Max Boot is a conservative foreign policy expert. This article appeared in the Wash Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/20/how-i-miss-obama/
“How I miss Barack Obama.
“And I say that as someone who worked to defeat him: I was a foreign policy adviser to John McCain in 2008 and to Mitt Romney in 2012. I criticized Obama’s “lead from behind” foreign policy that resulted in a premature pullout from Iraq and a failure to stop the slaughter in Syria. I thought he was too weak on Iran and too tough on Israel. I feared that Obamacare would be too costly. I fumed that he was too professorial and too indecisive. I was left cold by his arrogance and his cult of personality.
“Now I would take Obama back in a nanosecond. His presidency appears to be a lost golden age when reason and morality reigned. All of his faults, real as they were, fade into insignificance compared with the crippling defects of his successor. And his strengths — seriousness, dignity, intellect, probity, dedication to ideals larger than self — shine all the more clearly in retrospect….”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I guess I’ll take it. Call me when political figures who are in positions of power or have to go before voters do this. I’m tired of “what people are saying behind the scenes.” In fact, they’re even worse than the true believers. For example, when Rep. Wil Hurd (R) (or Jeff Flake, or Bob Corker, or [fill in the blank]) comes out with criticism, it matters nothing to me when they enable 100% of the reactionary agenda.
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Will Hurd wrote a blistering article about Trump today in NY Times
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One of the few who are speaking out. Good for him.
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One of the few who are speaking out??? Are you kidding me??? That’s all the “liberal” media does these days! Non-stop Trump bashing. It’s a 24-hour-a-day 2-minute hate! Anything other than non-stop Trump bashing is “Why do you always defend Trump?”
SHEESH!
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Why do you always defend Trump? The rightwing press and FOX news agrees with you.
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” ..when Rep. Will Hurd (R) (or Jeff Flake, or Bob Corker, or [fill in the blank]) comes out with criticism, it matters nothing to me when they enable 100% of the reactionary agenda.”
Agreed.
Where were these shocked republicans when Trump & his tea party base were hounding Obama about his birth certificate? Or goading crowds of Nazis, White Supremacists & Christian Nationalists to ‘lock her up’? Or mocking the disabled? And that stupid wall – they’ve ignored calls from elected Republicans to build that absurd thing for years.
Trump’s orgy of destruction, fraud & racism is on the fast track in all 3 branches of government- no more voting rights protections, tax cuts for millionaires , environmental regulations gone, the supreme court in rt wing hands for a generation, backdoor cuts to Medicare & Medicaid, ramping up the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, Betsy DeVos & Eric Prince, kidnapping babies from their parents. Name one of these policies that is not on the Republican agenda.
Trump IS Republicanism. They can wring their hands at the fiasco in Helsinki all they want. But they ushered in Trump. They own him.
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Maz Boot is a foremost neoconservative, among those who pushed for the illegal war of aggression (the #1 crime prosecuted at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals), so his opinion is as credible on foreign policy as is Trump’s.
To set the record straight about Obama, I wrote this:
Trump Is A Disaster, But Where Were The Liberals When Obama …
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Ed, did you vote for Trump.
Clearly neither of the two mainstream parties is good enough for you.
Moving to Canada?
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Diane,
Obama’s leash was just about long enough for him to push the country much further to the right, but not nearly as long as Trump’s leash, which, gives him virtual free reign to roam around just about anywhere and crush the democracy with one fell swoop of the wrecking ball.
Obama is a slow deadly virus that will inevitably kill you at some point, but maybe (or maybe not) you can buy some time. Trump is a swift bullet to the temple.
I’d rather have Obama back in office indeed!
But both are rotten in different ways and at different rates; let’s be honest.
Ed makes some excellent points.
Thank you, Ed.
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“Obama’s leash was just about long enough for him to push the country much further to the right”…please stop. Obama was not a perfect president, his education policies were disastrous, but this just goes way too far into the land of complete idiocy. Don’t lecture us about our history and we won’t about yours. I could write the policies of Jens Stoltenberg enabled Anders Breivik. But I would never stoop to such an inane comment. You see how stupid making a statement like that would be? It has about as much connection to reality as your comments.
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Excuse me, but while I realize that times are tough and frightening for many people under Russian Agent Orange, as a teacher, my life had and has never been more difficult than it was under Obama. He made my blue state red with anger at unions. I was constantly attacked. By Hollywood. By the press. By school administrators. By parents. By students. I was terrified. Those were dark days. He and Bill Clinton made life very difficult for most of us, for all the people not making millions and billions in their technocratic $meritocracy$.
Everybody treats me better now. Now, my blue state is turning blue again. And here’s the thing: Trump showed how to overpower an election and gain popularity. He did it because he’s honest, even when he’s lying. He doesn’t beguile with reformy doublespeak; he just blurts whatever comes into his tiny brain. Voters like that. If Democrats could lay down their allegiance to tech and hedge fund billionaires, and accept an honest progressive as their candidate, not a doubletalking, neoliberal, Wall Street lapdog, we could take back our government “for the people” and not have to live in fear like I did for eight years.
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Greg, I am not attacking or insulting your country, but I am recognizing facts about Obama that show he was no liberal or progressive, save for the LGBGT community. He was not intensely interested in redistribution of wealth, and many American progressives and liberals recognize him for what he was: NOT very interested in helping the labor class, the unions, and someone very complicit and cooperative with Wall Street.
I will not engage with your tit-for-tat approach to polemics, and the article is targeting the topic of Obama as President; it’s not a compare-and-constrat pursuit of different countries and their leaders.
Please therefore stick to the topic and be willing to look at facts instead of emotionalisms. Obama got away with reforms in public education that George Bush could not. Both were counterproductive, as is Trump.
My point is that yearning for someone who appeared to be one way but was not substantive in that way is not the same thing as fighting for elections that get true progressives into office.
Do you see what I mean?
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“I am recognizing facts about Obama that show he was no liberal or progressive, save for the LGBGT community.” OK, I’ll engage in some “emotionalisms” [sic] for you. You don’t have the slightest clue what you’re writing about. Not one. Take a look at this list and then try to tell me that attention to LGBT rights is the only thing he accomplished:
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/januaryfebruary-2017/obamas-top-50-accomplishments-revisited/
Granted, they won’t all fall into your view of “liberal or progressive”, but I think getting us out of the Great Recession, saving the American automobile industry, protecting Medicare, tobacco regulation (if you took the smoking-related cancers out of the equation, there is no decline in its overall rate), rebuilding New Orleans after the man-made disaster that was falsely attributed to Katrina, and being the first president since Ike who had no scandals associated with his administration just tops the list.
I take a back seat to no one in my disgust and outrage of his K-12 education policies. That’s why I’m here.
You judge everything by a standard based on your own cultural experience and not in the messy reality of the American condition. In sociology that’s known as ethnocentrism. Again, Obama was not perfect. When you write “He was not intensely interested in redistribution of wealth” then you have no idea about American historical traditions. I can tell you from personal experience, as one who has been self-insured for more than 20 years, that I saved more than $18,000 in the first year of the Affordable Care Act and got better insurance for my family. Is that a form of “redistribution of wealth”? Is that progressive or regressive? That’s the end of my “polemics” pointing out your arrogant ignorance. Good riddance.
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People forget the Mitt Romney was ready to let Detroit die.
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Rebuilding New Orleans? You mean privatizing New Orleans.
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GregB,
I am very genuine when I say to you that there really is no need to be so angry. My intentions toward you are pure and not with any judgment. Please be patient in your interactions. While I won’t apologize, I will say that we are two allies who should be getting along without such rancor. I don’t have rancor towards you. Frustration, but certainly not hostility. I don’t dismiss your views at all, but I can agree to disagree. I feel we have far more in common than you might realize.
Yes, the ACA was a boon to many, but it did not regulate premiums or co-pays or drug prices nearly to the extent hat it should have. It was a step in some kind of better direction, with better things like the mandatory acceptance of pre-existing conditions and keeping offspring on much longer onto a family plan, and those are never to be minimized. Obama had the chance to become the champion of single payer, and he passed it up early on in his administration. Sorry, but I feel he we a sell-out right there and then.
You misinterpret my tone and tenor toward the American people, readers here, and to the history of America. And I will respectfully submit that just because a culture has historical traits that evolved over a few centuries does not always mean that the current by- product effects are the best that they could be, need to be, or should be. That would go for America, Norway, and any other sovereignty.
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LCT: I agree with you on education completely. But on other issues like flood and storm protection, drainage, economic revitalization, addressing the Civil War monument issue, restructuring the economy, employment, yes, New Orleans has recovered greatly. It still has its problems, like any American city. Well, actually, New Orleans never was an American city. When you’re there, you know where you are. Visit the city, spend some time there and then tell me that has been no recovery. After August 2006, many of us thought the city would die. It hasn’t.
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August 2005.
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Economic revitalization actually means gentrification. The poor and working class got displaced.
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It’s happening up and down the left coast too.
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LCT: Part of what gnaws at me in many of the comments are their implied absolutism. We focus so much on the bad that we can’t see the complexity of the whole picture. New Orleans today is not perfect, but, as compared to, for example, Detroit or Newark, many aspects of its recovery have been amazing. But I am aware of the problems. I wrote an editorial for my local paper on the weekend after the Katrina-related disaster happened. I also wrote one for the 10th anniversary:
Ten years ago, this paper published my plea to all Americans to support New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. The region is an essential part of our national heritage.
If you weren’t there, it’s almost too easy to forget Katrina-related events caused 1,833 deaths, displacement of thousands of families, and billions in economic losses.
Since then, we’ve learned important lessons. The direct hit did destroy much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River.
But in New Orleans and adjacent communities, the disastrous flooding was not caused by the hurricane; it was man-made. The failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to properly build levees and maintain a flood control system doomed the city.
Many visitors might think New Orleans is better off today than before Katrina, especially if they only saw the French Quarter and surrounding neighborhoods—the so-called “Sliver by the River.”
Recently the New York Times proclaimed “the city is a much better place to eat than it was even before the storm.” Music festivals and cultural events are drawing record crowds.
The Morial Convention Center and Superdome are back in business, not the sites of desperate squalor. The hotel industry has bounced back to pre-Katrina capacity.
When I revisited my hometown in June 2006, little had changed in ten months. The 9th Ward, devastated after a levee wall collapsed, was littered with destroyed homes pushed off their foundations, some resting on cars.
The hot, humid air was filled with foul smells of rotting food, animal carcasses, stagnant water and petrochemicals. It caused a raw, burning throat that lasted for days. The city was eerily quiet.
Owners of tens of thousands of damaged and destroyed homes were provided FEMA trailers to live in. It was later discovered that they were treated with high levels of formaldehyde, potentially exposing the occupants to significant health risks, including respiratory issues and cancer.
A large red “X” was painted on every building, each representing information search teams had gathered. The number on the bottom quadrant represented the number of people who died there.
Today it cannot be denied that New Orleans is a different city. But is it better?
While New Orleans’ estimated population is approximately down by 100,000, the metro area population is closer to pre-Katrina levels because many people who lived south of Lake Pontchartrain relocated permanently to the north shore of St. Tammany and other parishes.
Of those who have or want to return, many have been victims of contractor fraud and governmental bureaucracy. Many have left the state for good and relocated throughout the nation.
But the steadily increasing numbers of residents tells an odd story. A large portion of today’s residents, mostly Millennials, didn’t live in New Orleans prior to 2005.
Some argue they brought energy to the city, others complain they do not have the cultural ties or heritage that has made New Orleans a unique American city.
New Orleans has the worst income inequality of any U.S. city, a fact exposed in the days after the flooding began. Poor residents had difficulty escaping the disaster and have had just as much of a hard time returning.
If they make it back, they find housing options—especially public housing, have declined significantly. The small housing supply has driven up prices and rents significantly, leading to charges of gentrification.
Exacerbating this situation is the fact that virtually every block outside of the “Sliver by the River” is dotted or overwhelmed by vacant lots where homes once existed.
Even the engaged support of Brad Pitt, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Connick, Jr. to build housing in the 9th Ward has had limited impact. Just check Google Earth.
The charter school industry moved aggressively to profit from the post-Katrina void. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went so far as to claim it “was the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”
It began with the dismissal of 7,000 employees of the New Orleans Public Schools just weeks after Katrina. Today every public school in the city is a charter school. They are governed by a charter school coordination organization that is unaccountable to voters or a marginalized elected school board.
Fewer teachers, less experienced African-American teachers, selective enrollment, and dubious measurement standards have led scholar and charter school critic Diane Ravitch to question if New Orleans is “The Biggest Scam in the History of Public Education?”
Katrina-related experiences teach us as much about ourselves as Americans as they do about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It should prompt us to ask how any of us might respond to great disasters.
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So, to sum up, no I do not miss Obama. I do not miss McKinley. I miss Johnson (minus Vietnam). I miss Roosevelt. I miss Lincoln. I miss Washington.
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I mis# Obama without Duncan and Broad and Gates.
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Just curious, LCT, I agree with you about LBJ, but I was a child then and my feelings and opinions are informed by reading history, especially Caro, Dallek and Branch. I don’t know old you are. Were you old enough in December 1968 to have an opinion on LBJ? Did you miss LBJ then (minus Vietnam)? I find it interesting that Vietnam vets I know who became Republicans still hate him, yet those who remained liberal have reassessed their earlier hate and say the same as you and I.
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I was born two months after they broke into the Watergate Hotel, 1972. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in 1989. Neither of us have experienced much of history. All I know is what I read. Socrates is my hero. Never met him; only read him. I know that Noam Chomsky recently said the last liberal to occupy the White House was Richard Nixon.
I suppose if I had been alive and aware in 1968, I would have been confused by what I saw. I bet everyone was confused by what they saw. There’s no confusion about the following, though. The New Deal and the Great Society have been under steady, bipartisan attack for some time now. Extreme wealth concentration has been pervasive for some time.
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No, Diane, neither of the two “mainstream” parties is good enough. They shouldn’t be good enough for you either. Both are highly compromised. Neither speak for the people. Both are in the pockets of their big money donors. You know this.
Why must you always accuse dissenters of supporting Trump/Putin? You know better than that. Please stop and look at what you’re doing.
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No, Dienne, I am not “better than that.” We have a two-party System, like it or not. If you voted for Jill Stein, you helped Trump become president. If you sat home, you helped Trump become president. No third party candidate has a chance of getting elected. That’s reality.
And yes, you constantly defend Trump against the reality that the Russian government attacked our elections.
I can’t understand why you are unable or unwilling to see that his presidency is a stain on our democracy.
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“Hindsight is 2020”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/21/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-bernie-sanders-kansas-progressives-democrats
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GregB
I was turning 17 in 68 and watched his withdrawal as a candidate. I had turned from a right-wing young teen in YAF to a participant in the Anti-war movement a little more than a year before. I watched that speech and believed at that moment he was truly tortured. Tortured by a war he wanted no part of for several years. When I turned 18 my lottery number would have been number one. Fortunately, it did not apply till my 19th birthday. As a progressive, if Obama had been in LBJ’s place. We would never have had Medicare Medicaid the voting rights act or the civil rights act.
LBJ dragged those programs through Congress. You can not say that the Dixie-crats were any less hostile than today’s Republicans.
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Well, here we go again with Ed’s comments, it’s 2016 redux: Obama is just as bad as Trump, Hillary is just as bad as Trump ergo vote for Jill Stein or write in Mickey Mouse or don’t vote, so the narrative goes. There will never be a perfect Democratic candidate to counter the GOP which is an extremist party that enables racism, bigotry, anti-science reactionaries, anti gay rights, anti abortion rights, anti unions, anti any social programs, etc., ad nauseam. As bad as Obama was, at least we got Sotomayor and Kagan on the SCOTUS. The GOP blocked Merrrick Garland and many of Obama’s picks for the lower courts. Ed doesn’t give a damn, he will continue to vote for Jill Stein or some other loser and allow a crypto fascist party to take total power.
Vote Democratic, there is no other damn choice. Definitely vote for progressives in the primaries… you know the rest.
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You are SO right! Vote, vote, vote! Thank you!!
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Cue the knowing comments about how horrible Obama was. 5, 4, 3, 2 . . .
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I love it when conservatives and neoconservatives denounce Trump for his ignorance, incoherence, etc.
It helps the Big Blue Wave that’s coming in November
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Will Hurd, Republican Congressman from TX, former CIA agent, wrote this today:
Trump Is Being Manipulated by Putin. What Should We Do? https://nyti.ms/2LxEeAr?smid=nytcore-ios-share
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I hope there are lots of swimmers in that great blue wave including newly arrived Puerto Ricans.
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I hope the wave is blue. When the sea turns red, that’s a plague.
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LFT: Remember when “Better dead than Red” was a right-wing slogan?
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Please get real! All politicians and all high ed professors of all fields need to be conscientious, to have a humanity spirit, and most of all, leaders and authorities need to appreciate the absolute truth in all logic tables like: and, n-and, or, n-or, …
There is only one fraction of gullibility, this will yield the consequence of Trump leadership style. Now, we can acknowledge that not all SUCCESSFUL Everest mountain climbers can be a leader, then left alone, GREEDY amateurs or GREEDY commoners can manipulate all the way to be LEADER in the White House!!!
THE FOUNDATION IN ALL LEADERS is the humanity spirit = to care for the well beings of all sentient beings = their own citizens and others on this planet of Earth. Back2basic
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“According to a recent Gallup Poll, Mr Trump’s support among members of his own party at the 500-day mark of his presidency sits at 87%, second only to George W Bush’s 96%, which came nine months after the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44324545
What does that 87% mean in numbers that aren’t not ratios or percentages?
Party Affiliation
27% Republican
43% independents
29% Democrats
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
In 2016, “Nearly 139 million Americans voted this year, according to the United States Elections Project. This sets a new overall record, surpassing the all-time high of 132 million Americans who voted in the 2008 contest between Barack Obama and John McCain.”
27% equals 37.53 million of those 139 million Americans and 87% of that is 32.65 million or 23.49% of the total that voted in 2016.
It isn’t Republican voters that will make or break Trump. It will be the almost 60 million independent voters. How are they polling for Trump?
Real Clear Politics says, “As weak as Trump is among Independents, he is weaker still among women. On January 30, 2017, his net approval among men was plus-7, while among women it was minus-9. By February, the latter negative rating had fallen into double digits, and reached a low of minus-28 in October-November of 2017. The president gained back some ground in the subsequent four months, but was still at minus-18 in the final February poll.” …
“Of particular interest is the gender gap among Independents – 44 percent of Independent men approved of Trump’s performance while only 29 percent of Independent women said the same.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/03/22/trump_and_women_independents_worrisome_signs_136593.html
If these numbers stay about the same or get worse for Trump, the party Trump owns that has supported his insanity, the GOP is in deep trouble.
The Real Clear Politics analysis came out last March before infants and children were torn from their parents and tossed in cages and Trump’s recent rancid antics in Europe attacking US allies and loving US’s enemy Putin.
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Say it again and again and again until your republican colleagues come to their senses and seek to protect democracy in the USA once more.
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repeating the truth won’t get through to Trump’s Republicans unless we can send them to one of those camps I’ve read about that un-brainwashes people
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It doesn’t really matter that most Republicans will follow Trump to the Gates of Hell.
They are under 30% of the vote.
What matters is what independents think.
Trump’s numbers among women are in the toilet.
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“What matters is what independents think.”
Huh. Now that’s interesting. Where have I heard that before? I’m happy to hear you saying that, but do you understand the implications? Democrats are also about 30% of the vote. Since both sides want our vote, it seems we’re in a position to negotiate, doesn’t it? Tell me what we get if we vote for you. Hint: “We’re not Trump” isn’t sufficient.
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I don’t think much will change if people continue in large number to avoid voting in the primaries. It doesn’t help when indies are not allowed to vote in the GOP and Democratic primaries. At least in California in the 2016 primaries, I was blocked from voting in the Democratic and GOP primaries because was an indie. Before 2016, indies allowed to vote in the Democratic primaries but not the GOP.
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No, you are not in a position to negotiate. Who is your candidate? The choice will come down to either Trump or the Democratic Candidate. The swing voters are independents. They will choose between the candidates of the two major parties. If they sit home, we will have Trump for eight years.
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Diane,
I am confused.
How can you miss Obama minus Duncan and Broad and Gates? Obama enabled at the very least Duncan and Gates with his CCSS. His actions say everything about who he is. Is that like saying that we should miss Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette if only they had not acted mainly in the interests of the rich and ignored the plight of the working and farmer class?
Obama was not the disheveled-mouth, crude vulgarian that Trump is by any means, and yes, he is a softer version of the Trump’s administration’s plutocrat.
But Obama’s centrism-to-the-right orientation are still far too extremist and plutocratic for the rest of us workmen class Americans, I would posit. He was therefore no true progressive. The Congress under Eisenhower with regard to tax rates were far more progressive than Obama could ever be, not that just ONE brach of government can control taxation.
Sure! Would Obama be preferred to Trump? For the short term yes, and never for the long term; both are not serving most interests of most people.
Obama could have put graduated taxation far more out there as at least rhetoric as well as single payer. He chose not to, allowing WS to just pay back the TARP funds with virtually no other real conditions. That was like saying that if you steal from a department store, but restore the goods in salable condition, you still don’t have to go to jail or be charged.
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Robert,
In national elections, we vote for one of the two major parties, unless we want to register a protest vote. If faced with an election between Obama and Trump, I would vote for Obama without hesitation. Character counts.
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Diane et al,
I would probably have to also, but check these out, because it’s a movement critical, I think, of supporting:
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/07/20/us/politics/ap-us-midterms-sanders-ocasio-cortez.html
I know we have not won this war by any means, but we are winning, slowly, critical battles.
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What if Obama had had a man crush on Hugo Chavez and praised him for being strong not weak and had a private meeting with Hugo. He would have been impeached two or three times and then lead off to jail.
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Or, What would the Republicans have said about Obama if Obama did the same things Trump is doing regarding Putin?
What would GOP have said if Obama believed Putin vs the 17 US intelligence agencies?
What would the GOP have said if Obama went to Singapore and met with NK’s Kim and said what Trump said about Kim?
How would Republicans have reacted if Obama had a scandal where 19 women accused him of sexual misconduct?
How would the Republicans have reacted if several members of Obama’s election campaign and his White House Staff admitted they were guilty like Trump’s people have?
How would the Republicans have reacted if the Obama’s refused to reveal their Tax records?
this list could go on for a long time — days, weeks, pages and pages and pages.
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Exactly!! Well said.
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This from the Hillary/Trump debates 2016:
DONALD TRUMP: Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good.
He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president. And I’ll tell you what: We’re in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads — 1,800, by the way — where they expanded and we didn’t, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she’s playing chicken. Look, Putin…
CHRIS WALLACE: Wait, but…
TRUMP: … from everything I see, has no respect for this person.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.
TRUMP: No puppet! No puppet!
CLINTON: And it’s pretty clear …
TRUMP: You’re the puppet!
CLINTON: It’s pretty clear you won’t admit …
TRUMP: No, you’re the puppet.
CLINTON: … that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.
So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17 — 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.
WALLACE: Secretary Clinton…
CLINTON: And I think it’s time you take a stand …
TRUMP: She has no idea whether it’s Russia, China, or anybody else.
CLINTON: I am not quoting myself.
TRUMP: She has no idea.
CLINTON: I am quoting 17 …
TRUMP: Hillary, you have no idea.
CLINTON: … 17 intelligence — do you doubt 17 military and civilian …
TRUMP: And our country has no idea.
CLINTON: … agencies.
TRUMP: Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
CLINTON: Well, he’d rather believe Vladimir Putin than the military and civilian intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us. I find that just absolutely …
(CROSSTALK)
Hillary nailed in in 2016. Lock him up, lock him up, lock him up!
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Joe,
Now we know who is Putin’s puppet.
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Thanks for posting that. Good read.
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Don’t know so much about Obama. I (as an interested chap from India) never could understand what Obama stood for.
George Bush Jr did much to mess up America’s reputation
Trump? Bloody hell…. Here, I have to question the intelligence of the American system.
And, I question this with caution. We, in India, have had – and have – our own share of idiots. The problem with these idiots, is that they are ultimately dangerous.
Now, I wonder – will the predictions of Nostradamus, and Hindu mythology (Kalki), see the light of day…
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I’m going to be on vacation for about a week, so this will be my last comment for a while (I know, thank god!, right?). Anyway, something for you all to think about: What have you accomplished with all this anti-Trump ranting? Has it successfully thwarted any of his odious policies? Has it changed any minds and turned any of his supporters against him? Or are you just preaching to the choir? Have you accomplished anything more productive than making you feel righteous and temporarily better? If all you want is to feel temporarily better, marijuana would probably be a better bet – certainly better for your heart. Legal in 30 states now.
But if you want to actually accomplish something, it’s harder, but a lot more rewarding. Organize to stop his actual policies. Do something to make the world a better place. Pick a cause and focus on that without getting distracted by Trump’s tweets and bloviations. Stop waiting for Mueller to ride to your rescue by indicting Trump. Stop waiting for Congress to impeach him.
Start figuring out how to defeat Trump and Pence at the polls in 2020. This is going to mean working with progressives and independents, not talking down to them. You will need to earn our votes, not lecture us about how you’re entitled to them. Start figuring out what voters want (hint: we’ve told you repeatedly) and how you can do that, rather than the “No we can’t!” message you’ve been putting out so far. Stop waiting for St. Hillary to swoop into her “rightful” place.
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Dienne,
It’s called freedom of speech. We all treasure it. Enjoy your vacation.
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Dienne, have a great vacation and if you feel the urge to make a comment during your hiatus, go for it. The idea that we shouldn’t be discussing one of the worst presidents ever is ridiculous. How do you not discuss him and his policies? I live in this country, his rolling back of environmental rules by the dozens, stacking the courts with right wingers, making stealth cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, CHIPS and weakening the ACA and the list goes on…. is enough to make the angels weep. You talk as if you are on Mount Olympus preaching and scolding us mere mortals for being outraged at this horrific man and all that he says and does, (with the support of a far right wing party). I have figured out how to defeat Trump and the GOP: VOTE DEMOCRATIC IN November and in 2020! Hillary is no saint but neither is she the monster as portrayed by the right wingers and the puritanical lefties. Compared to Trump, Hillary would have been a boon to this country; think SCOTUS, the environment, science, gay rights, abortion rights and more competent people in the various regulatory departments and she would not have rolled back Dodd-Frank.
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I would swear I made a comment earlier about being warned about the normalization of neo-liberalism by Chomsky. So here we are thrilled to join hands with the rational right from Boot to Will…..
But do I miss Obama’s pretty speeches and class? Yes. Do I hold him responsible for not attempting to actually bring” the change we believe in”.? Yes.
So how does change occur? Is it a slow trudge or are there Black Swan moments that can propel progressive change? I heard it once said that the Triangle Square fire did more for the Labor movement than anything in the thirty years before it. 2008 was such a moment.
Did he blow it because he tried and failed or was he never who we thought it was?
I have to add a few things to this list from Alternet. Let’s not forget the Employee Free Choice Act. Or expanding drilling in the Gulf literally weeks before the BP disaster. Sorry, Greg Obama’s failures in so many ways delivered Trump. And as for rescuing the Nation from the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve may have been more responsible for the economy than Obama who was running around appointing debt commissions. Settled for tax breaks in the stimulus with a supermajority.
To deal with the problems that decades of Republican Tax cuts deregulation and income inequality had caused.
https://www.alternet.org/visions/10-obama-policies-and-failures-make-us-angriest?
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I post Will and Boot not to have hands across the divide, but to show that sane Republicans reject Trump. Maybe someday the Republicans senators will grow a backbone.
If they do, it won’t be because of what you and I wrote, but because their own thought leaders shame them.
Complain all you want about Obama. If the 2020 choice is Trump Vs. any Democrat,I wil vote for whoever is on the Dem ticket.
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As I have done in every election since 72. I may have voted for Jacob Javits once. That does not mean I am a happy camper.
So it isn’t just Trump. Nixon was enough for me. Before Watergate and before I knew about the treason that cost 30 thousand American lives. Reagan was the original Republican demagogue. Also probably guilty of treason. For some Reason, I give Bush a pass and transfer my dislike to Cheney.
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Joel,
What you say makes so much sense. Obama, in part, did produce Trump. So did the DNC. And now we must continue to fight, fight, fight to restore justice and equity.
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Where do you vote?
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Obama produced Trump?!?
Really!
I disagree. Obama had nothing to do with who Trump is.
Trump is a malignant narcissist and psychopath who was encouraged by his father to be ruthless, a racist, a serial liar, and a fraud … among other things.
Trump is in the White House because of what the Koch brothers and their allies started back in 1973, 45 years ago, when they founded ALEC and launched their so-called libertarian campaign to buy America’s state and federal governments.
“Men on a mission: The Koch brothers and US conservatism
“Charles and David Koch have a plan: They want to give the US a conservative makeover and are reportedly interested in buying some of the country’s biggest newspapers. What makes the billionaire brothers tick?”
https://www.dw.com/en/men-on-a-mission-the-koch-brothers-and-us-conservatism/a-16799319
“Charles Koch has taken over the American political system
“Who’s the most dangerous man in America? Tough competition for sure, so let’s narrow it down to who’s doing the most damage to America and the rest of the world? Trump? Nope—there’s a higher power screwing us, and he lives in Wichita, Kansas.
“His name is Charles Koch (pronounced “coke”) and last Friday he announced that he is now the sole power behind Koch Enterprises, America’s second largest privately-owned company, with annual revenues of $U 115 billion. Charles, who’s 82, has outlasted and outwitted his three brothers to control the Koch family oil and chemicals empire, and the Koch political machine that now essentially runs the US government.”
https://dailyreview.com.au/75481-2/75481/
All Obama did was cause Charles Koch to work harder and faster because it is obvious that Charles is also a racist like Trump and he is working to make “America White Forever”.
“Kochonomics: The Racist Roots of Public Choice Theory”
http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/bethany-moreton-kochonomics-racist-roots-public-choice-theory
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If you ignore working and labor classes and redistribution of wealth on a large scare, then you might well convince those who are swing voters and who are suffering that maybe they should play for the other team. But Obama was not alone in this. The DNC has abandoned economic and labor issues largely for more than 2 decades, all at a time when the GOP was pretty open about producing a society with values that were antithetical to the labor class.
Of course, if this were coming from an American, one might not be as ready to cut my head off. But if one wants to, I am resigned to understanding that.
And yes, Diane, you’re right; I don’t vote here, but I have relatives here that can and do, two relatives who have taught for many years in the public schools.
No one need not get defensive; I’m on your side, and always will be.
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It has been obvious to me for a long time that Obama was a neo-liberal or leaned too heavily in that direction. All anyone has to do is look at his friends from the University of Chicago and the fact that he attended that university where neo-liberalism and neoconservatism was born.
But, when it comes down to Trump vs Obama, and they were the only two choices to vote for, I’d vote for Obama every time.
Obama vs Romney was a similar decision but Romney was not as toxic and damaged as Trump so if Romney ran against Trump, I’d vote for Romney even though I voted against him when he ran against Obama.
The same goes for McCain.
In a three-way runoff between McCain, Romney, and Trump, with no other choices, I’d vote for McCain.
But McCain vs Obama, I’d still vote for Obama even though I already suspected he was a neoliberal. Every GOP president since Nixon has been a disaster while Democratic presidents, although not perfect, have not been as damaging.
This piece in The Guardian seems to agree with me.
“The age of Obama was the last gasp of neoliberalism. Despite some progressive words and symbolic gestures, Obama chose to ignore Wall Street crimes, reject bailouts for homeowners, oversee growing inequality and facilitate war crimes like US drones killing innocent civilians abroad.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/17/american-neoliberalism-cornel-west-2016-election
The big question is who will run against Trump or Pence in 2020? Will it be another election where the choice is between an empty glass and a glass half full?
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Please excuse some of my grammar, which stands correction, perhaps.
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Yes, just about anyone is better than Trump. At the very least, in behavior and finesse…
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How many US presidents were malignant narcissists, psychopaths, rampant serial liars, total frauds, repeatedly failed businessmen, money launderers, have loved and worshipped brutal dictators, were obvious traitors to their country, and so much more?
Some former presidents might get checked off for one or two of the items on that list but Trump is the only one that does it all and a lot more.
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Joel, you and I may be the only ones who remember Obama’s action on oil drilling just prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill. I’ll add three to the list: caving on repealing the Bush tax cuts before trying to negotiate or do something, being too timid on the stimulus package to get us out of the Great Recession, and never engaging in a public relations/information campaign to educate the public about single payer health care (no need to get into his biggest sin, education policy). But I voted for him begrudgingly because I understand how our system works. I disagree, however, that “Obama’s failures in so many ways delivered Trump.” The one thing he did that may have delivered Trump has nothing do with his presidency. It had everything to do with the color of his skin. At least that’s what I believe.
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“The one thing he (Obama) did that may have delivered Trump has nothing do with his presidency. It had everything to do with the color of his skin. At least that’s what I believe.”
I agree. Obama Presidency brought the racists out of the termite infested wood in a swarm and during his presidency, they managed to take more than a 1,000 seats away from the Democratic Party in state legislatures.
“Barack Obama Won The White House, But Democrats Lost The Country”
“The same national trends that allowed Obama to win two terms — and Clinton to win the popular vote in 2016 — hurt Democrats in statehouses, governor’s mansions and congressional districts.” …
“Obama’s historical singularity as the nation’s first black president has led some to speculate that he both attracted a new kind of Democratic voter and started a backlash against the party that ultimately led to the election of Donald Trump. But the most dominant trends reshaping the face of the party in fact predated Obama’s election.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/barack-obama-won-the-white-house-but-democrats-lost-the-country/
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GregB
I wrestle all the time with that question. A Trumpanzee seems irredeemable unless of course, some personal tragedy forces him to face a new reality.
I think the figures on the voters who voted for Obama and then Trump are way overblown. One state poll found that 57% said they voted for Obama in 12. Only problem Obama only received 51% of the vote. So a lot of Trump voters are covering their Trump vote by pretending to not be racist. So I agree with you.
Those that stayed home are the ones who cost the election. What would be if he had included a single payer option instead of killing it? Or had he passed EFCA? Or jailed a few Wall Street Execs. Or had he not been promising to deliver TPP in the lame duck………
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Norwegian Filmmaker: I always appreciate your comments and the fact, alone, that you spend time conversing w/we Americans here. The perspective of people who don’t live in America are, right now, very important, as it certainly helps us to keep some equilibrium in these craziest of times. I was lucky enough to be able to catch Michael Moore’s “Where to Invade Next?” & he, of course, chose to invade Scandanavia, where, in the film, Norway, Sweden & Finland (& he talked w/Pasi Sahlberg about Finnish education) actually incorporate and live by ideas…that originated in America! Countries should make education child-centered & joyful; countries should provide health care for all citizens; countries should use prisons as actual centers focused on rehabilitation, not
endless punishment leading to recidivism.
Our only hope IS our vote; there isn’t a doubt in my mind that there was Russian interference in our 2016 elections. That being said, there is also solid, documented proof of serious election fraud that has occurred–for years–in ALL states and, further, w/the disintegration of the Voters Rights Act (& I, too, liked LBJ for his domestic policies), gerrymandering, purging of votes (many recent articles on this), machine tampering (security devices purposely being turned off machines as reported in at least one state), “hanging” chads & on & on, we must make sure that our votes are secure & that they will count insofar as who we have actually voted for. In fact, just today, I signed a petition to further a bill introduced by Wyland & Merkeley, asking that ALL elections (early voting, election day & other modes) be done with PAPER ballots. NO foreign–or domestic–machine hacking. In fact, seek out this petition, sign it & forward to your friends, relatives, neighbors & colleagues.
And another thing all (or as many of us who can) of us should do is to seek out your local–village, city, state–election protection group, & join in after-election citizen audits.
Inform people. Train to become voter registrars, poll watchers & election judges.
Act locally & think globally.
Perhaps, then, we can get back to where we need to be.
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Oh–&–of course–many more reported instances of voter suppression.
That history should NEVER repeat itself.
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