Barack Obama changed my life

[Green Line]

I will miss President Obama because he is all I have known for my entire "politically conscious" life.  Hopefully President Trump doesnt destroy the world's last best hope.  I have my doubts.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

At the time he left office, Eisenhower was seen as a do-nothing who had destroyed his party and lurched from crisis to crisis (Hungary, Suez, Sputnik, U2).  But after the megalomaniac overreach of LBJ, historians began to regard Ike as the calm, steady hand needed by the era in which he served.

As for Obama, I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how I feel about him.

-That description would fit better for Truman. Eisenhower was legitimately popular throughout his presidency, not just had high approval ratings when he exited.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Midterms under him were disastrous for Republicans. Just like Democrats under Obama.

Eisenhower was actually pretty unpopular for most of his presidency, it's just that he happened to rebound to being very popular at just the right moment for 1956 allowing that to be a landslide like 1952.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

I will admit to never feeling the Obama magic, as well (though I understood why many felt it; I just felt Obama's attempt to project it was phony) and to preferring HRC over Obama in 2008 (and Paul over all the other GOPers). I understood there was no chance any Republican who supported the Iraq War could win the White House in 2008.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Midterms under him were disastrous for Republicans. Just like Democrats under Obama.

Eisenhower was actually pretty unpopular for most of his presidency, it's just that he happened to rebound to being very popular at just the right moment for 1956 allowing that to be a landslide like 1952.

-Eisenhower's AVERAGE approval rating throughout his two terms, according to Gallup, was 65%. http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx

Reagan's was much lower, as was first term Nixon's.

[Mr. Illini]

Although I am not sure I would say he changed my life, I am not sure I will feel the personal connection to any future President that I have felt to Obama.

I remember watching him when he was an IL General Assembly member. He was wildly popular in the year or two that led to 2004. This propelled him to the US Senate and, of course, to a prime time speaking slot at the convention.

He was the underdog every step of the way. A young kid with a weird name, he beat an establishment Democrat to go to the IL legislature. In a state with a rock-solid Democratic establishment, he emerged to take a coveted Senate seat. As a one-term African-American senator with a different name and from a state with a bad political reputation, he took down a national political powerhouse to become one of our youngest Presidents. The economy was the worst it had been in 80 years on his inauguration and it has climbed back. Democrats had been trying for decades to pass health care reform with no success - he got it done. He was extremely unpopular during his first term and in 2016 has emerged with one of the highest outgoing approval ratings of all-time.

It means even more that he is from Chicago. I think Chicago is oftentimes viewed as the underdog city. A city that has had more problems than most since its establishment but persevered through each difficulty.

I am grateful that we had him even though I wasn't always grateful during the course of his Presidency.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

He changed mine too, and not for the better.

[Mr. Reactionary]

He changed mine too, and not for the better.

This. Thanks to Obama Im on like my 4th different insurance policy since 2010.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The Obama administration's efforts to stop the bleeding after the financial crisis are why I'm preparing to go to graduate school to become an academic economist. The local Borders is also responsible because it carried a copy of Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal", which I bought in October of 2008, and then devoured but Obama kept me interested in economics. If HRC was president and not Obama, I doubt that I would have paid as much attention to the policy battles in DC. It felt like I had played a role electing him and I was invested in his successes.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I know Tony really means this, so no asshole jpegs today, brother. 

[RINO Tom]

Obama really sh**t the bed. I don't know how anyone can respect such a weak, feckless coward who is tossed around by his incessant need to compromise in the name of consensus easier than a bag in the wind.

Didn't know you were a Bernie Bro, Obama's compromising skills would probably come as a bit of shocking news to most Republicans...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh f**k off. Just enjoy your retirement with your billionaire friends.

And this crybaby had the gall to say that Obama meant more to him than he did to me!

[JustinTimeCuber]

Meh. I can see that he got a lot of people into politics, but he did a lot of bad things as President (NSA spying, drone war, hawkish military policy in general). Bernie Sanders got me into politics and he had a 40 year record of honesty and principles.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, BRTD, that's how f**king disappointed I am. And I'm not going to take any lesson on what is worth caring about from a shallow, pretentious hipster for whom politics is just a matter of hanging out with the kool kidz.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah, BRTD, that's how f**king disappointed I am. And I'm not going to take any lesson on what is worth caring about from a shallow, pretentious hipster for whom politics is just a matter of hanging out with the kool kidz.

You're the one who just openly admitted this has nothing to do with policies and all about giving the middle finger. That's childish as f[inks]. Plus you are now BFFs with jfern and despite your claim thisn't about the primary again, he is making it all about it.

I can understand being disappointed, I can not understand this absurd temper tantrum.

Also love how my degree is "just hanging out with the kool kidz". And do you have any clue on how many hours I've spent on DFL activism or my work with caucuses and conventions? Seriously go f[inks] yourself, you don't know me at all.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

BRTD, just be a nicer person.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, just be a nicer person.

Are Tony and jfern being nice people?

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this is the last post I'm going to make about this masquerade because I need to stop procrastinating and actually start focusing on homework I have to do.

First off, no, I don't hate Perez and he's obviously a big improvement over DWS (something that's ridiculous to celebrate because being not as awful as DWS should be a basic job requirement, not a great victory) and I want to hope he's not completely deluded about continuing this bottom-up organization where consultants with intricate data models make all the decisions and pay no attention to the demands of State parties. God I want to hope they learned the lesson on this at least. I've also never been particularly fond of Ellison and I wasn't expecting he'd bring about a revolution or whatever.

This election matters not because of Perez or Ellison, but because it demonstrates that DNC leaders are paying absolutely zero attention to anything happening outside of Washington. Not even just outside of the Democratic party, or even outside the Democratic elite (friggin Schumer had endorsed Ellison, ffs!) but outside the narrow clique of power brokers that currently controls it, this unholy alliance of Obama and Hillary operatives who ran the 2016 campaign and lost above and beyond our worst fears. The entire party was behind Ellison, including, again, many establishment figures (and those who weren't for him were for Buttigieg). The only ones for Perez were in the aforementioned clique, which represents nothing and no one beyond itself. Now, in any decent party, after running it completely into the ground, such a clique would have had the decency, maybe not to surrender, but to at least leave some room for alternative figures. Ellison wasn't some raging populist outsider, he just represented a wing of the establishment that wanted to reach out to those left out. But apparently even that was too much for the Clinton-Obama hacks.

And yes, it matters, because it means that these people have learned absolutely nothing from 2016, that they think they can keep everything exactly as it was, continue with the same strategy that lost Democrats 1000 State legislature seats and allowed an lying, authoritarian, White-supremacist pandering billionaire to win the White House carrying f**king Michigan and Pennsylvania. They are not interested in changing anything of the strategy, attitudes, culture, and messaging that led to this outcome. America is already great! The Democratic party is already great! Everything is fine! Let's do the same things we did before and you'll see in 2018 the American people will come back to us begging! I'm f**king outraged because they are going to hand this country to the most vile and reactionary right-wing force in the Western world on the strength of the working-class, while fruitlessly courting wealthy White suburbanites. They'll destroy the American left and thus indirectly contribute to the destruction of America.

And yes, I care because this is the country I've chosen to live in - not just for my PhD but, I've always hoped, for my future professional life. It's pretty f**king rich for you, BRTD, you who keep making thread after thread about how great it is to reject the culture you are born into and embrace a new one that fits you better, are now telling me to shut up because I'm "not American". Guess what? This is the culture I've chosen for myself (without renouncing to my roots because, contrary to you, I don't see a contradiction between keeping up traditions and experimenting new things). I might not have a passport or even a Green Card, but I am a person who lives in America, studies in America, talks with Americans, reads American newspapers, eats American food, and is affected by American public policy. Unless you've suddenly become a nativist asshole, you have no business telling me I shouldn't care about US politics.

Well, that's it. Have a nice day.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

BRTD, just be a nicer person.

Are Tony and jfern being nice people?

I haven't seen most of Tony's meltdown, but, whatever. Jfern is better left ignored anyway. Point being, you rant about a lot of different people in ALL CAPS and repeatedly try to call them out for violating your precious little norms. Obsessively. And it's not jfern who starts thread after thread after thread about what personally annoys him, and when he does it, it's not on my board, and it's usually "actually a news story", not reposting someone else's claim and complaining about it. As a Canadian might say, "chill oot".

[Santander]

I find myself in total agreement with BRTD.

Then again, I'm an asshole.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I find myself in total agreement with BRTD.

Then again, I'm an asshole.

Barack Obama means nothing to BRTD except whatever social signal there is for a cartoonish millennial to send whatever social signals he wanted to at the time because whatever his Vox at the time told him to. Let's not pretend his decision to support Obama was any different than his decision to support Sanders even if there was no flip of allegiance involved.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

OK, this is the last post I'm going to make about this masquerade because I need to stop procrastinating and actually start focusing on homework I have to do.

First off, no, I don't hate Perez and he's obviously a big improvement over DWS (something that's ridiculous to celebrate because being not as awful as DWS should be a basic job requirement, not a great victory) and I want to hope he's not completely deluded about continuing this bottom-up organization where consultants with intricate data models make all the decisions and pay no attention to the demands of State parties. God I want to hope they learned the lesson on this at least. I've also never been particularly fond of Ellison and I wasn't expecting he'd bring about a revolution or whatever.

This election matters not because of Perez or Ellison, but because it demonstrates that DNC leaders are paying absolutely zero attention to anything happening outside of Washington. Not even just outside of the Democratic party, or even outside the Democratic elite (friggin Schumer had endorsed Ellison, ffs!) but outside the narrow clique of power brokers that currently controls it, this unholy alliance of Obama and Hillary operatives who ran the 2016 campaign and lost above and beyond our worst fears. The entire party was behind Ellison, including, again, many establishment figures (and those who weren't for him were for Buttigieg). The only ones for Perez were in the aforementioned clique, which represents nothing and no one beyond itself. Now, in any decent party, after running it completely into the ground, such a clique would have had the decency, maybe not to surrender, but to at least leave some room for alternative figures. Ellison wasn't some raging populist outsider, he just represented a wing of the establishment that wanted to reach out to those left out. But apparently even that was too much for the Clinton-Obama hacks.

And yes, it matters, because it means that these people have learned absolutely nothing from 2016, that they think they can keep everything exactly as it was, continue with the same strategy that lost Democrats 1000 State legislature seats and allowed an lying, authoritarian, White-supremacist pandering billionaire to win the White House carrying f**king Michigan and Pennsylvania. They are not interested in changing anything of the strategy, attitudes, culture, and messaging that led to this outcome. America is already great! The Democratic party is already great! Everything is fine! Let's do the same things we did before and you'll see in 2018 the American people will come back to us begging! I'm f**king outraged because they are going to hand this country to the most vile and reactionary right-wing force in the Western world on the strength of the working-class, while fruitlessly courting wealthy White suburbanites. They'll destroy the American left and thus indirectly contribute to the destruction of America.

And yes, I care because this is the country I've chosen to live in - not just for my PhD but, I've always hoped, for my future professional life. It's pretty f**king rich for you, BRTD, you who keep making thread after thread about how great it is to reject the culture you are born into and embrace a new one that fits you better, are now telling me to shut up because I'm "not American". Guess what? This is the culture I've chosen for myself (without renouncing to my roots because, contrary to you, I don't see a contradiction between keeping up traditions and experimenting new things). I might not have a passport or even a Green Card, but I am a person who lives in America, studies in America, talks with Americans, reads American newspapers, eats American food, and is affected by American public policy. Unless you've suddenly become a nativist asshole, you have no business telling me I shouldn't care about US politics.

Well, that's it. Have a nice day.

OK, so as I explained elsewhere, I care about symbolism as much as I care about preserving tradition and heritage. I focus on results, and absolutely nothing else (seriously ask anyone who's ever worked with me.) So getting that bent out of shape over something purely symbolic is clearly not going to jive or work with my mindset well.

The main reasons for you getting so upset is a HUGE extrapolation, and actually overestimates the amount of influence those hacks have ever had when most of the type of politics you're talking about is all locally based. The same is also true of the Republican leadership, who still haven't privately embraced Trump. Does that really matter? Not exactly. I mean it's not going to save Trump or the Republicans if they end up being as much as much of a disaster as he has so far and the polls keep swinging as they did, just as nothing could've saved the Republicans from drubbing in George W. Bush's second term. It's a pretty minor annoyance at best and irrelevant to people who actually deal with grassroots activism. The fact that Tom Perez is DNC Chair is not going to be the #1 factor in the 2020 election.

As for the last bit, I got pretty pissed a non-Democrat was literally calling for the party to be "burned to the ground" and you want the complete destruction of MY PARTY, and were sounding exactly like that unsufferable monster jfern. You didn't express disappointment, you want the Democratic Party destroyed. And I have no clue why you would choose this country after Trump, that too defies all logic. Regardless until you become an eligible voter, you're not a Democrat. You don't see me freaking out and screaming about destroying the French Socialists because of Francois Hollande or having anywhere near that level of a meltdown over Jeremy Corbyn, did you? And there's a reason for that.

Also I got rather severely offended by this:

Yeah, BRTD, that's how f**king disappointed I am. And I'm not going to take any lesson on what is worth caring about from a shallow, pretentious hipster for whom politics is just a matter of hanging out with the kool kidz.

If you knew anything about what I do in real life and my actual political and campaign work you'd realize just how insane and absurd that statement was, so seriously, f[inks] you.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also I can't post it here without breaking the rules supposedly, but you might want to consider that Snowstalker of all people had a response to this that while disappointed was still about a million times more rational, collected and constructive.

(For an example of someone here who actually managed to express extreme disappointment without sounding like a raving lunatic, look at Scott.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Aww, you got offended? Poor little thing. Maybe you should have thought about it before going after me in five different threads simultaneously. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Aww, you got offended? Poor little thing. Maybe you should have thought about it before going after me in five different threads simultaneously. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.

The point is that you're wrong, and you've implied that you think that long before this, and as I said, it's absurd. And yeah I went after you because you were acting more batsh!t than Snowstalker, which is saying something.