“What’s funny about that is they assume my ambition is positional. They assume my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, elected officials come and go, single payer healthcare is forever.”
Oh yes just what we need a second Obama. First Obama worked out so well for us.
Exactly! They are both came up from Chicago and were legal scholars! Oh, no, wait. They are both Jewish born New York based comedians, who criticize politicians with over the top shows! Oh no, wait. They… um… I mean, they must have something in common?
Lol, another Obama is exactly what is needed: a statesman and a diplomat, a rational person, someone who works to improve America rather tells fools that he is there for America but is actually only in it for himself and his mentor Putin. But America got to do America so…enjoy the shitshow.
I get what you’re saying, but Americans, for whatever reason, paint Obama as the farthest left option when he was centrist at best.
The “they go low, we go high” mentality sounds nice but we’re seeing that directly play out where establishment Dems play by the rules and are too scared or too paid off to fight for the people while the Republicans break the rules all the time. And we choose to “move on” rather than hold them accountable. So, they learn that they can just fuck everyone over and no one will charge them with any crimes. Exactly what Obama campaigned on.
Not to mention that, rather than bail out the people who were suffering during 08, Bush bailed out the banks who caused the crisis. And what did the banks do with the money? Lay people off still and use that money to pay executive bonuses and for stock buybacks. Obama continued this oversight, and for what it’s worth he did attempt to send more funds to small businesses. But the fact still remains that the funds should’ve gone to the people affected and not the large banks that were deemed “too big to fail” similar to how AI is currently trying to position itself.
Also not to mention all the deportations and bombings across the world still. And the ACA being a right wing heritage foundation project that was adopted to provide more funding to private healthcare insurers. Which many just increased the prices of services to fleece taxpayers with so 🤷♂️
Obama is no comparison to Trump, of course, and I don’t hate Obama. But I also can’t forgive him for how ineffectual he actually was for the working class. We don’t need another “work across the aisle” “oh, let’s focus on the future, we don’t need to prosecute Trump or his administration” type candidate. We need one that will be an enemy of organized wealth and corporations so we can pull ourselves back out of authoritarian/billionaire control. The elite need to be held responsible. Otherwise, why would any citizen believe in the rule of law if it can be selectively applied?
I imagine many Virginians are feeling exactly that right now. They voted and approved a map and then their SC knocked it down because they felt like it. Meanwhile, the Republican maps are being forced through, held privately with no voter input, in some cases ongoing elections are even being halted with votes being thrown out to redistrict. All without any voter say to remove voter power. Why would anyone feel like their vote even matters anymore?
We need accountability. And I’m sorry, but a neoliberal Obama I don’t believe would hold any of them accountable.
I remember the arguments I had in 2008 with my lefty friends when they kept saying Obama was the most liberal candidate. I’d go over each of their positions and showed my reasoning and they wouldn’t even consider what I said but instead would get emotional and insist he was more liberal.
Hell, in his own book Obama talks about how Reagan was a huge role model for him.
Obama is a great example of how charisma can put you over the top. And I love the guy, I just wish he had been a progressive and realized early on that the Republicans would never compromise on anything and that they were always working in bad faith.
Just one small correction: although the 2008 bank bailout did happen during Obama’s presidency, it was the Bush administration who created it and signed it into law. This is usually framed as Bush being a class act and doing it to spare Obama the blowback of having to do the same (back in the days when presidential class was still a thing), but it seems not to have worked, as everybody still blames Obama entirely.
Entirely fair, you’re right. It looks like Obama tried to move TARP funds to make it easier for small businesses and new programs to receive funding. I stand corrected on that point.
I agree with almost all of this and even the parts I disagree with I agree in principle. There will never be someone who can reach level or power needed to actually do what you’re describing without being a very, very good liar. Because they are never reaching that position on merit and message alone. It’s not just republicans outnumbering us. It’s people who are indifferent outnumber republicans and democrats and progressives combined. And not performatively indifferent. I mean people who genuinely do not care and do not vote and never will vote no matter how bad their circumstances get. A rock bottom low enough to engage that many people can not exist in a world with drive thrus, cell phones, and air conditioning. There’s no way to make that many people uncomfortable enough to care without it already being too late.
I’d like to point out that Obama is responsible for the most amount of deportations in the history of this country. And he bombed more of the middle east that bush. He’s still one of the greatest presidents in our history, but…
Edit: I mean I’m sorry you don’t like established facts. He’s not Homelander but he’s not mother Theresa either.
Yeah, the same guy who killed two American citizens in Pakistan with no due process. The one that accepted a transparency award in a CLOSED meeting. The president that didn’t close gitmo. The one that expanded our wars to six countries. And remember how George Bush was spying on Americans by listening in on that fiber optic cable coming into the ATT center in California and how Obama stopped all of that? Oh, right he didn’t. In fact I believe it’s still going on. And Obama care, what a great idea. Force people to buy health insurance. What a great idea. So great the heritage foundation came up with it, you know the people who brought you Project 2025. People seem to think that just because he wasn’t Bush or Trump, he was great. I think they can all be shit.
Current situation is a direct result of first Obama
Indirect result - racist reactions to a black President.
Compared to literally every other American president in my lifetime, this is unironically true. I’m 47. What’s your point?
Tan suit
Mic drop
/s … Which is hopefully obvious
Obama wasn’t perfect, but at least he wasn’t a trainwreck and he was sandwiched between two of them.
No, you don’t understand - if you can’t get a 110% perfect leftist president, you might as well just elect the next Trump to reinforce fascism!
Man ain’t that the damn truth. I’m so tired of that mindset that if the only tolerable option isn’t perfect, let the terrible option win. Just wtf.
I get that we want to have a better system, but if people let the side that is intent on non-rich people having zero say or rights, we will be worse off than the imperfect solution. Really need people to quit letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Try talking sense to some Green party boosters. They are almost as insular as the conservative sub on reddit.
They absolutely will not take responsibility for being the splitters who let Dubya win in 2000. They still think Jill Stein is an awesome choice for president and they still ignore congressional races.
They embody the idea of rejecting the positive because it isn’t perfect(in their eyes).
Yeah, all the ones I have run into have been pretty delusional in that regard. And no matter how you explain anything they just shove their heads in the sand and ignore reality. I would say that I hope one day ranked choice voting makes this a non issue. But I bet they mark only one option and leave off the others. It’s chess with pigeons.
It’s really the only other alternative.
She literally told you it is not about president, masters never changed. Now you understand?
Are you suggesting that, assuming magically Obama won president in 2025, things would be going exactly the same because “masters never changed”?
I am saying that I was disappointed long ago seeing my friends, colleagues and others getting fooled by politicians. At least their pink glasses were striped off. As the saying goes, it has to get really bad before we see changes. The only one right now who I am interested to watch is Mamdani, he seems pretty legit so far
Same track, slower train
Suggesting that Obama-equivalent would threaten allies with military takeover of land, tariff literally everybody fucking up the global economy, start supporting the enemy and rolling out the red carpet for Putin, or attacking Iran for absolutely no reason… is just flat out delusional.
And look where we are today. Our “president”pulling meme coin and fake smartphone rug pulls. Gas at $6+ a gallon and rising. Please snap out of it!!!
We don’t need a second Obama. We need a first of a new kind of president, one that manages to actually change things. Not a party line tower, not a middle of the roadster, but a daring and principled changer. The type of person we’d need would be fighting both parties, not just pissing the other one off. Because both parties right now are fubar and our future looks bleak.
The DNC took Bernie down…now AOC is the closest to what u describe.
We need her to step up. And we need to put the DNC as well as the GOP out to pasture.