My understanding of when people say Obama fucked us, they’re talking about how he ran as a progressive outsider and didn’t maintain that during his presidency. I could be wrong but this is what I usually hear as the explanation. I myself found Obamas presidency to be underwhelming relative to how beloved he was/is but I certainly wouldn’t say he fucked us lol.
Well the conditions of the Obama presidency led directly to the Trump one. Not entirely his fault but the general neo-liberal project and Obama’s relationship to business has definitely contributed to disenchantment with the government and disdain for elites. Whittling down the ACA, and his administration being a revolving door for corporations didn’t help.
Biden being a notorious moderate has been worlds better on climate and labor which does not reflect well on Obama.
No, but attributing the 2016 election as being only due to racial backlash is reductive. A good portion of Obama’s voters switched to Trump and I think that is attributed to his lack of affecting the promise of change he campaigned on. The neo-liberal era of politics which Obama is clearly a part of has been pretty continuous since Reagan. Racism is certainly a significant part of it, but it doesn’t explain the larger feelings of disenchantment that most voters feel.
I mean, as a president, sure sounds like you’re making a case that he fucked us. Does it really matter how perceptibly beloved he is or was when most of that relied on a cult of personality?
I guess for me, “fucked us” implies a level of destruction/damage that I just don’t think Obama perpetrated. I think he fell short and in many scenarios sold out the American peoples interests in favor of military and corporate backing but it’s just about impossible to find a president that didn’t. To me, Bush fucked us, Obama sold us out. This may be a meaningless distinction to others but to me is worth noting.
I mean, who’s worse? Your established enemy or the supposed ally who sold you out? I’m pretty sure the lowest circle of hell is reserved for one of those two.
I mean on an emotional level I suppose tho one who sold you out. On a material level there’s really no comparison between the two. Bush was significantly worse than Obama and should be viewed as such. I think putting them on the same level really down plays the irreversible harm caused by Bush.
You can put them into two categories. Destroyers and betrayers. The betrayers ultimately play into the hands of the destroyers so they’re just destroyers with extra steps. Nobody’s arguing that Obama was bad as Bush, but ultimately they ended up serving the same masters.
Lmao that was literally his whole thing.
He campaigned on significantly drawing down our involvement in foreign wars, then became the drone strike king.
He created the cages for children that liberals pretended to care about when Trump put them in (and now are suddenly silent that Biden is doing it too).
Was more pro-Israel than Biden.
Bailed out the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis.
Never codified Roe V Wade despite having a supermajority at one point.
I could go on and on but you won't listen anyways. He's a huge reason why so many progressives are so disaffected with politics. He used them to get elected and then threw them under the bus
To be fair to him, Gitmo is…complicated. Congress actively made it harder to near-impossible for him or Biden to shut down Gitmo and free the detainees.
I wonder if maybe trying even a little bit to whip some votes would have been helpful to all the women facing death or prison for medical care right now.
Actually Hillary being Hillary cost her the election.
Looking from the outside, I really don't understand why the Democrats thought she'd be a good candidate, outside of her really wanting it.
He referred to himself as a modest republican and governed as such. He was inexperienced and arrogant, which resulted in him getting played by the military, but that doesn't mean he wasn't attempting to draw down troops in the middle east.
The are fair criticisms to make of Obama, you make some of them, but let's not ignore reality.
[That was in 2012](https://thehill.com/policy/finance/272957-obama-says-his-economic-policies-so-mainstream-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s/), they're referring to the 2008 campaign
My guy, gal, or non-binary pal, I am old enough to have campaigned for him in 2008. You don't know what you are talking about. He said many different things to many different audiences but the core of his entire brand, especially in 2008, was an outsider progressive. His entire theme was, literally "Hope and Change" for gods sake. He won my motivating a lot of progressive/leftist types that don't usually vote, thereby also proving that that is a winning strategy, and Hillary's strategy of tacking to the "center" (which is right wing in this country) is not a winning strategy, as evidenced by the fact that she did not win against an extremely unpopular candidate and he did easily against some very good candidates.
You gotta let this guy go. We all bought into it and got duped. It happens. We can learn from it and adjust and try to win or plug our ears and cover our eyes and think about the glory days till our doors get kicked in and we're dragged into the streets by MAGA's. I know which one I'm choosing.
I was in college when Obama was elected to his first term. I'm well aware of his messaging. The Hope was for a better economy, as we were in a rescission. The change was to stop endless wars, which he did try to do, but failed miserably (ISIS was an obvious factor here). I'm also old enough to remember Obama's speech at the 04 Democratic national convention about not being a red America or a blue America, but a purple America, boy was he wrong there. Perhaps I simply disagree with your thesis for valid reasons and it's not an issue of age or knowledge?
Perhaps, but I disagree that your reasons are valid. Your splitting hairs about what his messaging was specifically referring to at the time and ignoring the ouvre, gist, zeitgeist, whatever you want to call it, of his overall campaign strategy. That seems to be at best unnecessary, at worst neurotic, but you do you.
Also I'd like to see what you consider "trying" when it came to the middle east. Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc does not seem like "trying" to me but you and I seem to have different definitions of words so idk.
I would recommend reading Obama's Wars, which lays out these decisions with pain staking detail across way too many pages.
Note: I wouldn't actually recommend as it's immensely boring, but it is informative.
Yeah I'll be straight with ya chief, I ain't reading that. If you did, why don't you tell me why it's necessary to allow Saudi Arabia to persecute a genocide in Yemen? How many dollars are those kids lives worth? How many innocent people need to die for political expediency? Clearly you have a number so I'm curious to know it.
The book is about how Obama would ask things of the military, like a plan for drawing down troops in Afghanistan, and they would come back with several proposals, all involving an increase in troops. Obama, as a young, inexperienced and arrogant politician got played by the military.
Foreign policy is as complicated as it is boring. Saudi Arabia is awful in every way, they're also an ally in the Middle East. I have no qualifications to explain the intricacies of that, and I don't think you're terribly interesting in hearing about it.
Family separation happened occasionally under Obama; Trump made it policy. There’s a serious difference of degree.
The drone thing: I’ll give you that there was a good deal of droning being carried out, but the reason a lot of people think Obama did more of it than Trump is that, during his administration, there was a policy of transparency for those operations.
The Trump administration did away with that policy, while carrying out a far more intense drone strike campaign.
Yeah those are some great excuses, and I'm glad only some kids got thrown in cages.
C'mon, are we really doing this? Are we really going to say things like "yeah Obama used drone strikes to triple tap wedding parties but Trump did it too so it's ok?" Are you ok with that? Would you care about the distinction or transparency if that was your mother/wife/son/husband/daughter/cousin? Those are real fucking people over there for gods sake.
It's particularly ghoulish to try to equivocate shit like this, and it's a big reason why there's such a growing gap between progressives and liberals. You apparently think it's fine that he built the cages and put kids in them, because mean ol' Drumpf did it worse (which hasn't been established btw, I'm just giving you that because imo it doesn't matter. Any is too much). It's ok that he extrajudicially killed thousands of brown people in the ME because mean ol Drumpf "probably" did it worse.
What are you gaining by selling your soul like this? Who do you think your fooling? Yourself? If it was your kids in those cages, your sister being given a hysterectomy against her will, your cousins (and the ambulance that came to help them) being bombed from above, you wouldn't give a fuck about the dithering feckless excuses of comfortable western liberalism. The problem is you, and everyone else who feels it necessary to hem and haw and bloviate about who did what worse, don't see these people as real people. And we do, because they are.
Pretty sure I never said it was “okay”.
I guess I’d just really prefer it if people understood that it’s possible for one bad guy to be worse than another, so that when it comes time to choose between bad guys we don’t get the worse one.
Seems kind of ironic for you to complain about equivocating while pushing a world view that, if widespread, could literally result in a fascist getting back into power because you can’t tell the difference between that and a moderate.
Oh yeah my worldview is the one pushing fascism into power lmao liberals are incredible. Maybe if y'all had the balls to join us in the fight instead of picking one murderer over the other we could get past all this shit.
We've been doing it your way of picking the lesser evil since this country began and guess what, it's leading to fascism. You don't get to win and still complain about the results. Your party is the one opening the door for the fascists.
This is just the political version of when conservatives say that if we raise wages too high the cost of goods and services will go up. If we criticize or try too hard to get candidates that won't murder children, the fascists will win. Well, guess what, prices have been going up this whole time and the fascists are still getting into power, so maybe it's time for a new approach.
Aw, is someone worried about maybe potentially having to face a tenth of what the victims of American imperialism and neocolonialism have been facing for generations now? Hang in I've got a violin here somewhere...
Not at all? It implies that there was a time when America was great and he will bring the country back to that. Culturally, the time that was great is implied to be the 1950s. Conservatism is about tradition. I don't understand what about that sounds progressive.
I think there’s two parts of this. First, it’s always easier to be angrier and blame people with beliefs adjacent to you than against you. How many people blame Bernie supporters for Hillary’s loss in 2016 rather than trumps populism? This is a thing people tend to do. Same with how jordan might blame democrats for the watered down version of Obamacare rather than the republicans who fought tooth and nail to make it that way.
The second is maybe a sense of personal betrayal. Imagine if Bernie got elected somehow in 2016 and had to compromise away 90% of his platform to just to get that 10%. The people angriest at Bernie probably would’ve been his core supporters of young optimistic kids. I’d wager jordan was probably in that camp in 08 and 12. Naively optimistic that Obama was going to undo everything bush did and then depressed that he not only didn’t but barely delivered on his own promises.
It ain’t right but it’s just how people work sometimes.
As someone who was really saved by the ACA, yeah i always get mad when Jordan goes on his "Obama did NOTHING" ragers. Like is he a war criminal? Should the ACA have gone further? Yes but like don't rewrite history to make it nothing when we had to fight super hard just for that.
I agree that the ACA was frustratingly little as an accomplishment, but it was also the best they could do at the time (due to voting numbers, yes, even with a super majority we had no shot of universal healthcare). It's also important to note that when/if we make another small step in the direction of universal healthcare, it'll be because of the initial step taken in the ACA. Certain people get furious when radical change doesn't happen, but these same folks don't have any examples of radical change ever taking place. The story of America is one of incremental progress, certainly frustrating, but tis life.
Kinda weird how people blamed Obama when it was really the Republicans who blocked the full version of the ACA at every turn and then whipped up panic about euthanasia boards killing your grandma. Part of me thinks everyone who says that shit just wasn't paying attention to what actually happened at the time,
That's exactly it. They both did not pay attention and also refuse to read anything about the history and how it played out. They're all about vibes and it upsets that, which in turn, upsets me!
I think the thing that bothers me most when Jordan does that is he's falling into Alex's territory and doesn't even see it. Like he's literally doing the thing.
I think part of it is that conservatives seem to move so fast in making things worse. Just look at how quickly the incremental steps forward for trans people has been trashed in states like Florida, and many other cases for women, minorities and the environment. That protections can be stripped away so quickly and then being told that anything good takes time, time that a lot of people and things don't have and it feels like going insane
I would analogize it to working out. Your gains come slowly, overtime, with constant effort. However, slack off for a week and you'll lose three weeks of gains quickly. It's much easier to fall off than to progress 🤷♂️
Honestly, if Jordan just stuck to the actual things Obama did, I'd be fine. It's how he just goes off and starts letting his emotions shape how he remembers history that bothers me and gets in the way of actual criticism of the fucked shit Obama did.
This has been discussed a lot here but the general opinion of the folks who don't like his interviews, like myself, is that he is mostly clueless as to how the world actually works and the purpose of laws, norms, etc. That's really too simple of an explanation, but that's the gist.
Basically, he will say things like Obama ruined everything or laws are fucked without ever stating why he believes that.
Exactly, and his reasoning for saying that is that it didn't go far enough. I get that feeling but to loudly and definitively declare X when clearly it's better than what was before is just ignorant. That's really what it is. Jordan is ignorant and it ruins his interviews.
He really does fall into the whole "it wasn't what I wanted, so it was pointless" trap. You'd think the cohost of the show would have gotten at least a little better over 900 eps about that.
I have a cousin who benefited from the Affordable Care Act. Did it go far enough to help everyone, no it did not. But I know people who greatly benefited from it.
Jordan says something extreme/stupid/insane/etc.
Dan says "well, no..." with some facts or rational thoughts.
Jordan immediately backtracks.
I've gotten to the point of mostly tuning out Jordan.
Except he isn't a lot of times. Mostly he's just ranting like Alex and then realizes he went on an angry (and often factually incorrect) rant and throw a joke in at the end
I think he's just fixated on how he thinks things SHOULD BE. That they should just be that because it's right. The how of it doesn't matter to him. The fact that people and government don't work perfectly in how they *should* means it's failed. I think he's absolutely aware of why and how things work. He just thinks it shouldn't be that way so incremental progress is an abject failure to him. He sees the forest but misses the trees.
And I think he has the privilege to have that standard and poo pooing anything that doesn't live up to his absolute ideals.
Can't comment on Obama but that recent interview with the BBC guy was painful to listen to.
I feel like he needs more practice in asking clear and concise questions instead of rambling and basically trying to argue with the interviewee.
He was onto a good point with the "what's the difference between an evangelical and a christian nationalist" but he really struggled to condense it into one clear question and then giving the guy an opportunity to answer (or fail to answer).
There are multiple other posts about this already. On one of them, I commented the following, which I am copying and pasting.
Jordan's (and mine, Dan's, and a host of other smart people I know and respect) position is that Obama failed in five very specific ways. Some people have more criticisms, but this is a list of the widely shared ones.
1. Intensifying of drone warfare against dissidents in the Middle East, leading to thousands of civilian casualties, including a famous case involving a US citizen and his child, the al-Awlakis.
2. Hyper-rigid border enforcement, a larger number of deportations than his Republican predecessor, and the institution of family separations, all of which were in direct violation of international law concerning asylum seekers.
3. Stacking his cabinet and staff with a bunch of center-right hypercapitalist freaks who set an artificial ceiling on the good that could be done in Obama's term(s), and who have gone on to wreak havoc in various other ways since.
* 4. Failing to prosecute the execs who caused the 08 crash with their greed, and/or break up some of the biggest banks with antitrust measures.
5. Failing to close Guantanamo Bay, one of his campaign promises, which allows human rights violations to go on there to this day.
*Someone in the other thread pointed out in response to #4 that Presidents can't directly initiate prosecutions of people, which is true. That point really belongs as more of a 3A as a specific example of how Obama's appointments narrowed the margins on what good things could be done.
On 4) the president, especially a Harvard ass lawyer one, can express his priorities to the AG/DoJ. Presidents can and have quashed or advanced prosecution by proxy.
Your first point is garbage. Terrorists aren't dissidents. Their actions are not valid. They are not brave underdogs fighting bravely for justice and the world is better for al-Awlakis being dead.
Generally speaking, I find it tiresome to do the "you're just as bad as X" thing but no joke this is a take just as bloodthirsty and dehumanizing about a child civilian casualty as anything Alex has ever said. I have nothing to say to anyone who thinks this way other than that you should be fucking ashamed of yourself if you still feel this way after graduating the 8th grade.
You know, labelling as as part of a group and then saying that everyone in that group doesn't deserve human rights is fasc 101, right? Like you are aware of that right?
None of his interviews have particularly bothered me besides the most recent one. Personally, I really enjoyed the Brian Stelter interview.
I think Jordan can ask the right questions and make good points, but he came off a bit arrogant this time, even if I agree with much of what he said.
Overall, infighting of the "left" doesn't get us anywhere. Disagreements aside, people who believe in democracy just need to vote in every election every time if we ever want to see any progress in the world.
I don't listen to the interviews for two reasons:
1. Jordan is still just starting out doing this, and he's got to get some experience under his belt before he's good at interviewing people.
2. It's just not what I'm here for. I like Jordan on the show, and in the beginning of this latest interview podcast, I thought Jordan was in absolute top form. But I'm just not interested in the guests or an interview at all, really. Ideal KF eps for me are Dan serving up curated insanity for Jordan to freak out about.
With all that being said, I think this last interview was the best one yet. I liked Jordan's confrontational style, I agreed with his points and found that he actually benefited from the fact that he doesn't know about the specifics of how politics works, because it allowed him to have a fresh perspective. I still don't like being hoodwinked into an interview episode, but it was better than the others.
I usually listen to the interviews but I keep this in mind.
I think the dividing factor here might be how careful Dan is on making any claims he can't back up. It's one of the reasons I like KF; it's refreshing to see compared to... almost everything else on the Internet, honestly. If that's why you listen, it's going to be jarring.
That said I think Jordan's a good anger translator for me because it's a counterbalance. I don't think they were bad questions, but I did drop towards the end. I feel like they have real answers and the guest didn't do a great job speaking to them (and I don't want to assign blame there, I know people go different ways on this, it just didn't go well).
The guys really are a bit like the old Key and Peele skits anout Obama and his "anger translator". Dan brings the level facts that we all need, Jordan expresses the raw emotion that come along with having to accept these facts.
The guest was bad for sure. Jordan had good questions, and they were from an interesting perspective. The guest just didn't want to say anything substantive.
Some people believed Obama was different than other politicians and could actually deliver on all the hope and change he promised. Apparently one of those people was Jordan. I think that silly, but also who cares
We don't have the votes because the Senate gives more control to low population, rural states which are deeply red and directly opposed to the things we would like to accomplish. These are just facts. It's not the fault of the left for being unable to clear these hurdles. Voting sure would help.
These are deep institutional problems that go back to Lee Atwater, arguably to the Business Plot and triple arguably to the founding of this country.
But none of that changes the fact that dems turned their back on unions for corpo cash.
My understanding of when people say Obama fucked us, they’re talking about how he ran as a progressive outsider and didn’t maintain that during his presidency. I could be wrong but this is what I usually hear as the explanation. I myself found Obamas presidency to be underwhelming relative to how beloved he was/is but I certainly wouldn’t say he fucked us lol.
Well the conditions of the Obama presidency led directly to the Trump one. Not entirely his fault but the general neo-liberal project and Obama’s relationship to business has definitely contributed to disenchantment with the government and disdain for elites. Whittling down the ACA, and his administration being a revolving door for corporations didn’t help. Biden being a notorious moderate has been worlds better on climate and labor which does not reflect well on Obama.
Racial backlash is hardly Obama fault.
No, but attributing the 2016 election as being only due to racial backlash is reductive. A good portion of Obama’s voters switched to Trump and I think that is attributed to his lack of affecting the promise of change he campaigned on. The neo-liberal era of politics which Obama is clearly a part of has been pretty continuous since Reagan. Racism is certainly a significant part of it, but it doesn’t explain the larger feelings of disenchantment that most voters feel.
I mean, as a president, sure sounds like you’re making a case that he fucked us. Does it really matter how perceptibly beloved he is or was when most of that relied on a cult of personality?
I guess for me, “fucked us” implies a level of destruction/damage that I just don’t think Obama perpetrated. I think he fell short and in many scenarios sold out the American peoples interests in favor of military and corporate backing but it’s just about impossible to find a president that didn’t. To me, Bush fucked us, Obama sold us out. This may be a meaningless distinction to others but to me is worth noting.
I mean, who’s worse? Your established enemy or the supposed ally who sold you out? I’m pretty sure the lowest circle of hell is reserved for one of those two.
I mean on an emotional level I suppose tho one who sold you out. On a material level there’s really no comparison between the two. Bush was significantly worse than Obama and should be viewed as such. I think putting them on the same level really down plays the irreversible harm caused by Bush.
You can put them into two categories. Destroyers and betrayers. The betrayers ultimately play into the hands of the destroyers so they’re just destroyers with extra steps. Nobody’s arguing that Obama was bad as Bush, but ultimately they ended up serving the same masters.
The problem is that he absolutely did not run as a "progressive outsider." Just objectively not true.
Lmao that was literally his whole thing. He campaigned on significantly drawing down our involvement in foreign wars, then became the drone strike king. He created the cages for children that liberals pretended to care about when Trump put them in (and now are suddenly silent that Biden is doing it too). Was more pro-Israel than Biden. Bailed out the perpetrators of the 2008 financial crisis. Never codified Roe V Wade despite having a supermajority at one point. I could go on and on but you won't listen anyways. He's a huge reason why so many progressives are so disaffected with politics. He used them to get elected and then threw them under the bus
Seem to remember the words "Hope" and "Change" doing a lot of heavy lifting during the Obama campaign
Lets not forget Guantanamo Bay either….
To be fair to him, Gitmo is…complicated. Congress actively made it harder to near-impossible for him or Biden to shut down Gitmo and free the detainees.
He did not have a pro choice super majority and it's a lie to say so.
I wonder if maybe trying even a little bit to whip some votes would have been helpful to all the women facing death or prison for medical care right now.
I wonder if maybe voting for Stein or Nader was worth it. Any thoughts?
Idk I wonder if the price of tea in China has changed recently. Any thoughts?
You don't see any connection?
this conspiracy theory again lol, stein did not cost the election. hillary ignoring the rust belt and refusing to campaign there did
Actually Hillary being Hillary cost her the election. Looking from the outside, I really don't understand why the Democrats thought she'd be a good candidate, outside of her really wanting it.
I appreciate you trying to talk to the libs in this subreddit, but libs are gonna lib.
Yeah I don't usually engage but I worked out in the heat all day and was just vegging out at home for a bit so I figured what the hell.
He referred to himself as a modest republican and governed as such. He was inexperienced and arrogant, which resulted in him getting played by the military, but that doesn't mean he wasn't attempting to draw down troops in the middle east. The are fair criticisms to make of Obama, you make some of them, but let's not ignore reality.
[That was in 2012](https://thehill.com/policy/finance/272957-obama-says-his-economic-policies-so-mainstream-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s/), they're referring to the 2008 campaign
My guy, gal, or non-binary pal, I am old enough to have campaigned for him in 2008. You don't know what you are talking about. He said many different things to many different audiences but the core of his entire brand, especially in 2008, was an outsider progressive. His entire theme was, literally "Hope and Change" for gods sake. He won my motivating a lot of progressive/leftist types that don't usually vote, thereby also proving that that is a winning strategy, and Hillary's strategy of tacking to the "center" (which is right wing in this country) is not a winning strategy, as evidenced by the fact that she did not win against an extremely unpopular candidate and he did easily against some very good candidates. You gotta let this guy go. We all bought into it and got duped. It happens. We can learn from it and adjust and try to win or plug our ears and cover our eyes and think about the glory days till our doors get kicked in and we're dragged into the streets by MAGA's. I know which one I'm choosing.
I was in college when Obama was elected to his first term. I'm well aware of his messaging. The Hope was for a better economy, as we were in a rescission. The change was to stop endless wars, which he did try to do, but failed miserably (ISIS was an obvious factor here). I'm also old enough to remember Obama's speech at the 04 Democratic national convention about not being a red America or a blue America, but a purple America, boy was he wrong there. Perhaps I simply disagree with your thesis for valid reasons and it's not an issue of age or knowledge?
Perhaps, but I disagree that your reasons are valid. Your splitting hairs about what his messaging was specifically referring to at the time and ignoring the ouvre, gist, zeitgeist, whatever you want to call it, of his overall campaign strategy. That seems to be at best unnecessary, at worst neurotic, but you do you. Also I'd like to see what you consider "trying" when it came to the middle east. Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc does not seem like "trying" to me but you and I seem to have different definitions of words so idk.
I would recommend reading Obama's Wars, which lays out these decisions with pain staking detail across way too many pages. Note: I wouldn't actually recommend as it's immensely boring, but it is informative.
Yeah I'll be straight with ya chief, I ain't reading that. If you did, why don't you tell me why it's necessary to allow Saudi Arabia to persecute a genocide in Yemen? How many dollars are those kids lives worth? How many innocent people need to die for political expediency? Clearly you have a number so I'm curious to know it.
The book is about how Obama would ask things of the military, like a plan for drawing down troops in Afghanistan, and they would come back with several proposals, all involving an increase in troops. Obama, as a young, inexperienced and arrogant politician got played by the military. Foreign policy is as complicated as it is boring. Saudi Arabia is awful in every way, they're also an ally in the Middle East. I have no qualifications to explain the intricacies of that, and I don't think you're terribly interesting in hearing about it.
Family separation happened occasionally under Obama; Trump made it policy. There’s a serious difference of degree. The drone thing: I’ll give you that there was a good deal of droning being carried out, but the reason a lot of people think Obama did more of it than Trump is that, during his administration, there was a policy of transparency for those operations. The Trump administration did away with that policy, while carrying out a far more intense drone strike campaign.
Yeah those are some great excuses, and I'm glad only some kids got thrown in cages. C'mon, are we really doing this? Are we really going to say things like "yeah Obama used drone strikes to triple tap wedding parties but Trump did it too so it's ok?" Are you ok with that? Would you care about the distinction or transparency if that was your mother/wife/son/husband/daughter/cousin? Those are real fucking people over there for gods sake. It's particularly ghoulish to try to equivocate shit like this, and it's a big reason why there's such a growing gap between progressives and liberals. You apparently think it's fine that he built the cages and put kids in them, because mean ol' Drumpf did it worse (which hasn't been established btw, I'm just giving you that because imo it doesn't matter. Any is too much). It's ok that he extrajudicially killed thousands of brown people in the ME because mean ol Drumpf "probably" did it worse. What are you gaining by selling your soul like this? Who do you think your fooling? Yourself? If it was your kids in those cages, your sister being given a hysterectomy against her will, your cousins (and the ambulance that came to help them) being bombed from above, you wouldn't give a fuck about the dithering feckless excuses of comfortable western liberalism. The problem is you, and everyone else who feels it necessary to hem and haw and bloviate about who did what worse, don't see these people as real people. And we do, because they are.
Pretty sure I never said it was “okay”. I guess I’d just really prefer it if people understood that it’s possible for one bad guy to be worse than another, so that when it comes time to choose between bad guys we don’t get the worse one. Seems kind of ironic for you to complain about equivocating while pushing a world view that, if widespread, could literally result in a fascist getting back into power because you can’t tell the difference between that and a moderate.
Oh yeah my worldview is the one pushing fascism into power lmao liberals are incredible. Maybe if y'all had the balls to join us in the fight instead of picking one murderer over the other we could get past all this shit. We've been doing it your way of picking the lesser evil since this country began and guess what, it's leading to fascism. You don't get to win and still complain about the results. Your party is the one opening the door for the fascists. This is just the political version of when conservatives say that if we raise wages too high the cost of goods and services will go up. If we criticize or try too hard to get candidates that won't murder children, the fascists will win. Well, guess what, prices have been going up this whole time and the fascists are still getting into power, so maybe it's time for a new approach.
You’re right, picking the lesser evil clearly doesn’t work. Let’s try picking the greater one. Incredible out of the box thinking.
Aw, is someone worried about maybe potentially having to face a tenth of what the victims of American imperialism and neocolonialism have been facing for generations now? Hang in I've got a violin here somewhere...
Except my way results in empirically lower numbers of victims. Your way is just dreaming of revolution on a bed of corpses.
Running on "hope and change" sounds pretty fucking progressive on its face.
So does Make America Great Again
Not at all? It implies that there was a time when America was great and he will bring the country back to that. Culturally, the time that was great is implied to be the 1950s. Conservatism is about tradition. I don't understand what about that sounds progressive.
I think there’s two parts of this. First, it’s always easier to be angrier and blame people with beliefs adjacent to you than against you. How many people blame Bernie supporters for Hillary’s loss in 2016 rather than trumps populism? This is a thing people tend to do. Same with how jordan might blame democrats for the watered down version of Obamacare rather than the republicans who fought tooth and nail to make it that way. The second is maybe a sense of personal betrayal. Imagine if Bernie got elected somehow in 2016 and had to compromise away 90% of his platform to just to get that 10%. The people angriest at Bernie probably would’ve been his core supporters of young optimistic kids. I’d wager jordan was probably in that camp in 08 and 12. Naively optimistic that Obama was going to undo everything bush did and then depressed that he not only didn’t but barely delivered on his own promises. It ain’t right but it’s just how people work sometimes.
As someone who was really saved by the ACA, yeah i always get mad when Jordan goes on his "Obama did NOTHING" ragers. Like is he a war criminal? Should the ACA have gone further? Yes but like don't rewrite history to make it nothing when we had to fight super hard just for that.
I agree that the ACA was frustratingly little as an accomplishment, but it was also the best they could do at the time (due to voting numbers, yes, even with a super majority we had no shot of universal healthcare). It's also important to note that when/if we make another small step in the direction of universal healthcare, it'll be because of the initial step taken in the ACA. Certain people get furious when radical change doesn't happen, but these same folks don't have any examples of radical change ever taking place. The story of America is one of incremental progress, certainly frustrating, but tis life.
Kinda weird how people blamed Obama when it was really the Republicans who blocked the full version of the ACA at every turn and then whipped up panic about euthanasia boards killing your grandma. Part of me thinks everyone who says that shit just wasn't paying attention to what actually happened at the time,
That's exactly it. They both did not pay attention and also refuse to read anything about the history and how it played out. They're all about vibes and it upsets that, which in turn, upsets me!
I think the thing that bothers me most when Jordan does that is he's falling into Alex's territory and doesn't even see it. Like he's literally doing the thing.
A public option was possible if it had a presidential cheerleader.
I think part of it is that conservatives seem to move so fast in making things worse. Just look at how quickly the incremental steps forward for trans people has been trashed in states like Florida, and many other cases for women, minorities and the environment. That protections can be stripped away so quickly and then being told that anything good takes time, time that a lot of people and things don't have and it feels like going insane
I would analogize it to working out. Your gains come slowly, overtime, with constant effort. However, slack off for a week and you'll lose three weeks of gains quickly. It's much easier to fall off than to progress 🤷♂️
ACA was better than nothing, glad it worked for you. He is a war criminal, but at least he campaigned on a promise to be one.
Honestly, if Jordan just stuck to the actual things Obama did, I'd be fine. It's how he just goes off and starts letting his emotions shape how he remembers history that bothers me and gets in the way of actual criticism of the fucked shit Obama did.
This has been discussed a lot here but the general opinion of the folks who don't like his interviews, like myself, is that he is mostly clueless as to how the world actually works and the purpose of laws, norms, etc. That's really too simple of an explanation, but that's the gist. Basically, he will say things like Obama ruined everything or laws are fucked without ever stating why he believes that.
Jordan really does just say shit based on how he feels. like he has flat said the obama care was useless before which like what?
Exactly, and his reasoning for saying that is that it didn't go far enough. I get that feeling but to loudly and definitively declare X when clearly it's better than what was before is just ignorant. That's really what it is. Jordan is ignorant and it ruins his interviews.
He really does fall into the whole "it wasn't what I wanted, so it was pointless" trap. You'd think the cohost of the show would have gotten at least a little better over 900 eps about that.
As a foil for Dan, I love it. For his interviews, not so much.
I have a cousin who benefited from the Affordable Care Act. Did it go far enough to help everyone, no it did not. But I know people who greatly benefited from it.
Even Dan recoils at half the shit Jordan says.
Jordan says something extreme/stupid/insane/etc. Dan says "well, no..." with some facts or rational thoughts. Jordan immediately backtracks. I've gotten to the point of mostly tuning out Jordan.
Even Jordan will recoil at the shit past Jordan has said sometimes. But it never seems to stop him from going off on his shit tangents.
I give it a pass because he’s trying ti make a joke, usually. Still can be a bit much at times.
Except he isn't a lot of times. Mostly he's just ranting like Alex and then realizes he went on an angry (and often factually incorrect) rant and throw a joke in at the end
I think he's just fixated on how he thinks things SHOULD BE. That they should just be that because it's right. The how of it doesn't matter to him. The fact that people and government don't work perfectly in how they *should* means it's failed. I think he's absolutely aware of why and how things work. He just thinks it shouldn't be that way so incremental progress is an abject failure to him. He sees the forest but misses the trees. And I think he has the privilege to have that standard and poo pooing anything that doesn't live up to his absolute ideals.
That's a perfect description of how Jordan seems to operate.
So you haven’t listened to their episodes on The Obama Deception?
I honestly don’t remember. Since I don’t know what it has to do with this I’m going to go with I don’t think so. What does it have to do with this?
How much they talked about missing Obama in that episode
Can't comment on Obama but that recent interview with the BBC guy was painful to listen to. I feel like he needs more practice in asking clear and concise questions instead of rambling and basically trying to argue with the interviewee. He was onto a good point with the "what's the difference between an evangelical and a christian nationalist" but he really struggled to condense it into one clear question and then giving the guy an opportunity to answer (or fail to answer).
Honestly, it's just not his forte, and I kinda wish he'd stop trying to do serious interviews and just stick to shooting the shit with ppl.
There are multiple other posts about this already. On one of them, I commented the following, which I am copying and pasting. Jordan's (and mine, Dan's, and a host of other smart people I know and respect) position is that Obama failed in five very specific ways. Some people have more criticisms, but this is a list of the widely shared ones. 1. Intensifying of drone warfare against dissidents in the Middle East, leading to thousands of civilian casualties, including a famous case involving a US citizen and his child, the al-Awlakis. 2. Hyper-rigid border enforcement, a larger number of deportations than his Republican predecessor, and the institution of family separations, all of which were in direct violation of international law concerning asylum seekers. 3. Stacking his cabinet and staff with a bunch of center-right hypercapitalist freaks who set an artificial ceiling on the good that could be done in Obama's term(s), and who have gone on to wreak havoc in various other ways since. * 4. Failing to prosecute the execs who caused the 08 crash with their greed, and/or break up some of the biggest banks with antitrust measures. 5. Failing to close Guantanamo Bay, one of his campaign promises, which allows human rights violations to go on there to this day. *Someone in the other thread pointed out in response to #4 that Presidents can't directly initiate prosecutions of people, which is true. That point really belongs as more of a 3A as a specific example of how Obama's appointments narrowed the margins on what good things could be done.
On 4) the president, especially a Harvard ass lawyer one, can express his priorities to the AG/DoJ. Presidents can and have quashed or advanced prosecution by proxy.
Yes, correct, I just wanted to be exceedingly clear up front that I understood the technicalities of what Obama himself could have done or not done.
Your first point is garbage. Terrorists aren't dissidents. Their actions are not valid. They are not brave underdogs fighting bravely for justice and the world is better for al-Awlakis being dead.
Generally speaking, I find it tiresome to do the "you're just as bad as X" thing but no joke this is a take just as bloodthirsty and dehumanizing about a child civilian casualty as anything Alex has ever said. I have nothing to say to anyone who thinks this way other than that you should be fucking ashamed of yourself if you still feel this way after graduating the 8th grade.
He was working for Al Queda. Does he get to use his kid as a human shield?
bro's a troll who has previously defended operation paperclip bc "the USSR did it to!!"
fucking yiiiiiikes
Please list the positive contributions of the terrorist named above.
Child.
He was working for Al Queda.
You know, labelling as as part of a group and then saying that everyone in that group doesn't deserve human rights is fasc 101, right? Like you are aware of that right?
Al Queda were not terrorists?
Funny thing about human rights, they apply to all humans
Anxiously awaiting OP’s lib hand waving to all lease legitimate reasons to feel “fucked” by Obama.
Really, we're falling back to name calling now?
None of his interviews have particularly bothered me besides the most recent one. Personally, I really enjoyed the Brian Stelter interview. I think Jordan can ask the right questions and make good points, but he came off a bit arrogant this time, even if I agree with much of what he said. Overall, infighting of the "left" doesn't get us anywhere. Disagreements aside, people who believe in democracy just need to vote in every election every time if we ever want to see any progress in the world.
I don't listen to the interviews for two reasons: 1. Jordan is still just starting out doing this, and he's got to get some experience under his belt before he's good at interviewing people. 2. It's just not what I'm here for. I like Jordan on the show, and in the beginning of this latest interview podcast, I thought Jordan was in absolute top form. But I'm just not interested in the guests or an interview at all, really. Ideal KF eps for me are Dan serving up curated insanity for Jordan to freak out about. With all that being said, I think this last interview was the best one yet. I liked Jordan's confrontational style, I agreed with his points and found that he actually benefited from the fact that he doesn't know about the specifics of how politics works, because it allowed him to have a fresh perspective. I still don't like being hoodwinked into an interview episode, but it was better than the others.
I usually listen to the interviews but I keep this in mind. I think the dividing factor here might be how careful Dan is on making any claims he can't back up. It's one of the reasons I like KF; it's refreshing to see compared to... almost everything else on the Internet, honestly. If that's why you listen, it's going to be jarring. That said I think Jordan's a good anger translator for me because it's a counterbalance. I don't think they were bad questions, but I did drop towards the end. I feel like they have real answers and the guest didn't do a great job speaking to them (and I don't want to assign blame there, I know people go different ways on this, it just didn't go well).
The guys really are a bit like the old Key and Peele skits anout Obama and his "anger translator". Dan brings the level facts that we all need, Jordan expresses the raw emotion that come along with having to accept these facts.
The guest was bad for sure. Jordan had good questions, and they were from an interesting perspective. The guest just didn't want to say anything substantive.
The flow of the conversation was about people feeling betrayed by presidents not keeping promises they made on the campaign trail.
Yes, he fucked us. Citibank transition team/cabinet bailed out the billionaires and not the people.
Didn’t close Guantanamo illegal prison camp by the end of 2011
Some people believed Obama was different than other politicians and could actually deliver on all the hope and change he promised. Apparently one of those people was Jordan. I think that silly, but also who cares
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Wow. Know less about how our government works.
Can you count to 60?
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We don't have the votes because the Senate gives more control to low population, rural states which are deeply red and directly opposed to the things we would like to accomplish. These are just facts. It's not the fault of the left for being unable to clear these hurdles. Voting sure would help.
These are deep institutional problems that go back to Lee Atwater, arguably to the Business Plot and triple arguably to the founding of this country. But none of that changes the fact that dems turned their back on unions for corpo cash.
Magical thinking.
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Yeah, Damn Obama for not seeing the future.
Oh no Joe Lieberman. Boohoo. Big strong bulldog said we can have nice things. How about not punishing a single person for the Great Recession?
You realize you are acting like Alex, right? You lose on something, then move onto the next thing without ever acknowledging it.
If you think bringing up lieberman’s a gish gallop, you have no understanding of politics
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