Obama's lost army
newrepublic.com
newrepublic.com
Unfortunately, he had no chance of making any meaningful change when Wall Street picked his whole cabinet for him [0]. It was just impossible to make changes that the society wanted because he was owned by the people who didn't want any change.
[0] https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-r...
In the end, it seems he was more gridlocked then any of the prior presidents in recent memory and had to resort to more executive orders than previous president. Though potus 45 seems to be following his example in that regard..
I mean the Democrats had control of government prior to 2010 and the ACA was still a compromise with lots of infighting between Democrats. Obama of course didn't help the divide by making pointed insults (clinging to their guns and religion). I don't have an article on hand, but even Democrats criticized Obama for having trouble forming cross-party friendships in a way someone like Bill Clinton did not.
He may have had the best intentions, but his difficulties were a little bit of obstructionism and a little bit of his own personality traits.
edit:
This is the kind of cross-party criticism that Obama got:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/a-brief...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/04/opinion/takiff-obama-fatherhoo...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/aloof-obama-is-frustra...
Being a white rural southerner probably helped, too.
He was an excellent campaigner. He even won "Marketer of the Year" award http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market... that usually goes to Apple, Coke, Nike and so on.
I would say vis-a-vis the Hope and Change enthusiasm and excitement a lot of people (myself included) were left with a "meh..." kind of feeling.
> This is the kind of cross-party criticism that Obama got...
More interestingly is to think what has he done for the Black community? Are inner cities a lot safer, are more jobs and housing available, more opportunities? These are people that pretty much voted as a block for him.
Then the whole Nobel Peace Prize thing, and just last year he dropped over 20k bombs on various countries around the world. Syria, ISIS happened on his watch and it seems he wasn't able to do much about it. The whole "crossing the red line...". He did kill Osama, but is that enough for a counter-balance the other stuff, not really...
Those Democrats are, in a word, idiots. Or, they are Clinton loyalists that assume their audience is composed of idiots.
(1) Bill Clinton had already been long in politics and established those cross-party relationships before the hyperpartisanship on the right which blossomed during his Presidency made that impractical.
(2) The ACA was a massive compromise because of the epic failure the last time Democrats tried to do healthcare reform—under Bill Clinton and led by Hillary Clinton—at a time when there was majority public support in public polling for national single payer, and the Clintons were not only unable to get their "cross party friendships" to pay off, but also unable to pass anything despite the Democratic majority they had. This left Democrats across the board scared and looking for compromises to get something on healthcare, which is why three Democrats (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) went into the 2008 primary with nearly identical health care plans that were all very close to Romneycarr, which itself was virtually identical to what a number of insurers and Republicans proposed as a national alternative after the failure of Clinton's healthcare reform.
(3) Obama, with party control of Congress in his time in office following the same general pattern as Clinton's, achieved far more in terms of Democratic policy priorities than Clinton, and also didn't manage to get impeached by the House of Representatives. Clinton's cross-party friendships didn't pay any dividends.
If Obama is a better campaigner that "politician" (at least as far as the latter concerns effectively leveraging the office and personal relationships for legislative success), than that criticism is even more applicable to Clinton, who kept rolling over for the Right and getting nothing (or less) in return.
Also a prime example of corruption and nepotism. Bill handled Hillary that task when he was in the White House. She was not qualified for it and botched it basically.
When Obama came to office he made no attempt to form cross-party friendships. When a new president responds to criticisms with "I won", you know he's in for a rough ride.
The extent to which Obama made enemies, both domestically and internationally, when he didn't need to was astounding. When he was on top he made sure you didn't forget it, and people tend to look for ways to return the favor when you do that.
> “You and Mitch work it out,” Mr. Obama said coolly, cutting off any discussion.
> Mr. Reid seethed quietly for the rest of the meeting, according to four separate accounts provided by people who spoke with him about it.
…
> But nearly six years into his term, with his popularity at the lowest of his presidency, Mr. Obama appears remarkably distant from his own party on Capitol Hill, with his long neglect of would-be allies catching up to him.
Great campaigner. Willfully bad politician.
Sorry, you've swallowed false propaganda there. Look at the numbers at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_... and compare.
The last President to issue fewer executive orders was George Bush Sr. To find a President with fewer executive orders per year, you have to go all of the way back to Grover Cleveland. That was in the 1800s.
This said, Trump is indeed on pace to average more executive orders than has been seen in the last 60 years.
I doubt that's true - I don't remember Bush having any less trouble getting things done domestically.
There's nothing nefarious about executive orders - the president is the chief executive, and he directs his subordinates in the same way a corporate CEO does with memos. EOs are just directions on policy implementation. And it's all written in sand, since the next president can arbitrarily cancel or modify EOs.
Slogans without specifics are just that, slogans.
He did promise to renegotiate NAFTA though, walked it back almost immediately and then gave us the TPP instead. During his first overseas trip to London he was asked if the Washington Consensus was dead. He dodged the question.
I think he was fundamentally a reactionary in the areas that really matter, and in the areas where people really want hope and change. He appointed Timothy Geithner and Eric Holder and they made sure nobody on Wall Street was ever held accountable.
At one point he told Wall Street executives that he was the only thing between them and the pitchforks. Well he's gone now, planning to follow Bill Clinton onto the lecture circuit no doubt. And the pitchforks have gotten sharper than ever because fundamentally, where it really counts, nothing has gotten better since 2008.
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has helped make sure that banks can't outright lie about their conflicts of interests. Various Dodd-Frank stuff has helped along that.
Billion-dollar fines for 2008's behaviors have meant that banks are losing money. And as an end result, banks are taking the rules more seriously! Hiring "boring" CEOs to help reign in the craziness. Anyone paying attention can see that the financial industry has been preparing itself for a new normal of "not crazily dishonest" (Obviously Trump is changing that posture a bit).
It's possible to believe that not enough was done, without saying they're the same.
Now... pitchfork sharpness is more connected to impressions than fact. Maybe that's the impression of people. But it's not the reality.
PS: who would you rather want in any regulatory body? someone who's worked in the industry before, and understands the issues at stake? Or someone who doesn't understand anything about the industry?
Hiring regulators from Wall Street (to a lower paying job) isn't sign of "the power of the lobbies". It's like saying that hiring a former programmer to be a CTO is a conflict of interest. The objective isn't punishment, it's making sure that the financial industry serves its purpose to society properly.
He had a chance to make changes in his first two years, and he did - the ACA was a pretty big change.
It could have belonged to the left as well. Has anyone seen Sanders' rallies, the enthusiasm and energy there? A relatively unknown, old, white male somehow got college kids, minorities and many other groups to follow him.
People like to say that the primaries weren't rigged and he lost fair and square. Ok, maybe. The problem is how close he was to winning. He got so close despite a media blackout, despite the DNC being against him, despite POTUS rooting for Hillary, despite Saudi Arabian and Wall Street money. DNC should have really stopped and paid attention to what had happened.
At the very least, Hillary should have quickly moved to embrace those supporters. Maybe make Sanders Vice-President, issue apologies for all the back-dealing and talking against him, adopt his policies and so on. (Well and not go and setup private email servers years before, but that's another story).
Bernie started out with virtually no name recognition, no money, no organization, no establishment support, a nearly complete media blackout on his campaign and went on to win 22 states and receive more votes than Trump received in the primary, against the most well-funded presidential campaign in history.
It should be blindingly obvious to everyone that something real was happening there and the Democrats just threw it all away because it was "Hillary's turn" and besides, the election's in the bag, innit it?
Look, I am a Bernie supporter, but, no, Democratic primary voters, for the most part, chose Clinton because of a combination of preference for her policy positions and trust for her to execute and, frankly, expectation that she'd end up being the stronger general election candidate (yes, polls showed Sanders polling better against Trump so that he had a better starting position, but it's not like one couldn't honestly believe that his negatives would gonip faster on a general election campaign), not because it was "her turn".
Disclaimer: I'm not speaking on behalf of the group or its agenda.
Let's just say that we are all good human beings committed to making things better for all of us. Very politically active individuals with deep government experience and connections.
If by all of us you mean the world then it would be nice to start with a change in US foreign policy. Less of "beacon of the free world" rhetoric and less "moral obligation" to fuck up the rest of the planet, please. You dropped way too much bombs on innocent people already.
(not what you meant but I couldn't resist)
The DNC also seems almost in a stalemate due to this cancer - under the survival pressure they evolved into a fundraising outfit beholden to big money, and they have not rallied at all post election defeat.
They don't seem to understand they can represent Dems and get funded in $27 increments... and win over large swathes of young supporters if they just change their mindset.
I think at this point the only hope to replace the old-timers with less-infected newcomers but that will take us to 2018, when we need a strong and vibrant and well organised opposition, urgently.
Don't take this negatively, but you lost your argument when you said "get funded in $27 increments." You are already going back to money.
Crowdfunding / crowd donation works really well when people are running for major elections like the Presidential election or the governor race. When it comes to your own district's representative, you can't find hundreds to fund them through crowd funding. You just can't for every representative. Maybe for NYC, but what about that rural area in Maine? You need to rely on big donators and getting money from your party. Where does your party money come from? Membership and donations. You don't actually need to go to the big corps because the people who are the most likely to donate to you are the locals, business owners who held prestige roles and titles in the community/district. They won't donate 1M but they will donate 10K, 20K by getting their uncles and aunts to send you checks.
Actually, little do some people know, Dem and GOP each has a building in D.C. where Congressmen and Congresswomen would sit in a designated cubicle cold calling voters. That's the worst kind of job one can get.
Also, don't ignore the older folks. Not every non-20-ish years old men and women voters voted Trump, there were plenty sided with Bernie Sanders, just to be fair and respectful.
Sure, we're seeing elements of it in the Women's March and other recent protests being organised on Facebook, but it would be better if the people could debate about issues and organise themselves locally to effect change that they want to see.
Top-down politics has got us to where we are now. As Obama said, politics needs to move in the direction of being more bottom-up.
Most of it fails the test of Occam's razor. Which is that it's almost impossible to elect a same-party candidate after an 8 year presidential term.
Evidence? That's a bold claim, and not true at all if you look at the length of time political parties have continuously held the White house. There's plenty of examples to the contrary, and nothing statistically significant about the number of 8 year terms followed by a different party that would indicate "impossibility": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_power_in_the_United_...
However, a plausible explanation for why there is a bit lower chance (roughly 1/3) of re-electing your party after 8 years is that roughly 2/3rds of our two term presidents have failed to deliver on promises (or failed in other ways) to the American people, and Obama happens to fit that explanation very well.
Since the 1920s we've had one president (HW Bush) who fits the bill under normal circumstances.
The following were all oddities:
* Nixon -> Ford
* JFK -> Johnson
* FDR -> Truman
It doesn't have to be statistically significant to be a pattern. In fact, one of the few presidents to have a proper "successor" was Roosevelt with Taft and that didn't turn out so well...
> The following were all oddities:
> Nixon -> Ford
> ...
Ford wasn't even elected to the presidency, NOR the vice presidency-- he was appointed VP after Agnew resigned. And then lost to Carter in '76.
Reagan to GW Bush was the anomaly really. Even with Obamas popularity its not surprising there was a party changeover - unfortunately the candidate from the other side was trump.
He had the largest landslide victory of any two term president.
He basically won every state. And that goodwill carried over to George HW Bush's campaign.
It's certainly controversial if used as a defense for why a party 'couldn't win,' which is how I read the original comment. It's not like there is some magical system that conspired to elect the opposite party for Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, etc. but didn't act for Reagan, Coolidge, etc. The fact of the matter is that poor presidencies (or presidencies that the public did not correctly identify as poor) played a large part in re-election of the party, perhaps more so than the running candidates. And on average, we have had a lot of presidents who leave much to be desired, so it flip flops as a result.
If it's not being used as a defense, then it's just an incorrect point, because as you said, there is nothing statistically significant either way, which is basically what the original comment asserts by declaring it impossible.
And yet somehow these improved regulations did nothing when 95% of income gained fell right back into the hands of the top 1% of earners. Under Obama's watch.
Anyhoo ...