“It’s not as if we didn’t see some of this coming,” said Barack Obama, a note of bleak humour in his voice. “I will admit it’s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y’all!”
The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned. “I did,” Obama added. “You can run the tape.”
Now Obama is back on the campaign trail, for Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. It gives him a platform to deliver an alternative State of the Union address. And the gloves are off.
To hear the expectant buzz of the 7,000-plus crowd in Norfolk as candidate Abigail Spanberger promised that Obama’s entrance was just moments away was to be reminded that Democrats did once have a president who could match Trump’s superstar charisma.
Trump’s superstar charisma.
I’m so sick of people saying this dipshit with diarrhea of the mouth is charismatic.
The problem is: he is charismatic to other dipshits with diarrhea of the mouth.
He’s persuasive to idiots. That’s not the same thing as charismatic
He is charismatic. He does grab people. Hitler was also charismatic, undeniably so, a great orator. Trump is incoherently charismatic in comparison 😆
It’s fun watching people debate whether the populist dictator that created a cult of personality using words and delivery is charismatic or not 😂
It’s all in how he communicates, not what. He’s an old-school con man, a confidence trickster. That whole style relies on the fact that people are really bad at judging character, and someone who lies with a straight face and never shows an iota of guilt will be believed to be innocent and truthful no matter what evidence is presented against them.
Combine that with a heavy dose of sunk cost fallacy and an increasingly uneducated and desperate electorate, and it’s easy to see why many follow him despite his near complete lack of articulateness.
I just want to point out here, Obama was a moderate, not progressive. He used a Romney healthcare plan, he put in compromise appointments all over, he didn’t support gay marriage in his first campaign. He had to “evolve” on that, along with public opinion, conveniently.
And this guy won 2 terms.
Before that we had Clinton, who was - surprise - a moderate. He got some things done for Dems but cut the government way back. He was still grappling with Reagan fanatics so he had to appeal to them. This guy put in don’t-ask-don’t-tell, which we look back on as a nightmare, but it was also a foot in the door for queers to serve without being dishonorably discharged.
My point is, in recent memory, and certainly now in the Trump era, voters don’t want to see out-of-touch positions, they want to see someone very calm and charismatic who says they can solve their everyday problems.
Can we learn anything for 2028 from this?
Bill and Hillary Clinton are directly responsible for making the DNC into neoliberal shills.
Obama wasn’t a great president. He was a good source of hope which made his weakness worse.
He pulled the US out of a financial crisis only to to go complwte centrist, folding on healthcare (which might have been the right strategic choice), folding on peace in the middle east, folding on socual support, folding on Russia, folding on the SC.
Obama contributed to Democratic decline in the world (through loss of trust in Democrstic instituions) during his term, and then lead to borh Trump and Biden.
Biden was a better president than Obama, despite being half there, and funneling the States towards Trump 2.0.
My point wasn’t how good each president was, just that they actually won, and social causes advanced under their administrations.
You were probably clear … I probably just needed to rant.
Do elder statesmen like Obama bother mentoring or training their “replacements”? Seems like we would have more Obama’s in the pipeline if that was the case.
You know how Bernie has spent like 2-3 decades saying “it’s not about me, it’s about a movement”?
Obama fundamentally disagrees…
Not that I have a quote of him explicitly saying that, he never would say it on record.
But as a two term president he could have named a progressive chair to the DNC that entire 8 year period. The immediate benefit of that being 2016 would have been a fair primary…
So while some do, I would be shocked to find out Obama suddenly started to care about what happened after him, the day he left office.
Just what we need, more people drone striking weddings schools and hospitals. I think Putin and netanyahu are doing a fine job carrying on Obama’s legacy.
And this is honestly one of the biggest struggles I’ve always had with him. I genuinely want to like him, but I can’t forget the 26,000+ bombs dropped in seven countries in just 2016 alone. Effing hell.
Just goes to prove of you’re charismatic enough it doesn’t matter how you act.
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Those have increased since he left office. You think he’s out there pushing those buttons or something?
They increased because Obama legalized and normalized the worst excesses of the Bush admin and gave those powers to subsequent presidencies. But sure let’s stand up more for the guy who said “we need to look forward, not backward” when it came to prosecuting the Bush admin for war crimes, and then wondering why no one would stop Trump from criming all his presidency when we couldn’t even lift a finger for war crimes.
I’m not saying Obama is a villain, but he fucked up in some very major ways on those issues.
If you kick me in the balls 40 times I’m not going to celebrate you even if the next guy kicks me in the balls 50 times. Obama was a piece of shit and it’s way past time to look past the charisma and accept that.
Username checks out…?
“I will admit it’s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y’all!” The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned.
Told who exactly? What a wild thing to say in Norfolk—where the surrounding cities (Norfolk included) overwhelmingly voted Harris in 2020.
Voters told YOU (and the DNC) to back someone other than Biden, and YOU didn’t listen until it was way too late. If anyone fumbled the election, it’s the folks who had Biden’s ear and said nothing.
“I told you so” smug assed energy—get the fuck outta here and say that to Michiganders or Pennsylvanians, you tone deaf dickhead.
The way some people throw themselves all over this man…
:/
I really hope Debbie Wasserman Schulz is having many bad days for what she did to the party by denying us Bernie
Obama gave us Trump because he chose not to hold any bankers during the financial crisis accountable. He bailed on his constituents and bailed out corporations. He also dismantled the organizing that swept him into office. Not to mention the continuation of the illegal bush Era foreign policy. The fact that he also did not hold bush accountable. He folded on a public option. He propped up the worst people in his cabinet. He let Republicans prevent a SCOTUS judge from being confirmed to the bench. Obama let Republicans take the worst of their excesses to a new level with no accountability. We were told that the fever will break and that sanity will return. Despite the fact that the Republican project was decades in the making. Voters didn’t do this. They responded to the disdain their party leaders had for them with the reciprocal disdain for their elected officials.
Barrack Obama completely dismantled his campaign infrastructure immediately after he was elected, knowing full well that the Republicans and their think tanks were targeting local races and federal judges around the country. Why did he do this? Because the Democrats did not want to engage with populism on a mass level beyond campaign slogans and getting individual establishment-friendly candidates in office.
Neoliberals do not like populism. They’re not fully committed to democracy, either. Or, at least, their support for democracy is conditional. Friedrich Hayek, one of the architects of neoliberalism, once said:
Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.
I think it’s worth noting that this is not unique or exclusive to neoliberals. Really, any ideologue or technocrat will only ever support democracy conditionally.
He should run for VP.
It’s neat how people who shit on Obama and Democrats in general have zero policy stances. They almost never cite any event or impact a politician has. It’s just labels and namecalling.
I don’t understand this claim. Almost all of the criticism of Obama that I see is about his drone strike policies, and a significant majority of the positive things I read about Obama these days are that he was so well spoken and don’t you just miss it. I know that’s anecdotal, but I’m curious how your experience has specifically differed.
Drone strike isn’t a policy it’s a technology. The Bush Admin didn’t have as much Drone Strike capability and the Trump Admin signed off on the CIA performing drone strikes without needing approval, increasing the frequency of drone strikes at an accelerated rate.
isn’t a policy
Admin signed off on
Trump Admin signed off on
…a policy
Correct
