws than the candidate who:
[ul]
[li]had absolutely no governance or policy experience,[/li][li]had essentially zero detail policy statements,[/li][li]promised to bring back work into industries for which there is low demand by means that, at best, would damage the US economy and at worst would completely alienate our most valuable trading and strategic partners,[/li][li]was under investigation for running a fraudulent “university” which subsequently paid out $25M in settlements,[/li][li]demonstrated almost total ignorance of our strategic nuclear system while simultaneously declaring how important “the power, the destruction” of nuclear weapons is to him [/li][li]openly encouraged supporters to commit acts of violence against candidates and protestors,[/li][li]defamed the character and integrity of US servicepeople killed in combat and their grieving relatives,[/li][li]threatened to jail his opponent if elected,[/li][li]requested, in the middle of a public policy debate, that a foreign operating intervene in US politics,[/li][li]repeatedly boasted of his ability to manipulate, harass, and physically molest women,[/li][li]attempted, both prior and subsequent to the election to cast doubt on the veracity of the electoral process with no evidence whatsoever,[/li][li]associated himself with some of the most autocratic and abusive national leaders while snubbing close allies to the point of refusing to shake the hand of the head of government of Germany and de facto leader of the European Union,[/li][li]appointed a senior advisor with no military experience to the National Security Council,[/li][li]dismissed the value of and commitment to the strategic alliance which has served US and allied interests for almost seventy years,[/li][li]openly, blatantly, and verifiably lied to the American public on numerous occasions and encouraged subordinates to do the same,[/li][li]has, despite promises to “drain the swamp” of lobbyists and bankers, appointed a record number of banking officials, oil and gas industry leaders and shills, and billionaires to Cabinet level positions for which they are often demonstrably unqualified[/li][li]has engaged in nepotism and cronyism to a degree not seen in a century,[/li][li]and engaged in highly questionable acts of military adventurism with little or no warning, consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff or other independent strategic policy experts outside of his inner circle, or approval of Congress. [/li][/ul]
But please, inform us to how “Clinton had more flaws.” You may use both the front and back of the paper.
Stranger
On the bright side, the Trump era might be a boon to the political scientists and psychologists who study authoritarian personality types and how it activates under stress in otherwise normal people.
We truly are a nation of warmongers, aren’t we? Problems abound in our nation without any inkling as to being improved by this administration, or hell, even acknowledgement that they exist. But fuck, we’re killing us some brown people! Ohh yeah! 'Murica!
I wonder if he starts WWIII if his approval will got to 100%.
That line of thought has always dumbfounded me. I was talking to a lady last fall who said she was going to vote for Trump, and it wasn’t the right place for a debate, but I asked why, and her answer was that “Hilary lies.”
I mean, really? Hilary spins, maybe stretches the truth, to make herself look better, like we’re used to politicians doing. But because of this, this lady was going to vote for a guy who demonstrably lies to an extent never seen in politics; he seems to have no regard for whether what he’s saying is tethered to reality.
It’s like someone criticizing my prom date saying she doesn’t look good because she has a pimple, while his own prom date has multiple gaping head wounds.
She has a vagina.
You forgot to mention the (D) behind her name. Fatal flaw that.
The worse it goes, the fewer people he has to convince he’s doing a good job!
Stick with 538. There’s not a lot of tracking data, but what there is they’re working on.
Current over-under on Trump? -10 with his disapproval at aggregate 52%.
chirp chirp
Oh, of course he isn’t going to respond. Even if you believe all of the conspiracy nutterism about Clinton–that she made millions off of Whitewater, that she participated in some kind of drug cartel shipping cocaine through Mena, that she personally saw to it that the diplomatic facility in Bengazi was improperly secured, that she and her husband established the Clinton Foundation purely for their own personal enrichment, that she had a lesbian affair with Janet Reno, that she was secretly behind the unrest in the Crimea while simultaneously collaborating with ISIS, or whatever other screamings of a delusional mind come out of the mouth of Alex Jones–she still didn’t approach the level of bellicose incompetence and connatural unscrupulousness of Trump.
And look, I’m no defender of Clinton. I think she would have been at best a mediocre executive beset by both the perception and occasional reality of ethical lapses and poor judgement, found her claim of priority over programs and efforts that she supported well after inception disingenuous, and I worried over her hawkishness in an effort to demonstrate that she could be just as aggressive as a man as president. But being quite frank, we’d be better off with a pet rock as president, and no amount of rationalization about how inept or corrupt “Crooked” Hillary Clinton might be can offset that.
Stranger
???