Many righties tend to describe people as “Obama supporters” or “you drunk the kool-aid” or “they think Obama is the messiah” or “Obama Loyalists” and so forth.
Here’s the thing: I didn’t even know who this guy was until 2004 or 2006 when he made that speech at the DNC, and to be honest I can’t even recall if I knew about that way back then. I follow the news but am not masochist enough to watch political conventions on my own time.
Anyway, 2007 came and he was one of the candidates so over the next 18-20 months or so I heard a lot about him and read his speeches, watched him and all the other candidates debate and make speeches, etc. Then he got elected and is now our Prez.
So my question is this: why do righties think that lefties glommed on to Barack as if they were drowning and he was the only life raft available?
To me, Obama is just some guy who wanted the job and happened to be a better choice than the other folks running. Why do so many on the right feel that people on the left (and anyone else they consider to their own left) have more invested in Obama than that?
I mean, if by 2013 we’re all living in cardboard boxes and eating Spam™ from tins around a campfire, I still won’t feel all depressed like my dad or my grandfather or the family priest let me down. He’s just some guy, and I think, based on my own conversations, that the vast majority of the left (as in “nearly all”) think of him the same way I do. So why does the right want us to feel differently?
Is it because that’s how they emotionally invest themselves, and they can’t conceive of anyone not doing things that way? I think that’s a large part of it. I think another part is that their mindset doesn’t allow for much in the way of relationships that aren’t adversarial.
Anyone else noticed this and have any thoughts about it?
lol…seriously? It’s been a staple for contrarian politics since…well, since politics was invented.
Because the did, obviously. In fact, they have stayed with Obama, even if he probably isn’t their optimal choice, seeing as how he’s not nearly lefty enough for most of them. It’s the same way that a lot of righty types ‘glommed’ onto Bush, even though he wasn’t nearly right wing enough for most of the faithful…lefties just THOUGHT he was a right winger, and that tighty righty types loved everything Bush did or said. They didn’t. They just liked him a hell of a lot better than they liked Kerry.
I’m not a righty, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that Obama rode to office on a visible and enthusiastic grass-roots movement, which is at the least unusual. We’re much more accostomed to people holding their nose and voting (especially regarding democrats) or at best being lukewarm, so the groundswell earned notice.
Of course, now those of us who are lukewarm are assumed to have be exagerattedly enthusiastic, with the associated derogatory epithets. Oh well.
I just had a conversation with a guy at work the other day that very, very quickly resorted to all the tired, old, predictable stuff you see everywhere: “What did Obama the community organizer ever do?”, “you drunk the kool-aid” and the always popular “the messiah”.
I thought at first this was really going to be a conversation, but it turned into a list of Fox talking points so fast, I said “That kind of stuff is offensive. This conversation is over.” and walked off. I hear he’s pissed about it, but I refuse to take part in that crap.
The Rep’s have gone mad with lack of power and as near as I can tell, plan to screw up any progress anyone of any stripe tries to make. It seems to me they would rather screw the whole country than lett a Dem do anything useful. Makes me sick.
See, I think you’re completely wrong here, and that’s why I started this thread. It isn’t obvious to me what you see as obvious. For instance, look at what I quoted from you: you offer no reasoning to back up your assertion, you just make the assertion and then stop.
And how do you propose that people not “stay with” Obama? He’s our president for a couple more years. Am I a fanatical Obama supporter if I don’t have a recall petition in my hands or something? Until every lefty throws him bodily from the White House they’re all crazy rabid Obamaniacs? How are you reaching that conclusion? What evidence do you see daily of fervent support that supports that conclusion? Because I don’t see them. I don’t see people on the left acting the way that people on the right accuse people of acting, at least not in sufficient numbers to justify the verbiage.
My perception doesn’t match that. Righties were so supportive of GWB that they wrote a book of lies about John Kerry. The left has no match for that. The left has no match for a major motion picture made solely to demonize an opposition candidate. In other words, I can find actions and events that support the notion that many right wingers engage in furiously, possibly even ethically challenged ways because they are so strident in their support of their candidates, but I don’t find correlating events and actions on the left.
I admit that it might be perception bias, which is part of the reason for my starting this thread: to take a look at my own possible perception biases.
I am really curious- is it really like this in the majority of the country?
I NEVER run into this except here on the Dope, but I am living in the SF Bay Area, which isn’t exactly known as a congregation-spot for the right wing…
Oh…you want reasons? Well, what sort of reasons would you accept? If I show you a history of political opponents using the same tactics, would you be convinced? If, say, I show you how lefties made nearly the same assertions you are making when Bush was in office (i.e. using ‘monikers’) would you be convinced? Or is this one of those ‘but they are doing it to US now!’ thingies?
Or, do you mean my assertion that the left latched onto Obama and pretty much was the deciding factor in him getting elected? I seriously didn’t see how that was ever in doubt…of course they were and are. He’s certainly not their optimal candidate (or was this the part you wanted me to back up?), since he’s not nearly left wing enough for most of them (this part?), but he was better than the alternative.
Um…well, that part is obviously hyperbole. That was my point…it’s pretty much the same hyperbole that the lefties used concerning Bush…i.e. that he was their man, a ‘god’, etc etc. In the case of Obama I think it’s closer to the truth, since I don’t think the right was ever as enthusiastic about Bush as the left is about Obama…but that’s because, frankly, there is more to be enthusiastic about Obama than Bush regardless. He’s better looking, for one thing. He can also speak in coherent sentences.
Let me ask you something…what do ‘righties’ really want? What are their basic planks, their core concerns? Ok…you got that in mind? Now…how much of that stuff did Bush ACTUALLY get accomplished? How much of it did he actually push for? I mean, REALLY push for? Go all out for? Even make a token effort to get?
I suppose it comes down to who or what you think ‘righties’ are…and who or what you think ‘lefties’ are. As for the rest, get real…the left had all kinds of stuff with the sole purpose of demonizing Bush, the Bush administration and the Republican party. Major motion pictures? Without even thinking about it I can think of at least one…Michael Moore ring a bell?
It’s all about oxes and getting gored…you see it now because your ox is getting gored atm. Righties saw YEARS of this stuff because it was their ox getting gored before. It’s the price of being in power…the Dems have the reins now, and Obama is in the drivers seat, so of course the target has shifted.
Everyone has biases and everyone has narrow perceptions. It’s human nature. When it’s your own side it’s easier to see the criticisms when it’s something you are against, and easier to ignore them when it’s your side beating up the other. This just seems naturally fair and right, since it goes along with your world view. Myself, I see both sides…I saw the way the left pounded mercilessly on Bush et al when the Pubs and Bush were in the drivers seat…sometimes with perfect justification, sometimes not…and I see the exact same thing happening now, simply coming from the other side.
What I don’t see is how there is any real difference, except the direction from which the attacks are coming from.
You seriously take issue with “Obama supporters”? What do you propose they call people who, uhm, supported Obama?
You’ve never heard the lefites here use “drank the kool aid”? You never heard Bushistas, Bushvics or Bushco? You never heard tighty righties or Repuglicans?
One thing I will vouch for the righties on this board is that they do a lot less childish name calling than the lefties do. Have someone post “Demoncrat”, and they’ll be jumped all over by a pack of posters. Repugs? No one bats an eye. It’s SOP here.
As for the Obama as Messiah meme… I don’t know exactly where it started, but it certainly was pretty common in the MSM, and Hillary certainly use it as well.
So, if you’re going to call the Tea Partiers “teabaggers”, since “they used it first”, Obama gets to be the Messiah since the #2 Democrat did it, too.
Personally, I’d like to see that type of stuff banned in GD. I don’t know if that’s practical, but it cheapens this place and lowers the caliber of debates.
It’s also self-defeating. I know the minute I hear someone start talking about ‘rethuglicans’ or ‘bushistas’ or some other cheap epithet, I pretty much tune out anything else they have to say.
Part of the problem is that many of these terms are generated by political operatives and writers looking for catchy phrases and hooks to hang their enemies on. In conservative circles I now hear ‘victicrat’ all the time. I think it’s lame.
They are a product of Fox , Beck and Limbaugh. Those terms like “messiah” are theirs handed down to their ditto heads from the right wing .
Note" Ditto heads" is what Rush calls his listeners and I don’t know why they are not offended by it.
Because the right wing was gobsmacked by his election. They simply could not believe a black man could be elected, and they got caught with their pants down. It is just sour grapes from a contingent that could not see the train even when they were standing on the tracks.
Perhaps you should go back and read my posts, specifically the parts about why I started this thread.
Yes. This. You’ve just done the things I’m talking about. “Of course” they “latched onto Obama” you say. I’m saying that that assertion is non-factual, as far as I can tell.
All of my posts in this thread, for example, have been about how neither I nor the vast majority of Obama voters are now or ever have been fervent, blind supporters of the man or his policies. Most of us had absolutely no idea who he was in January 2008, except that he was “that guy who spoke at the last DNC”.
Lefties had something of substance to back up their assertion that the right was blindly following an annointed leader: he was the incompetent slack-jawed son of the former head of the CIA, former VP and former Prezident. There was a lineage at work, and a closeted group of insiders who were pulling a new Pres up and into office by the power of their legacies. There really was a “we’re supporting this idiot even tho he’s an idiot because he’s our idiot” dynamic at work that I don’t see at play with the current administration, yet the right acts as if the left came into power under the same type of guise that they used.
See, I knew that would come up, and that’s why I said:
Mr. Moore’s films weren’t solely made to demonize a political opponent. They may have, in their course of the film, offered criticism, but the main thrust of his films cannot be accurately described as simply a screed against a political opponent.
See, there it is again. It’s not my ox getting gored. I don’t have a lot of myself invested in President Obama. He’s not “my man”. And even tho I’ve said as much half a dozen times, and started a thread specifically because people on the right keep using descriptors which are innacurate at best to describe anyone who isn’t in lockstep with them, here you are making the same false generalizations over and over and over again.
Ok, then show us those things you saw. Show me the things that colored your perceptions, don’t just tell us what your perception is. Because that’s one of my basic contentions in this thread: the perception of the right that so many people have so much emotionally invested in Obama is wrong, and is not supported by events and actions taken by the left.
I’ll say this too: I don’t think you’ll be able to show the same level and frequency of anti-Bush then as there is anti-Obama now.
I didn’t say Hillary did it first. But she used that imagery while mocking him. From her campaign:
“Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect.’”
Sort of like Bushista, right? A count of thread on the SD that use the word ‘Bushista’ is over 63 pages long. Leaving aside the ‘Obama supporters’ and ‘Obama Loyalists’ (which, to put it bluntly, are laughably mild compared to some of the stuff said on this board against Bush and the Republicans), I find ‘kool-aid’ used by both the right AND the left about each other on this board to be split about 50/50 (with a health measure thrown in on debates such as AGW and other such topics…ironically, I see I’ve used it in several debates concerning 9/11 Truthers as well, looking at what the search is tossing up :p). Advanced searches with the key words of ‘Bush’ and ‘Nazi’ or ‘Fascist’ are also pretty high, though maybe they were talking about Bush and Hitler or Nazis in totally separate discussions…I didn’t go into each one. There are also a healthy number of the always popular ‘Repuglicans’ and similar terms.
Here’s the thing: How many people really knew or cared about GW in 1996 or 1998? How many CONSERVATIVES really knew or cared that much about him then? Hell, even during the election, how many voted for him simply because they didn’t want Gore to be Prez?
Obama, however, burst on the national stage with that speech…hell, that’s one of the reasons I voted for him (I know…you are shocked). That’s pretty much why MOST of us voted for him…he captured the attention and imagination of the nation, especially the left, who saw him (rightfully as it turned out) as a winner…as opposed to someone like Kucinich, who was obviously not going to win any kind of national election.
Yeah? And? Even in 1999 and even by folks who cared about the right wing and Republicans, how many do you suppose were captured by the aura of GW? Yet in 2000 he became president.
Because he was. It was him or Hillary…no one else had a chance to win. So, even though he wasn’t the optimal choice of the faithful on the left, he was the BEST choice…and still is. After all, he’s getting more of a left wing agenda through than GW succeeded in getting anything remotely resembling a right winger agenda through…and GW probably had MORE support in Congress, at least initially. About the only thing GW managed to push through were the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and while it’s part of the faith that this is what ‘right wingers’ really wanted, the reality is that what they REALLY want is stuff like prayer in school, outlawing abortion, more Christian religious stuff in government, outlawing of gays and gay rights, apple pie and American flags. It was only NeoCons who wanted American assertion of our power…most right wingers, IMHO anyway, are actually isolationists and could give a flying fuck about projecting power or sending troops off to die for dirty furriners.
The key phrase there is ‘To me’. The thing is, no one gets through the Democratic primaries without the support of the left…and Obama faced Hillary and managed to beat her. And, having gotten there, no Democrat is going to win a national election with solid support of the Democratic base…IOW, the left wing, Unions, Environmental Groups and all of the other factions that make up the Democratic base. Just like no Republican is going to win without capturing his own base. You have to do that FIRST…and THEN you have to woo the middle. Obama did both…hell, he won a good percentage of the Independents, and I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few ‘conservatives’ voted for him as well (I’m considered a ‘conservative’ and I voted for him).
For the same reason the left wanted to think of the right as some faceless, monolithic and in lock step group…because it helps to build a grass roots and strong counter organization to a group in power. The left wanted to think this even when they were crowing about how Bush’s popularity was below 20% and we practically WERE living in boxes! Why? Because it put fire in their bellies for the mid-term Congressional elections AND for the main event, the Presidential elections that put Obama in the hot seat. The Republicans are trying to do the same thing…they want to put fire in the bellies of their own troops and unseat the Dems in the elections this year and unseat Obama in the next Presidential election.
Exactly…exactly the same thing the Dems did when the Pubs controlled Congress and Bush was head honcho.
I’m not going to give you a ton of cite to your other questions because, frankly, I find it incredible that anyone would seriously ask for evidence of the lefts support for Obama, or that we didn’t just spend than last 8 years hearing the left wingers (both on and off this board) railing against Bush et al. To me, this is the key:
When it’s your side it’s just a film that happens to criticize your political opponents, and if there are some (totally understandable and really small when you think about it, ehe?) exaggerations or inaccuracies (hardly noticeable), then it’s ok…but if the other side does it, well, it’s a ‘screed against a political opponent’ and there simply aren’t enough explicative to describe such a dastardly tactic! :eek:
