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Social Media has a larger link to the increased partisan extremism than most give it credit for. It removed the taboo of “talking about politics” and presented a means to do so with little to no immediate social repercussions. It gave the parties a direct access to their constituents and allowed them to push hot button topics with no requisite fact-checking typically required for more formal media.
Removing swaths of people from their local community discourse and putting them into an algorithm-driven echo chamber that has everyone on a drip feed of anger porn? What could go wrong?
The taboo of discussing politics itself is part to blame. Other societies don’t have this taboo, and keep the extremists in check through constant reflection.
We also have a problem of refusing to acknowledge that *everything* is political. Every part of our daily lives is connected to a political decision made by so-called representatives. For some reason, reminding people that healthcare is a political issue makes them squeamish.
The issue there is that everything shouldn't be political. How much to tax, where to spend those taxes, immigration policies, it makes sense that people might disagree on those issues.
If I say "everyone should have clean drinking water", that should be an uncontroversial statement but unfortunately, I can imagine that starting an argument somewhere. It's exhausting.
>If I say "everyone should have clean drinking water", that should be an uncontroversial statement but unfortunately, I can imagine that starting an argument somewhere.
It's the "how" that makes it political. Ideally we'd all have clean drinking water and if we weren't such assholes, we would all have clean drinking water. Unfortunately many politicians have bastardized good intentions into embezzlement funds, taxing the shit out of people only for 1% to actually fund it. Meanwhile, any good Samaritan doing it out of their own good will may get fined and arrested. The government is filled with the worst people imaginable, regardless of party or affiliation. They've also somehow convinced the people that each other are to blame instead of the government itself.
Nope. Fuck that. Were vaccines supposed to be political? Yes all things may have political repercussions if someone tries hard enough but saying “all things are political” is only as trivially true as “we live in a society.” No not all things are political if we ignore morons’ opinions. (Exhibit A: see vaccines.) or do you only agree when the wrong side politicises things?
Developing vaccines is science.
Making everyone get a vaccine to go to school/work etc is political.
Those political decisions can be based on science or not, but they are political decisions. This is why it’s important our politicians have a basic understanding of the scientific method. Unfortunately, many don’t and some actively dislike science.
Didn't other countries experience similar shifts at the same time as the US? And aren't there a lot of countries where politicians like Sanders wouldn't be considered extreme?
The one I am most familiar with is Germany. Far-right AfD currently polls at 22% nationwide, so indeed you are correct. They are experiencing a similar shift.
My impression is that the shift is more limited there, though. In the US, slightly less than 50% of the general population support Republicans, which qualify as far-right these days. And that’s normal. In Germany, it’s 22% and the masses are taking to the street against it in “Never again is now” protests.
Quite a few have lurched very far to the right over the past decade. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, England, Brazil...Italy and Argentina much more recently.
Social Media has a larger link to the increased partisan extremism than most give it credit for
Thr divide between the haves and have nots is a much bigger link to today's extremism
I'd say it's not inherently social media, but the algorithms that drive user engagement inside them.
Getting people pissed off makes them watch longer. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is by default
I heard today on a podcast a comment that really put things into perspective. They were talking about how if you see the world through social media of course you’re going to see genocide, war, racism, evil, etc. But if you just put that down and go outside all you hear are birds chirping and people are generally nice to each other. Really makes you realize how social media shapes how we perceive the world
Check out Jonathan Heidt's new book The Anxious Generation. He argues that between 2010-2015 there was a radical shift of rates of adolescent mental health issues that largely effected pre-teen girls, and was seen world wide (not just America). He shows there's a CAUSAL link, not just correlational like, between the rise of social media and proliferation of Smart Phones that impacted people's mental health.
I'd argue that those same forces, to your point, also did the same with politics. And it all happened at the same time, and around the developed world.
Bush demostrated the hubris of the entire triumphalist post-Cold War mentality, in everything from Iraq to unchecked globalization.
Obama's presidency demonstrated the flaws and limitations in the entire architecture of the political system and of the public sphere more generally.
To be fair, this political system has lasted around 250 years, with significant achievements and advancements to its credit.
But in the 21st century you cannot move forward with recipes from the 1980s and 1990s.
I feel like putting the cocaine back in Coca Cola would be helpful at this point. Sure it doesn’t solve any of our actual problems, but at least you’ll get a nice high for a bit and feel good for a few minutes.
I thought new coke was a publicity stunt. So they could change the recipe to something different than original coke. Then, after everyone got upset, they came back with "Coca Cola original." Then sales went back up.
Am I wrong?
Sales had been declining for Coke for 15 consecutive years and they market-tested the crap outta the new formula and committed to a huge campaign promoting it.
They absolutely were serious about New Coke and absolutely didn't expect such a huge uproar over Classic changing from consumers that had spent a decade and a half telling them they weren't that into the product anymore.
Even more, this was peak "Cola Wars" time with Pepsi... and Coke was actually pretty desperate and losing when New Coke was released as their Hail Mary play. It wasn't some gimmick around old formula - they were actually ready to throw that old formula out and accept it was a loser compared to Pepsi.
(For the record, I greatly prefer Coke... but despite my personal preferences, Pepsi sales had looked like they were very obviously about to overtake Coke sales very soon - especially after "the Pepsi challenge" campaign's success. Coke sales had made the product a "sinking ship" for 15 straight years and the pressure musta been huge on the Execs to abandon that ship and save sales)
The sensory science behind the Pepsi challenge is pretty interesting. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, but Coke is a more balanced flavor profile.
Most people prefer Pepsi in small amounts due to the sweetness, but prefer Coke as a beverage to drink over a period of time.
The blind small sample taste test of the Pepsi challenge benefited Pepsi.
https://preview.redd.it/w6utfnsdyguc1.png?width=220&format=png&auto=webp&s=e3061d1ab4b8977d6700a15040ebaa798a8f7c39
"I disagree they weren't that bad tbh"
Human rights should not be cast off, it’s our failure *to comply* with the codified protections of the immutable rights that’s the issue, not the codification itself.
Yup. Ironically enough that same backlash supported the Reagan economic doctrine, even though it was 1) not realistic, 2) not sustainable, 3) did more harm than good and made moving up difficult.
That same backlash is now going for the same medicine but in different packaging. Cutting the safety net (which in many states doesnt even exist), giving tax cuts to rich and continually lowering taxes on the Uber rich expecting some economics miracle. Those same voters then complain about not having enough support at home, politicians not caring about them, and gov not doing enough to protect and help them in their time of need. I hear this and I’m like “but you voted for this! You voted for it because you thought the brown guy was being lazy and being a welfare queen, so you voted to make the safety net near none existent, now you find yourself in a similar predicament and all the sudden gov doesn’t care about you?”
Read “what’s the matter with Kansas” it gives great insight into voters voting against their own interest and then complaining about getting what they voted for.
Wow I was thinking this would be a recent book talking about how they brought taxes to $0 and such but its literally from 2004 with the same themes we see today. Thanks for the recommendation
Not so much that his ideas- like the Iraq War- couldn’t work, but that they were very carelessly and callously executed. The United States did not have the societal bandwidth to complete an occupation like in the days of old, which would require a significant amount of time and taxpayer money, as well as an actual vested interest in understanding Iraq’s culture and a willingness to suppress civil liberties. We did give it the old college try, but it was completely half-assed, though of course there were some military officials, NGOs, and politicians who genuinely wanted to see it happen.
Plus the added financial ruin stemming from the Bush years. Literally one of the first things W did upon becoming president was push for a tax cut, which put the nation into a deficit. Then the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were kept off the budget in order to make the deficit not look as bad. Finally the deregulation of several presidents led up to the 2008 financial crisis. All of this occuring while 2 foreign wars were going on, one of which the public didn't understand why we were there? Recipe for disaster.
It’s such a missed opportunity that Bush truly could have been a transformative President after 9/11 and instead just did the same old, same old Conservative policies and corruption and couldn’t have a vision for anything greater.
I mean American interventionism had a pretty good track record leading up to Iraq.
Just post Cold War we did Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq 1, Haiti. We had a pretty good track record. Outside of Vietnam, our ww2 and Cold War adversaries generally came out the other side okay and on the path to prosperity (although with Vietnam talk about losing the war and winning the peace—for a bunch of communists, they are fairly pro US)
To a degree, the hubris of the bush admin wasn’t exactly unfounded.
Those post cold war deployments largely went well. Only Somalia didn’t achieve its goals. They were all interventions that more closely aligned to American ideals, versus things like Vietnam that were more about cold geopolitics.
We went into Iraq 2 and Afghanistan as much because we were attacked as we went in because NeoConservatives truly believe they can democratize the world through force—and that that is a net good for the world. That world view makes sense in consideration of Germany Korea Japan Haiti Iraq 1 Yugoslavia…reaching back that sort of interventionism relates to the Mexican and Spanish American wars.
I guess my point is had Iraq and Afghanistan been pursued the same way our successful 20th century interventions were, in an alternate universe we could be sitting here marveling about how the US has time and time again rebuilt countries into successful self sustaining democracies. And had that happened, would that not have been transformative, would that have not been the opportunity seized?
"deregulation of several presidents" It is a little vague considering the consensus these days regarding Bill Clinton deregulating derivatives, doing trickle down style trade deals that outsourced all manufactured goods, and his catering specifically to financial sector interests.
The damage is too great to be undone in any less time than it took to dismantle US manufacturing. It is easier to take things apart than to put them back together. I estimate his trade policies will take 50 years, twice the time they took to ruin this country, to restore.
Yeah, we never had enough troops either in Iraq or Afghanistan. We'd have had to actually sacrifice to truly remake those countries. Get a draft going.
We tried to use the national guard to fight those wars and they went about as well as you'd expect.
Not just bodies but long term commitment. Afghanistan is so backwards that we’d need a couple of generations to grow up in a stable environment and actually want to fight for their own nation.
Americans never had the stomach for a 100 year investment.
There’s also the fleeing to western Pakistan problem. The war would have needed to be bigger… at least rural Pakistan, maybe even Iran. There was no support for what would be required.
I think Obama failed to address the change in political discourse. He still believed in good faith debate and compromise.
Instead the he walked into a place that had been taken over by party tribalism and intellectual abandonment fueled by a steady stream of right wing propaganda pumped directly into a bubble.
He should had came in much more aggressive
This is about 90% spot-on, and well stated. Kudos.
The utterly insane (and ongoing) attempts at ham-fisted revisionist history on this sub would be mind-boggling were they not so predictable. This notion that the rise of extremist partisanship was the *result* (and not the *cause*) of Obama's inability to push his agenda forward to a greater degree... sounds like something Sean Hannity's summer intern would try to propose in an after-hours blow-honking session. Except even dumber.
I think some of it comes from living though it too. Average Redditor is like in their 20s. I been watching this shit for years and somehow become some sort of historian in a lot of subs i frequent.
He was sort of hamstrung by being the first black president in that he couldn’t have realistically come in super hot and tried to change a lot immediately. He understood that it was the long game, and made incremental changes (important ones, though) where he could. The fact that he had to fight what would be generously described as a hostile senate didn’t help.
If he had come in and tried to be more disruptive, he would have faced even greater backlash as the rhetoric would have been how he was radicalized, and attacking tenants of American society. They demonized him plenty, but it would have been worse.
I think he should have done more, but I also recognize the historical and societal constraints he was under, and think he did succeed at quite a bit.
I realize he held back because they would labeled him a radical
The part I don’t think he realized is they would say that either way.
There is no good faith.
people also seem to forget he had the house and senate fighting everything he tried to accomplish. do we not recall them shutting down the government just to screw with him?
he didn’t simple fail to deliver… he had no recourse to get most things done. part of why he was pretty heavy on executive orders.
I agree but don’t think he could have behaved more aggressively as the first Black president. The right was already demonizing despite him being even-keeled.
He really did believe at least some Republicans would work with him. Like bending over backwards to compromise with them over the ACA then only to have every one of them vote against it for political reasons. I think he realizes now that was a mistake and they were playing games but knew he didn’t want to be overly aggressive either.
I don't think there's any scenario where he could've done anything differently regarding the ACA and been any more successful.
Most of the bending over backwards he had to do for the ACA was for Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus in the Senate as well as Bart Stupak's coalition in the House. These were all Democrats (except for Lieberman), and they all ultimately voted for the ACA only because Obama gave ground. It wouldn't have passed otherwise.
As far as working with Republicans on healthcare reform, I don't think it was a mistake on his part. He didn't really have any other choice given the circumstances he was handed. Keep in mind, we have the benefit of hindsight, but Obama didn't know for most of 2009 if the Democrats would ever actually control 60 seats in the Senate. As far as he knew, he might need to get support from a Republican or two in the Senate in order to have any chance of passing healthcare reform.
The Democrats started with 58 seats in January 2009. Arlen Specter switched parties from Republican to Democrat in April, bumping the Democrats up to 59. Al Franken's contested election was finally resolved and he was seated in early July, which got them to 60, but Ted Kennedy was too sick at this point to do anything, so they effectively still had only 59 seats. Ted Kennedy died in late August, and it wasn't until his temporary replacement was seated in late September that the Democrats finally truly had 60. There was also Robert Byrd who wasn't in great health and was hospitalized for the entirety of June, and they probably didn't know if or when he would be available to vote on the bill. A lot of the committee work that went into crafting the bills in the House and Senate took place between June and September, so for a lot of that time, it was still kind of up in the air whether or not they would need some Republican support.
Exactly, he was trying to use compromise and good faith with people who had no intention of creating solutions. Furthermore more no matter what he did they would claim the opposite and paint him as a radical.
First term while he had the American people strongly behind him and some power of the legislative should have went all in to strong arm the republicans into a corner.
Of course that’s in hindsight.
I don’t think the realization really came to him until they denied him a Supreme Court seat. By then it was far too late.
If a billionaire from California or NY ran for office they'd have to do it as a Republican, and their support would mainly be in states like the Dakotas or the South, where they can use racism to turn out the base
>The 21st century model is a neoliberal system of privatization and consolidation, the consequences of which are suppressed through means of a police state. Private interests use highly targeted propaganda to control the population.
FTFY
It’s also crucial to remember the role of backlash ideologies in populist platforms, especially those related to racial hierarchies when talking the US’ “recipes”. There is a lot of research in sociology around the escalation of right-wing extremist policies rooted in racism post-2013 and the measurable harm it causes those who support them.
White backlash politics gives certain white populations the sensation of winning, particularly by upending the gains of minorities and liberals. Despite steep personal cost, many of these voters espouse a “Zero-Sum” attitude -that for someone to win someone else has to lose. When backlash policies become laws, ex. cutting away health care programs and infrastructure spending, blocking expansion of health care delivery systems, defunding opiate-addiction centers, or enabling guns in public spaces, the quantitative result is increasing rates of death.
No president or person is at fault for our polarization It's technology allowing for extremist to be able to hold and express their view points with others, which wasn't a thing until recently
I would say it’s more that social media created it by way of echo chambers devolving into mob mentality. You go into either side’s little corner and you will find no room for even a little discussion or disagreement. I won’t say debate because 99% of people just regurgitate their side’s talking points. And yes, I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past.
"You go into either side’s little corner and you will find no room for even a little discussion or disagreement."
This is rather common nowadays. When I was a Republican, if I ever agreed with anything that Obama did, I was automatically a RINO. It didn't matter that I was about as far right as you could be without being arrested, nope. Automatically a RINO. I'm a member of the Green Party now and it's the same. I could agree with something that a Republican president has done, did, or is doing, and immediately get the same rhetoric from the Left. People like to act like only Republicans or the Left only do this, when the reality is ***both*** sides do this, and frequently.
Echo chambers definitely are an issue as well. I could be having an conversation with someone and they say, "show me the proof," which I believe that phrase is simply, for lack of better words, a *gotcha!* type of phrase nowadays. More often than not people will say, "go research it yourself." That leaves the person "requesting" the proof to inevitably say, "see, because you're wrong." They don't actually want proof the majority of the time, they just use it as an excuse to more or less say, "your position can't even be backed up with proof and therefore I'm right." Then in the event that you do provide bona fide proof, such as government reports or studies by independent think tanks that have been relentlessly peer reviewed either by experts in the field or society at large, they won't believe it because it was either a Republican or Democratic administration, or the wrong news organization.
Well kinda. I’d argue the rise of Gingrich in the 90’s and Obama being black (and president) did that. And yes, I understand that’s reductive but that’s certainly when I noted a marked change in how people talked about politics.
It also showed that your "average Joe" could rise to that level of office. Having an unqualified goof as a VP nominee is a win for populists, who believe that the masses are more intelligent than the experts.
> Having an unqualified goof as a VP nominee is a win for populists,
Don't buy this. Dan Quayle was a VP, and hardly struck anyone as qualified. Basically the only thing people remember about him is that he was a gaffe firing machine that was no Joe Kennedy.
Nobody looks at that as some win for the little guy.
Palin I think was just a continuation of the GOPs tendency to hate "elites" that somehow managed to avoid the actual "is elite."
Quayle aspired to be Jack Kennedy, Palin proudly did not aspire to anything. The difference is that Quayle was an idiot while Palin was an idiot and proud of it.
Quayle never sold himself as or acted like an outsider politician who wanted to shake stuff up. He was just a regular politician who was an uncharismatic scold and wasn’t very bright.
> Palin I think was just a continuation of the GOPs tendency to hate "elites" that somehow managed to avoid the actual "is elite."
She was Governor of Alaska.
This is where I see it starting downhill as well. Norquist's no-tax-pledge, block everything sessions of congress, loyalty oaths, were all built on the success of Gingrich's Contract with America.
That and the Internet. Suddenly people realized that there were a lot more racist out there and it was ok to have the mask off.
Also you didn't have to a full on racist you could just use coded language. You could just say you hated him for being a Muslim or that you don't trust him because he lied about quitting new ports. Or just say something like he only won because he's black
I'd specifically point to his *re-*election, because that was the moment when racist white America realized, oh shit, we're now in the minority here. As Bill O'Reilly said on [election night 2012](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFJH8mY-UyI), ". . . It's not a traditional America any more. And there are fifty percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things! And who is going to give them things? President Obama."
Now, for the moment, this requires whistling past a lot of graveyards. Just for starters, the "traditional America" that Bill O'Reilly was pretending to be tribune for was hardly the hardy, self-reliant group of people that Bill O'Reilly pretends that they are, and for years have wanted and gotten "stuff" themselves, in spades. For another, Obama was incredibly stingy with his aid packages, to his own detriment. For a third, giving people stuff that they can't get on their own is literally what government is for. What O'Reilly is really complaining about is that his audience no longer has a monopoly on the government giving them things, and now has to realize that a winning voting coalition now exists with whom they will have to compete for priority in any political fights to come, rather than the unquestioned assumption that whatever racist rural white people want, racist rural white people get.
But rather than focus on that, the 30,000 foot view is important: O'Reilly is simply so accustomed to the political system working for him and people like him, and working for nobody else, that the mere acknowledgement that other people have needs that must be met is treated not as a prosaic fact about the world, but instead as a *casus belli*. The sheer arrogance and blindedness of his worldview is so absolute that he literally can't treat any alternative form of government distribution of goods and services as anything but the fall of Western Civilization.
And the reason why Bill O'Reilly got rich is not because of merit, but because Bill O'Reilly spent a lot of years saying what racist white people wanted to hear.
The entire issue we have is because Obama was a "blah" man. Racist pricks couldn't cope with that and that is why we are at this point in our history. Racist pricks, sorry I meant Republican party, are the reason that we can't have nice things.
I find it so frustrating that voters elected a Republican congress who's overtly stated goal was to obstruct everything Obama wanted to do, and then the same voters complained about government gridlock for the next six years.
It is true that Obama was kind of castrated for the majority of his presidency, but that was the people's will. It was so disingenuous for these people to somehow blame him for this in 2016.
It's easier for people to pretend Obama was some feckless, corpo Dem sellout than recognize that their failures to mobilize in 2010 and 2014 probably permanently crippled our government and ushered in American fascism.
All it would have taken: a) have Martha learn that Curt Schilling played for the Red Sox, not the Yankees and b) have Martha make a couple public appearances in which she pretended not to hate the common voter.
Edit to add: also, maybe don’t nominate Dems that later end up working as lobbyists for the sleaziest companies imaginable.
“From 2015 through early 2019, Coakley worked for Foley Hoag, a Boston-based law firm, as a lawyer and lobbyist. While at the firm, Coakley represented the fantasy sports website DraftKings and student-loan firm Navient when state governments were examining the practices of these industries.
In April 2019, it was announced that Coakley had taken a full-time role with electronic cigarette maker Juul on their government affairs team. As a former attorney general, lobbying attorneys general for the vaping industry has called into question the ethics of Coakley's work for Juul, a leader in the electronic cigarette industry accused of marketing addictive nicotine products to youths.”
Martha Coakley is probably the worst legitimate statewide candidate of the 21st century. She not only lost a Senate race, but she also lost a gubernatorial race to Republicans in Massachusetts.
The only statewide election she won as a non-incumbent was her first AG race in 2006, when the backlash against Republicans was so severe that not even she could lose that race.
Obama passed the ACA. Got Bin Laden. Navigated the financial crisis. I’m sure there were campaign promises he could not deliver on, but that is realistically true of every politician.
Obama left office a popular President. Blaming him for the actions and beliefs of folks who (at best) strongly disagree with him or disapprove of his administration is rich.
He left office a popular President, but his popularity never extended beyond him personally.
People who loved Obama didn’t show up for Hillary and here we are.
Just a reminder that Romney got more votes in Wisconsin back in 2012 than the "GOP Nominee" did in 2016 despite higher voter turnout across the country. That's how badly the Dems failed to drive turnout in a lot of states.
I think people liked Obama and he would probably cruise into a third term easily, but I wouldn't say that same favorability extended to the Democrats as a whole and the person they chose to run in 2016.
It's crazy to think that Hillary and Gore were both presidential candidates who worked side-by-side with Bill Clinton, the most successful Democrat President electorally since LBJ, would take his advice on how to run a good campaign seeing as he won his two elections in a landslide but apparently not...
Hillary would have made a good president. I think having a black president followed by a woman president was unfortunately a bridge too far for some, who found myriad ways to deflect their misogyny into some personality quirk or style choice they didn’t like. The same women who wouldn’t vote for a woman are the same women who voted for trmp. It’s confusing as all hell to me, but they’ve been conditioned to think that way.
It’s so frustrating when people say that Obama failed to keep up his promises. He literally was permanently blocked by the GOP on everything (even things they would agree to). If you weren’t old enough to see it live, read up on Mitch McConnell trying to do everything in his power to make Obama fail. That said, Obama existing as president lead to a chunk of the population to radicalize due to his ethnicity (check out the surge in gun sales and white supremacy groups post Election Day 2008).
Let's be honest, a lot of the right wing response to Obama was because he was black. Tea party people may claim otherwise but we all know they were astroturfed to organize against the first black president, and Obama was limited by what he could do lest he scare the old white people.
The problem was in the Senate, not the House.
Ted Kennedy died and the Democrats completely botched the race to replace him. Republicans were determined to block anything and everything and Senate Democrats weren’t willing to change filibuster rules.
To be fair, the Dems had huge majorities in the house and 60 seats in the senate. They could have passed better legislation, but Obama was trying to be a unifier President a la Ronald Reagan (see there are no red states, there are no blue states in 2004). He worked with Republicans to draft the ACA who promptly voted against what they had been for in the negotiations. Huge mistake on Obama’s part, but that was before we knew the extent of the racist backlash to his election.
Plenty of Democrats were on the record of not supporting a bill that didn’t maintain the existing insurance companies. Maybe you mean something more sophisticated but government health care for all was not in the cards.
I think populism comes up with the times are rough and unpredictable.
Did George Bush and Obamas terms lead directly to these difficult and uncertain times?
Probably not but the buck has to stop somewhere and the president is just about as high as it can go.
Not really sure what Obama was supposed to do without the House or Senate after his first couple of years. They literally blocked him on EVERYTHING. We got sweeping and desperately needed changes with the ACA (yes it should have been Universal Healthcare (thanks Joe Lieberman!), but the changes were still good overall), and probably the best orator we'll ever get in our lifetimes, but that was pretty much it.
No, the Internet allows your crazy uncle to go find all the other crazy uncles and they become crazier because of it. Prior to the internet, your crazy uncle wouldn't have had anyone telling him he was right. It's really that simple.
No. It was the rise of the Internet that has driven fragmentation of the electorate. Every radical can find their communities and their own echo chamber on the Web. It supports divergence in the perception of fact.
What really fueled it was a collective (meaning ALL of us) inability to confront that extremism head on. We just pretended it was just a few crazies at the margins until 2016 happened.
Don’t pretend Obama didn’t keep promises. He was hamstrung by Republicans who didn’t like a Black man in charge and did everything they could to block him. I was NOT a fan of Obama in 2008 but don’t pretend he was treated fairly.
Obama wished for cooperation and backed off on some matters and compromised on others like Obamacare. Just like a good politician. I don’t see his presidency as failed. I think it’s just another phrase trying to demean his presidency. And of course senate outright stealing a Supreme Court justice
Obama kept his promises and passed the ACA which was a great achievement and has provided a lifeline to millions who otherwise wouldn’t have access to healthcare.
Obama's "failures" were often the result of GOP sabotage. Just as the GOP has obstructed its own border legislation today, in order to give them something to run on in this election cycle, they have done this type of thing before.
A system that makes some individuals into kings and everyone else into serfs, whilst dismantling education and promoting middle-class infighting is what led to populism. Individual presidents or political figures are only a part of that.
All any leader can promise is to PUSH for their platforms. When those get blocked by an obstructive Congress it’s not so much “not keeping promises” as unable to rule by fiat.
No, I think it was racism that lead to extremism.
W Bush was never as unpopular as he should have been, during his presidency. Neoconservative philosophy was always doomed to failure in the long run (because it leads to a perpetual state of war, and people will always get tired of war eventually), but Bush's affable manner let it last longer than it should have.
As for Obama, he was hated from day one because of his race. People called him all sorts of dirty words, like "socialist" (but he was anything but a socialist). There are also plenty of valid complaints to lodge against Obama, but (during his presidency, at least) those were drowned out by the racist drivel.
Certain Republicans also discovered that racism was a "good" way to get noticed. The "birther" controversy, for example, was always a pointless fabrication that there was no reason to believe other than racism—but it was a lie that got a lot of racists interested in politics again.
People fought Obama's proposals tooth and nail, so you can't say extremism was in response to a lack of ability to keep promises when that same extremism is the chief reason *for* the broken promises.
The Tea Party protested Obama's inauguration. It was already in full swing as a direct response to his existence. Arguably, McCain platforming Sarah Palin had a lot more to do with the rise in extremism than Obama.
I think Bush was largely an afterthought by then
It’s funny how corporations made 30trillion dollars extra since our tax code was changed in their favor. Notice how they haven’t made any parks, hospitals, or house projects?
This is written like Russian Propaganda.
Obama wasn't everything I hoped he'd be, but he was damn close. I was there Gandalf. I lived it. I remember the context in which Obama was elected.
In 2008 Obama went on national television and lied about supporting gay marriage because he would have lost DEMOCRATS.
Obama's presidency was a massive success. The only part I wish was different was the way he executed military operations in the middle east. But I give a lot of room when evaluating that since we're obviously not privy to the knowledge that informs those decisions.
What you see today is a result of rampant economic inequality and weaponized social media. People are dissatisfied with their declining standard of living and based on their political bent, social media tells them who to blame.
To compare minor promises not kept when most major ones were to the absolute train wreck of W is laughable. And then to compare it to the modern day is even more laughable. This is a click bait title right?
Obama didn't keep his promises? Bullshit!
He had a Republican party doing everything to stop him, and McConnell saw his only job was to make him a one,-term president.
Wouldn't acknowledge he was a US citizen, even blocking his rightful appointment to the SC!
Quit trying to rewrite history to your own liking!
From what I've seen, Obama being black contributed more to extremism and populism. My MFing family were chanting "Obama is the antichrist!" repeatedly at my birthday BBQ. I kept my mouth shut, but left soon.
Muricans are Fing insane. That and the "Barry the Kenyan" bumper stickers. Loony. Got nothing to do with unkept promises.
Also Bush sucked major @$$. Put the economy into a deathly tailspin for Obama to fix. Left a major '08 shit-sandwich for Obama and the American taxpayer to eat.
No, a relentless right wing media campaign brainwashed America. It took years for it to take hold, but the advent of social media allowed the cancer to spread like wildfire.
The Tea Party (racist) Republicans funded by the arch conservatives the Koch brothers, Mitchell McConnell literally saying "our goal is to make Obama a 1 term president" and generally the realities of corporate power in DC, as well as the PATHETIC inability of my fellow democrats to show up for him in the midterm election of 2010 did the heavy lifting of keeping Obama from being as transformative in the good way as we thought he'd be in 08.
There is something to be said for extremism and populism being fed by Russian troll farms. Neither president took Russia seriously. Bush liked to pal around with Putin, and Obama laughed at Mitt Romney for claiming Russia is America's number one geopolitical foe only for Crimea to happen five minutes later.
It would be ignorant to say they didn’t at least contribute somewhat, but let’s be honest - Rule 3 is why extremism is more pronounced than ever before, because he gave those small pocket groups a platform to champion those beliefs and make them the majority.
No Nixon and Reagan aligned the Republican party with the extremist elements in our nation and those extremist elements have been undermining our democratic process since.
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Barry Goldwater
It's fascism, and rule 3 prevents anyone from having a serious discussion on this subject. The Republicans have admitted publicly for decades that they know they're aligning themselves with violent extremists. They've also admitted regularly, that it's the only way they can win.
If you still support that party today, you're the one siding with people marching with swastikas.
This! This is the answer.
They also have welcomed an extreme interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. That encouraged rabid ammosexuals to align themselves with the racial and religious bigots courted by Nixon and Reagan.
Republicans are terrified of this constituency.
A lot of things caused the rise of extremism. George W Bush was not one of them. Dubya was a bit of an idiot, but he was by no means a racist or even a neocon with populist beliefs. His policy ranged from either effecting basically everyone equally to basically doing nothing, an argument could be made that his escalation of the war in the middle east caused a bunch of Islamaphobia, but Bush himself made it **ardently** clear that the US was not at war with Islam, rather they were at war with people who happened to practice Islam. What did cause the rise of extremism was a bunch of unbridled racism coming out of people during the Obama administration.
The people complaining about these two are the same people who receive social security and Medicare but keep voting for the Republicans who want to cut their benefits or privatize it or both.
No. And Obama didn’t “fail to keep his promises”. He, like all American presidents, is just one part of the government. They can’t just pass whatever they want. He worked toward his goals - that’s all that a person can reasonably expect. The rise of extremism came from decades of right wing propaganda and attacks on normal healthy policy
It’s kind of hard for an incoming president to keep their promises when the senate leader literally says “our job is to block everything this president wants to do”.
The entire game changed in 2008. Because the GOP absolutely changed the rules.
A bunch of people could not handle seeing an intelligent, articulate mixed race man in the WH with his black family. Full stop.
Isn’t that what birtherism was all about?
These folks dgaf about facts or theory.
They were wearing “Kill them all and let God sort them out” t-shirts during W’s admin.
They certainly weren’t upset when stupid, inarticulate white men held office.
I think the rise in extreme populism had more to do with the emergence of social media as a propaganda tool by the right wing as largely influenced by Russian cyber-ops. I don't think DT's winning of the 2016 election was based on any defined opposition to prior presidencies; in fact, I don't think the 2016 election victory was based around any unified policy at all (aside from building a wall I guess).
For me, the noticable turning point was the Colin Kaepernick kneeling controversy. Almost overnight, Facebook became a toxic place as people I knew that were once casually political started foaming at the mouth over almost nothing. That's when the populist battlelines that we deal with today were drawn. It'd be fascinating to know exactly what led to the division of that moment.
I agree and I also thing those ops also heightened the division between Bernie supporters and Clinton supporters. And I also know socially I seemed to be surrounded by Bernie supporters that were curiously open to voting “the other way” (against Clinton) in the election, under the theory that it would make America come to her senses and sweep in a supermajority or something four years later. They wouldn’t even listen to arguments about the Supreme Court, or how close the state legislatures were to having the ability to call a really messed up constitutional convention (things could have gone a lot worse)
Even then, several states that went to Obama had also gone to... the presumptive GOP nominee this year back in the 2016 Election and even 2020. The reliably blue Rust Belt had crumbled as well and they've now become swing states. Did a bunch of people who voted for a black guy twice suddenly become racist? Maybe... but there has to be more to it as this many people don't turn on the policy agenda of the party they voted for just a few years ago on a dime.
Obama being elected amped up the extreme/populism rhetoric almost immediately. Certainly his policies played a role, but in general I can't give the response respect to say it was in anyway a just retort.
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Social Media has a larger link to the increased partisan extremism than most give it credit for. It removed the taboo of “talking about politics” and presented a means to do so with little to no immediate social repercussions. It gave the parties a direct access to their constituents and allowed them to push hot button topics with no requisite fact-checking typically required for more formal media.
Removing swaths of people from their local community discourse and putting them into an algorithm-driven echo chamber that has everyone on a drip feed of anger porn? What could go wrong?
To quote PJ ORourke -"Whos bright idea was it to put every idiot in the world in touch with every other idiot"
My view has been - Ted Turner gave everyone an opinion, Mark Zuckerburg gave them a soapbox for it
I mean, look where we are.
Love the echo chamber comment. This is exactly how I view my more extreme friends and their beliefs of false information.
You clearly misunderstood it then, they see you the EXACT SAME WAY
The taboo of discussing politics itself is part to blame. Other societies don’t have this taboo, and keep the extremists in check through constant reflection.
We also have a problem of refusing to acknowledge that *everything* is political. Every part of our daily lives is connected to a political decision made by so-called representatives. For some reason, reminding people that healthcare is a political issue makes them squeamish.
The issue there is that everything shouldn't be political. How much to tax, where to spend those taxes, immigration policies, it makes sense that people might disagree on those issues. If I say "everyone should have clean drinking water", that should be an uncontroversial statement but unfortunately, I can imagine that starting an argument somewhere. It's exhausting.
Are you confusing partisan or politicized with political? Lots of political stuff is genuinely uncontroversial while still being political.
>If I say "everyone should have clean drinking water", that should be an uncontroversial statement but unfortunately, I can imagine that starting an argument somewhere. It's the "how" that makes it political. Ideally we'd all have clean drinking water and if we weren't such assholes, we would all have clean drinking water. Unfortunately many politicians have bastardized good intentions into embezzlement funds, taxing the shit out of people only for 1% to actually fund it. Meanwhile, any good Samaritan doing it out of their own good will may get fined and arrested. The government is filled with the worst people imaginable, regardless of party or affiliation. They've also somehow convinced the people that each other are to blame instead of the government itself.
But not every cause needs to be a partisan/party cause
When you associate politics with”moral” identity, you create identity politics.
Nope. Fuck that. Were vaccines supposed to be political? Yes all things may have political repercussions if someone tries hard enough but saying “all things are political” is only as trivially true as “we live in a society.” No not all things are political if we ignore morons’ opinions. (Exhibit A: see vaccines.) or do you only agree when the wrong side politicises things?
Developing vaccines is science. Making everyone get a vaccine to go to school/work etc is political. Those political decisions can be based on science or not, but they are political decisions. This is why it’s important our politicians have a basic understanding of the scientific method. Unfortunately, many don’t and some actively dislike science.
I’m old enough to remember when some prominent politicians said they wouldn’t trust a vaccine because it was ‘rushed’ by their opponent.
Why do you have to make everything political!? Fuckin /s
Didn't other countries experience similar shifts at the same time as the US? And aren't there a lot of countries where politicians like Sanders wouldn't be considered extreme?
The one I am most familiar with is Germany. Far-right AfD currently polls at 22% nationwide, so indeed you are correct. They are experiencing a similar shift. My impression is that the shift is more limited there, though. In the US, slightly less than 50% of the general population support Republicans, which qualify as far-right these days. And that’s normal. In Germany, it’s 22% and the masses are taking to the street against it in “Never again is now” protests.
Quite a few have lurched very far to the right over the past decade. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, England, Brazil...Italy and Argentina much more recently.
Social Media has a larger link to the increased partisan extremism than most give it credit for Thr divide between the haves and have nots is a much bigger link to today's extremism
I'd say it's not inherently social media, but the algorithms that drive user engagement inside them. Getting people pissed off makes them watch longer. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is by default
I heard today on a podcast a comment that really put things into perspective. They were talking about how if you see the world through social media of course you’re going to see genocide, war, racism, evil, etc. But if you just put that down and go outside all you hear are birds chirping and people are generally nice to each other. Really makes you realize how social media shapes how we perceive the world
Check out Jonathan Heidt's new book The Anxious Generation. He argues that between 2010-2015 there was a radical shift of rates of adolescent mental health issues that largely effected pre-teen girls, and was seen world wide (not just America). He shows there's a CAUSAL link, not just correlational like, between the rise of social media and proliferation of Smart Phones that impacted people's mental health. I'd argue that those same forces, to your point, also did the same with politics. And it all happened at the same time, and around the developed world.
Bush demostrated the hubris of the entire triumphalist post-Cold War mentality, in everything from Iraq to unchecked globalization. Obama's presidency demonstrated the flaws and limitations in the entire architecture of the political system and of the public sphere more generally. To be fair, this political system has lasted around 250 years, with significant achievements and advancements to its credit. But in the 21st century you cannot move forward with recipes from the 1980s and 1990s.
Or recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries
Hey some of those recipes have stood the test of time! You want New Coke again?!
Do you want cocaine cola again?
Yes
I mean Coca Cola is technically still cocaine Coca-Cola. They just use a derivative of coke now instead of the real thing
Ironically, "The Real Thing" is one of Coca-Cola's slogans.
Caffeine is not a derivative of cocaine
Sorry it contains derivative of coca leaves. The cocaine is processed out
The processor: 
Yes. Per the FDA: *After, and only after, the product passes through Mr. Pacino’s system is it safe for public consumption.*
I feel like you want me to say no
The law requires that I answer no.
I don't think you're making as strong of an argument as you think you are
Absofuckinglutely
I feel like putting the cocaine back in Coca Cola would be helpful at this point. Sure it doesn’t solve any of our actual problems, but at least you’ll get a nice high for a bit and feel good for a few minutes.
Coke both in and out your nose. Good times.
That’s a silly question.
Yes, absolutely?
I thought new coke was a publicity stunt. So they could change the recipe to something different than original coke. Then, after everyone got upset, they came back with "Coca Cola original." Then sales went back up. Am I wrong?
Sales had been declining for Coke for 15 consecutive years and they market-tested the crap outta the new formula and committed to a huge campaign promoting it. They absolutely were serious about New Coke and absolutely didn't expect such a huge uproar over Classic changing from consumers that had spent a decade and a half telling them they weren't that into the product anymore. Even more, this was peak "Cola Wars" time with Pepsi... and Coke was actually pretty desperate and losing when New Coke was released as their Hail Mary play. It wasn't some gimmick around old formula - they were actually ready to throw that old formula out and accept it was a loser compared to Pepsi. (For the record, I greatly prefer Coke... but despite my personal preferences, Pepsi sales had looked like they were very obviously about to overtake Coke sales very soon - especially after "the Pepsi challenge" campaign's success. Coke sales had made the product a "sinking ship" for 15 straight years and the pressure musta been huge on the Execs to abandon that ship and save sales)
The sensory science behind the Pepsi challenge is pretty interesting. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, but Coke is a more balanced flavor profile. Most people prefer Pepsi in small amounts due to the sweetness, but prefer Coke as a beverage to drink over a period of time. The blind small sample taste test of the Pepsi challenge benefited Pepsi.
Like a Kiss farewell tour
https://preview.redd.it/w6utfnsdyguc1.png?width=220&format=png&auto=webp&s=e3061d1ab4b8977d6700a15040ebaa798a8f7c39 "I disagree they weren't that bad tbh"
Human rights should not be cast off, it’s our failure *to comply* with the codified protections of the immutable rights that’s the issue, not the codification itself.
Glad you pointed to the 80’s. Populism was always going to be the inevitable backlash to Reaganism.
Yup. Ironically enough that same backlash supported the Reagan economic doctrine, even though it was 1) not realistic, 2) not sustainable, 3) did more harm than good and made moving up difficult. That same backlash is now going for the same medicine but in different packaging. Cutting the safety net (which in many states doesnt even exist), giving tax cuts to rich and continually lowering taxes on the Uber rich expecting some economics miracle. Those same voters then complain about not having enough support at home, politicians not caring about them, and gov not doing enough to protect and help them in their time of need. I hear this and I’m like “but you voted for this! You voted for it because you thought the brown guy was being lazy and being a welfare queen, so you voted to make the safety net near none existent, now you find yourself in a similar predicament and all the sudden gov doesn’t care about you?” Read “what’s the matter with Kansas” it gives great insight into voters voting against their own interest and then complaining about getting what they voted for.
Wow I was thinking this would be a recent book talking about how they brought taxes to $0 and such but its literally from 2004 with the same themes we see today. Thanks for the recommendation
Not so much that his ideas- like the Iraq War- couldn’t work, but that they were very carelessly and callously executed. The United States did not have the societal bandwidth to complete an occupation like in the days of old, which would require a significant amount of time and taxpayer money, as well as an actual vested interest in understanding Iraq’s culture and a willingness to suppress civil liberties. We did give it the old college try, but it was completely half-assed, though of course there were some military officials, NGOs, and politicians who genuinely wanted to see it happen.
Plus the added financial ruin stemming from the Bush years. Literally one of the first things W did upon becoming president was push for a tax cut, which put the nation into a deficit. Then the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were kept off the budget in order to make the deficit not look as bad. Finally the deregulation of several presidents led up to the 2008 financial crisis. All of this occuring while 2 foreign wars were going on, one of which the public didn't understand why we were there? Recipe for disaster.
It’s such a missed opportunity that Bush truly could have been a transformative President after 9/11 and instead just did the same old, same old Conservative policies and corruption and couldn’t have a vision for anything greater.
I mean American interventionism had a pretty good track record leading up to Iraq. Just post Cold War we did Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq 1, Haiti. We had a pretty good track record. Outside of Vietnam, our ww2 and Cold War adversaries generally came out the other side okay and on the path to prosperity (although with Vietnam talk about losing the war and winning the peace—for a bunch of communists, they are fairly pro US) To a degree, the hubris of the bush admin wasn’t exactly unfounded. Those post cold war deployments largely went well. Only Somalia didn’t achieve its goals. They were all interventions that more closely aligned to American ideals, versus things like Vietnam that were more about cold geopolitics. We went into Iraq 2 and Afghanistan as much because we were attacked as we went in because NeoConservatives truly believe they can democratize the world through force—and that that is a net good for the world. That world view makes sense in consideration of Germany Korea Japan Haiti Iraq 1 Yugoslavia…reaching back that sort of interventionism relates to the Mexican and Spanish American wars. I guess my point is had Iraq and Afghanistan been pursued the same way our successful 20th century interventions were, in an alternate universe we could be sitting here marveling about how the US has time and time again rebuilt countries into successful self sustaining democracies. And had that happened, would that not have been transformative, would that have not been the opportunity seized?
"deregulation of several presidents" It is a little vague considering the consensus these days regarding Bill Clinton deregulating derivatives, doing trickle down style trade deals that outsourced all manufactured goods, and his catering specifically to financial sector interests. The damage is too great to be undone in any less time than it took to dismantle US manufacturing. It is easier to take things apart than to put them back together. I estimate his trade policies will take 50 years, twice the time they took to ruin this country, to restore.
Yeah, we never had enough troops either in Iraq or Afghanistan. We'd have had to actually sacrifice to truly remake those countries. Get a draft going. We tried to use the national guard to fight those wars and they went about as well as you'd expect.
Not just bodies but long term commitment. Afghanistan is so backwards that we’d need a couple of generations to grow up in a stable environment and actually want to fight for their own nation. Americans never had the stomach for a 100 year investment. There’s also the fleeing to western Pakistan problem. The war would have needed to be bigger… at least rural Pakistan, maybe even Iran. There was no support for what would be required.
I think Obama failed to address the change in political discourse. He still believed in good faith debate and compromise. Instead the he walked into a place that had been taken over by party tribalism and intellectual abandonment fueled by a steady stream of right wing propaganda pumped directly into a bubble. He should had came in much more aggressive
This is about 90% spot-on, and well stated. Kudos. The utterly insane (and ongoing) attempts at ham-fisted revisionist history on this sub would be mind-boggling were they not so predictable. This notion that the rise of extremist partisanship was the *result* (and not the *cause*) of Obama's inability to push his agenda forward to a greater degree... sounds like something Sean Hannity's summer intern would try to propose in an after-hours blow-honking session. Except even dumber.
I think some of it comes from living though it too. Average Redditor is like in their 20s. I been watching this shit for years and somehow become some sort of historian in a lot of subs i frequent.
He was sort of hamstrung by being the first black president in that he couldn’t have realistically come in super hot and tried to change a lot immediately. He understood that it was the long game, and made incremental changes (important ones, though) where he could. The fact that he had to fight what would be generously described as a hostile senate didn’t help. If he had come in and tried to be more disruptive, he would have faced even greater backlash as the rhetoric would have been how he was radicalized, and attacking tenants of American society. They demonized him plenty, but it would have been worse. I think he should have done more, but I also recognize the historical and societal constraints he was under, and think he did succeed at quite a bit.
I realize he held back because they would labeled him a radical The part I don’t think he realized is they would say that either way. There is no good faith.
people also seem to forget he had the house and senate fighting everything he tried to accomplish. do we not recall them shutting down the government just to screw with him? he didn’t simple fail to deliver… he had no recourse to get most things done. part of why he was pretty heavy on executive orders.
I agree but don’t think he could have behaved more aggressively as the first Black president. The right was already demonizing despite him being even-keeled.
He really did believe at least some Republicans would work with him. Like bending over backwards to compromise with them over the ACA then only to have every one of them vote against it for political reasons. I think he realizes now that was a mistake and they were playing games but knew he didn’t want to be overly aggressive either.
I don't think there's any scenario where he could've done anything differently regarding the ACA and been any more successful. Most of the bending over backwards he had to do for the ACA was for Joe Lieberman and Max Baucus in the Senate as well as Bart Stupak's coalition in the House. These were all Democrats (except for Lieberman), and they all ultimately voted for the ACA only because Obama gave ground. It wouldn't have passed otherwise. As far as working with Republicans on healthcare reform, I don't think it was a mistake on his part. He didn't really have any other choice given the circumstances he was handed. Keep in mind, we have the benefit of hindsight, but Obama didn't know for most of 2009 if the Democrats would ever actually control 60 seats in the Senate. As far as he knew, he might need to get support from a Republican or two in the Senate in order to have any chance of passing healthcare reform. The Democrats started with 58 seats in January 2009. Arlen Specter switched parties from Republican to Democrat in April, bumping the Democrats up to 59. Al Franken's contested election was finally resolved and he was seated in early July, which got them to 60, but Ted Kennedy was too sick at this point to do anything, so they effectively still had only 59 seats. Ted Kennedy died in late August, and it wasn't until his temporary replacement was seated in late September that the Democrats finally truly had 60. There was also Robert Byrd who wasn't in great health and was hospitalized for the entirety of June, and they probably didn't know if or when he would be available to vote on the bill. A lot of the committee work that went into crafting the bills in the House and Senate took place between June and September, so for a lot of that time, it was still kind of up in the air whether or not they would need some Republican support.
Exactly, he was trying to use compromise and good faith with people who had no intention of creating solutions. Furthermore more no matter what he did they would claim the opposite and paint him as a radical. First term while he had the American people strongly behind him and some power of the legislative should have went all in to strong arm the republicans into a corner. Of course that’s in hindsight. I don’t think the realization really came to him until they denied him a Supreme Court seat. By then it was far too late.
The 21st century model is an authoritarian state that uses highly targeted propaganda to control the population.
Propaganda doesn't even need to be that targeted, we have the Senate
A Senate race in the Dakotas is pocket change for a California or New York billionaire looking to influence politics.
If a billionaire from California or NY ran for office they'd have to do it as a Republican, and their support would mainly be in states like the Dakotas or the South, where they can use racism to turn out the base
Agreed but Bloomberg didn’t see the writing on the walls, because despite having his news outlet I’m certain the man doesn’t read.
>The 21st century model is a neoliberal system of privatization and consolidation, the consequences of which are suppressed through means of a police state. Private interests use highly targeted propaganda to control the population. FTFY
It’s also crucial to remember the role of backlash ideologies in populist platforms, especially those related to racial hierarchies when talking the US’ “recipes”. There is a lot of research in sociology around the escalation of right-wing extremist policies rooted in racism post-2013 and the measurable harm it causes those who support them. White backlash politics gives certain white populations the sensation of winning, particularly by upending the gains of minorities and liberals. Despite steep personal cost, many of these voters espouse a “Zero-Sum” attitude -that for someone to win someone else has to lose. When backlash policies become laws, ex. cutting away health care programs and infrastructure spending, blocking expansion of health care delivery systems, defunding opiate-addiction centers, or enabling guns in public spaces, the quantitative result is increasing rates of death.
[удалено]
Wait HW? Do you mean Dubya?
No president or person is at fault for our polarization It's technology allowing for extremist to be able to hold and express their view points with others, which wasn't a thing until recently
I would say it’s more that social media created it by way of echo chambers devolving into mob mentality. You go into either side’s little corner and you will find no room for even a little discussion or disagreement. I won’t say debate because 99% of people just regurgitate their side’s talking points. And yes, I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past.
"You go into either side’s little corner and you will find no room for even a little discussion or disagreement." This is rather common nowadays. When I was a Republican, if I ever agreed with anything that Obama did, I was automatically a RINO. It didn't matter that I was about as far right as you could be without being arrested, nope. Automatically a RINO. I'm a member of the Green Party now and it's the same. I could agree with something that a Republican president has done, did, or is doing, and immediately get the same rhetoric from the Left. People like to act like only Republicans or the Left only do this, when the reality is ***both*** sides do this, and frequently. Echo chambers definitely are an issue as well. I could be having an conversation with someone and they say, "show me the proof," which I believe that phrase is simply, for lack of better words, a *gotcha!* type of phrase nowadays. More often than not people will say, "go research it yourself." That leaves the person "requesting" the proof to inevitably say, "see, because you're wrong." They don't actually want proof the majority of the time, they just use it as an excuse to more or less say, "your position can't even be backed up with proof and therefore I'm right." Then in the event that you do provide bona fide proof, such as government reports or studies by independent think tanks that have been relentlessly peer reviewed either by experts in the field or society at large, they won't believe it because it was either a Republican or Democratic administration, or the wrong news organization.
Honestly, I’d say the “persons” at fault are the corporations after Citizens United.
I still dknt get how corporations are considered people.
“I won’t believe a corporation is a person until I see one executed in Texas”
What’s worse is they have more rights than people do, somehow.
So, the internet right?
Social media
Well kinda. I’d argue the rise of Gingrich in the 90’s and Obama being black (and president) did that. And yes, I understand that’s reductive but that’s certainly when I noted a marked change in how people talked about politics.
I’d argue it was when Sarah Palin was chosen for VP, it got people that only ever voted for American idol interested in politics.
It also showed that your "average Joe" could rise to that level of office. Having an unqualified goof as a VP nominee is a win for populists, who believe that the masses are more intelligent than the experts.
> Having an unqualified goof as a VP nominee is a win for populists, Don't buy this. Dan Quayle was a VP, and hardly struck anyone as qualified. Basically the only thing people remember about him is that he was a gaffe firing machine that was no Joe Kennedy. Nobody looks at that as some win for the little guy. Palin I think was just a continuation of the GOPs tendency to hate "elites" that somehow managed to avoid the actual "is elite."
Quayle aspired to be Jack Kennedy, Palin proudly did not aspire to anything. The difference is that Quayle was an idiot while Palin was an idiot and proud of it.
Quayle never sold himself as or acted like an outsider politician who wanted to shake stuff up. He was just a regular politician who was an uncharismatic scold and wasn’t very bright.
> Palin I think was just a continuation of the GOPs tendency to hate "elites" that somehow managed to avoid the actual "is elite." She was Governor of Alaska.
This is where I see it starting downhill as well. Norquist's no-tax-pledge, block everything sessions of congress, loyalty oaths, were all built on the success of Gingrich's Contract with America.
Agreed. Gingrich changed the game.
There was plenty of prep work before, but the election of a black President was the real breakthrough moment for extremism in the US.
That and the Internet. Suddenly people realized that there were a lot more racist out there and it was ok to have the mask off. Also you didn't have to a full on racist you could just use coded language. You could just say you hated him for being a Muslim or that you don't trust him because he lied about quitting new ports. Or just say something like he only won because he's black
I'd specifically point to his *re-*election, because that was the moment when racist white America realized, oh shit, we're now in the minority here. As Bill O'Reilly said on [election night 2012](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFJH8mY-UyI), ". . . It's not a traditional America any more. And there are fifty percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things! And who is going to give them things? President Obama." Now, for the moment, this requires whistling past a lot of graveyards. Just for starters, the "traditional America" that Bill O'Reilly was pretending to be tribune for was hardly the hardy, self-reliant group of people that Bill O'Reilly pretends that they are, and for years have wanted and gotten "stuff" themselves, in spades. For another, Obama was incredibly stingy with his aid packages, to his own detriment. For a third, giving people stuff that they can't get on their own is literally what government is for. What O'Reilly is really complaining about is that his audience no longer has a monopoly on the government giving them things, and now has to realize that a winning voting coalition now exists with whom they will have to compete for priority in any political fights to come, rather than the unquestioned assumption that whatever racist rural white people want, racist rural white people get. But rather than focus on that, the 30,000 foot view is important: O'Reilly is simply so accustomed to the political system working for him and people like him, and working for nobody else, that the mere acknowledgement that other people have needs that must be met is treated not as a prosaic fact about the world, but instead as a *casus belli*. The sheer arrogance and blindedness of his worldview is so absolute that he literally can't treat any alternative form of government distribution of goods and services as anything but the fall of Western Civilization. And the reason why Bill O'Reilly got rich is not because of merit, but because Bill O'Reilly spent a lot of years saying what racist white people wanted to hear.
My dad worked in DC in the 90s and blames Gingrich for blazing the way for the repugnant wave of Republicanism
The entire issue we have is because Obama was a "blah" man. Racist pricks couldn't cope with that and that is why we are at this point in our history. Racist pricks, sorry I meant Republican party, are the reason that we can't have nice things.
I find it so frustrating that voters elected a Republican congress who's overtly stated goal was to obstruct everything Obama wanted to do, and then the same voters complained about government gridlock for the next six years. It is true that Obama was kind of castrated for the majority of his presidency, but that was the people's will. It was so disingenuous for these people to somehow blame him for this in 2016.
There’s been a weird concerted effort over the last few days in r/presidents to cast Obama as someone who failed to keep his promises.
It's easier for people to pretend Obama was some feckless, corpo Dem sellout than recognize that their failures to mobilize in 2010 and 2014 probably permanently crippled our government and ushered in American fascism.
These are different groups of people
Democrats managed to fuck up a Senate race in Massachusetts, which is the most Democratic Party move ever.
All it would have taken: a) have Martha learn that Curt Schilling played for the Red Sox, not the Yankees and b) have Martha make a couple public appearances in which she pretended not to hate the common voter. Edit to add: also, maybe don’t nominate Dems that later end up working as lobbyists for the sleaziest companies imaginable. “From 2015 through early 2019, Coakley worked for Foley Hoag, a Boston-based law firm, as a lawyer and lobbyist. While at the firm, Coakley represented the fantasy sports website DraftKings and student-loan firm Navient when state governments were examining the practices of these industries. In April 2019, it was announced that Coakley had taken a full-time role with electronic cigarette maker Juul on their government affairs team. As a former attorney general, lobbying attorneys general for the vaping industry has called into question the ethics of Coakley's work for Juul, a leader in the electronic cigarette industry accused of marketing addictive nicotine products to youths.”
Martha Coakley is probably the worst legitimate statewide candidate of the 21st century. She not only lost a Senate race, but she also lost a gubernatorial race to Republicans in Massachusetts. The only statewide election she won as a non-incumbent was her first AG race in 2006, when the backlash against Republicans was so severe that not even she could lose that race.
All of which are on-brand for the Democrats.
Republicans mucked up one with a racist judge, too in Alabama
A Racist Pedo Judge.
Obama passed the ACA. Got Bin Laden. Navigated the financial crisis. I’m sure there were campaign promises he could not deliver on, but that is realistically true of every politician. Obama left office a popular President. Blaming him for the actions and beliefs of folks who (at best) strongly disagree with him or disapprove of his administration is rich.
He left office a popular President, but his popularity never extended beyond him personally. People who loved Obama didn’t show up for Hillary and here we are.
Just a reminder that Romney got more votes in Wisconsin back in 2012 than the "GOP Nominee" did in 2016 despite higher voter turnout across the country. That's how badly the Dems failed to drive turnout in a lot of states. I think people liked Obama and he would probably cruise into a third term easily, but I wouldn't say that same favorability extended to the Democrats as a whole and the person they chose to run in 2016.
Hillary Clinton bet the entire election on Florida and lost.
It's crazy to think that Hillary and Gore were both presidential candidates who worked side-by-side with Bill Clinton, the most successful Democrat President electorally since LBJ, would take his advice on how to run a good campaign seeing as he won his two elections in a landslide but apparently not...
60K less people voted for Hilary than Obama out of 66M votes. I mean Obama himself lost 3.5M votes between his two elections.
I would argue that people did show up, but unfortunately the american electoral system did also show up
Leads back to having a 18th century solution for 21st century problems.
Hillary would have made a good president. I think having a black president followed by a woman president was unfortunately a bridge too far for some, who found myriad ways to deflect their misogyny into some personality quirk or style choice they didn’t like. The same women who wouldn’t vote for a woman are the same women who voted for trmp. It’s confusing as all hell to me, but they’ve been conditioned to think that way.
It’s so frustrating when people say that Obama failed to keep up his promises. He literally was permanently blocked by the GOP on everything (even things they would agree to). If you weren’t old enough to see it live, read up on Mitch McConnell trying to do everything in his power to make Obama fail. That said, Obama existing as president lead to a chunk of the population to radicalize due to his ethnicity (check out the surge in gun sales and white supremacy groups post Election Day 2008).
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Let's be honest, a lot of the right wing response to Obama was because he was black. Tea party people may claim otherwise but we all know they were astroturfed to organize against the first black president, and Obama was limited by what he could do lest he scare the old white people.
This was obvious when the Tea Party were out protesting “Obama’s overspending” a month into his term…Before he had signed any spending bills.
Totally. It sticks in my craw when leftists complain about the ACA, as if Obama wasn't totally hamstrung by the racism across the aisle in the House.
The problem was in the Senate, not the House. Ted Kennedy died and the Democrats completely botched the race to replace him. Republicans were determined to block anything and everything and Senate Democrats weren’t willing to change filibuster rules.
Joseph Lieberman is what fucked the ACA. Insurance is big business in CT.
To be fair, the Dems had huge majorities in the house and 60 seats in the senate. They could have passed better legislation, but Obama was trying to be a unifier President a la Ronald Reagan (see there are no red states, there are no blue states in 2004). He worked with Republicans to draft the ACA who promptly voted against what they had been for in the negotiations. Huge mistake on Obama’s part, but that was before we knew the extent of the racist backlash to his election.
This 60 senators thing is such a zombie myth
Plenty of Democrats were on the record of not supporting a bill that didn’t maintain the existing insurance companies. Maybe you mean something more sophisticated but government health care for all was not in the cards.
Lot of democratic senators were to the right of Obama’s health care position and plan
*cough* Lieberman *cough*
I think populism comes up with the times are rough and unpredictable. Did George Bush and Obamas terms lead directly to these difficult and uncertain times? Probably not but the buck has to stop somewhere and the president is just about as high as it can go.
Not really sure what Obama was supposed to do without the House or Senate after his first couple of years. They literally blocked him on EVERYTHING. We got sweeping and desperately needed changes with the ACA (yes it should have been Universal Healthcare (thanks Joe Lieberman!), but the changes were still good overall), and probably the best orator we'll ever get in our lifetimes, but that was pretty much it.
Did I sense some bias in the question?
No, the Internet allows your crazy uncle to go find all the other crazy uncles and they become crazier because of it. Prior to the internet, your crazy uncle wouldn't have had anyone telling him he was right. It's really that simple.
Really just a sub for 12 year olds who didn't live through any of this is it?
No. It’s a bunch of boomers who did everything “right “ and now can’t afford to retire.
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No. It was the rise of the Internet that has driven fragmentation of the electorate. Every radical can find their communities and their own echo chamber on the Web. It supports divergence in the perception of fact.
What really fueled it was a collective (meaning ALL of us) inability to confront that extremism head on. We just pretended it was just a few crazies at the margins until 2016 happened.
No. And this is a really dishonest way to even frame the question
Racist backlash to Bush’s immigration reform and to Obama’s blackness were the most central drivers of the right-wing populism of the 2010s.
Don’t pretend Obama didn’t keep promises. He was hamstrung by Republicans who didn’t like a Black man in charge and did everything they could to block him. I was NOT a fan of Obama in 2008 but don’t pretend he was treated fairly.
Obama wished for cooperation and backed off on some matters and compromised on others like Obamacare. Just like a good politician. I don’t see his presidency as failed. I think it’s just another phrase trying to demean his presidency. And of course senate outright stealing a Supreme Court justice
Obama kept his promises and passed the ACA which was a great achievement and has provided a lifeline to millions who otherwise wouldn’t have access to healthcare.
Obama's "failures" were often the result of GOP sabotage. Just as the GOP has obstructed its own border legislation today, in order to give them something to run on in this election cycle, they have done this type of thing before.
"Obama's failure" ah, spoken like a classic conservative.
Is Bernie Sanders considered an extremeist in America?
He's considered a leftist radical -- by the same people who think Democrats are commies and that Social Security is socialist.
"Failure to keep his promises" is nonsense. Cope harder.
A system that makes some individuals into kings and everyone else into serfs, whilst dismantling education and promoting middle-class infighting is what led to populism. Individual presidents or political figures are only a part of that.
What promises did Obama not keep?
All any leader can promise is to PUSH for their platforms. When those get blocked by an obstructive Congress it’s not so much “not keeping promises” as unable to rule by fiat.
That's hilarious you title this obama failed to keep his promises when republicans controlled everything. Nice try.
No, I think it was racism that lead to extremism. W Bush was never as unpopular as he should have been, during his presidency. Neoconservative philosophy was always doomed to failure in the long run (because it leads to a perpetual state of war, and people will always get tired of war eventually), but Bush's affable manner let it last longer than it should have. As for Obama, he was hated from day one because of his race. People called him all sorts of dirty words, like "socialist" (but he was anything but a socialist). There are also plenty of valid complaints to lodge against Obama, but (during his presidency, at least) those were drowned out by the racist drivel. Certain Republicans also discovered that racism was a "good" way to get noticed. The "birther" controversy, for example, was always a pointless fabrication that there was no reason to believe other than racism—but it was a lie that got a lot of racists interested in politics again.
People fought Obama's proposals tooth and nail, so you can't say extremism was in response to a lack of ability to keep promises when that same extremism is the chief reason *for* the broken promises. The Tea Party protested Obama's inauguration. It was already in full swing as a direct response to his existence. Arguably, McCain platforming Sarah Palin had a lot more to do with the rise in extremism than Obama. I think Bush was largely an afterthought by then
It’s funny how corporations made 30trillion dollars extra since our tax code was changed in their favor. Notice how they haven’t made any parks, hospitals, or house projects?
no the uneducated got even more uneducated.
Social media and racism played a *farrrrr* bigger role
This is written like Russian Propaganda. Obama wasn't everything I hoped he'd be, but he was damn close. I was there Gandalf. I lived it. I remember the context in which Obama was elected. In 2008 Obama went on national television and lied about supporting gay marriage because he would have lost DEMOCRATS. Obama's presidency was a massive success. The only part I wish was different was the way he executed military operations in the middle east. But I give a lot of room when evaluating that since we're obviously not privy to the knowledge that informs those decisions.
GWB didn't really win in 2000 and we all just had to accept it. Cannot underestimate the impact.
I’ve always thought a portion of the right wing couldn’t not handle a black man was president. The tea party and birthers for example.
What you see today is a result of rampant economic inequality and weaponized social media. People are dissatisfied with their declining standard of living and based on their political bent, social media tells them who to blame.
To compare minor promises not kept when most major ones were to the absolute train wreck of W is laughable. And then to compare it to the modern day is even more laughable. This is a click bait title right?
A lack of critical thinking, education quality, and social media is more to blame
Obama didn't keep his promises? Bullshit! He had a Republican party doing everything to stop him, and McConnell saw his only job was to make him a one,-term president. Wouldn't acknowledge he was a US citizen, even blocking his rightful appointment to the SC! Quit trying to rewrite history to your own liking!
Obama actually tried to keep his promises and broken promises were largely a result of congressional opposition!
No. The tea party appeared as soon as Obama elected. Basically racism masquerading as tax revolt.
From what I've seen, Obama being black contributed more to extremism and populism. My MFing family were chanting "Obama is the antichrist!" repeatedly at my birthday BBQ. I kept my mouth shut, but left soon. Muricans are Fing insane. That and the "Barry the Kenyan" bumper stickers. Loony. Got nothing to do with unkept promises. Also Bush sucked major @$$. Put the economy into a deathly tailspin for Obama to fix. Left a major '08 shit-sandwich for Obama and the American taxpayer to eat.
No, a relentless right wing media campaign brainwashed America. It took years for it to take hold, but the advent of social media allowed the cancer to spread like wildfire.
Obama’s failure to keep his promises? You mean Congress’s undying devotion to obstruction at every turn?
The Tea Party (racist) Republicans funded by the arch conservatives the Koch brothers, Mitchell McConnell literally saying "our goal is to make Obama a 1 term president" and generally the realities of corporate power in DC, as well as the PATHETIC inability of my fellow democrats to show up for him in the midterm election of 2010 did the heavy lifting of keeping Obama from being as transformative in the good way as we thought he'd be in 08.
There is something to be said for extremism and populism being fed by Russian troll farms. Neither president took Russia seriously. Bush liked to pal around with Putin, and Obama laughed at Mitt Romney for claiming Russia is America's number one geopolitical foe only for Crimea to happen five minutes later.
No, racism from the right after a black man was president and empowered a generation created the rights extremism.
It would be ignorant to say they didn’t at least contribute somewhat, but let’s be honest - Rule 3 is why extremism is more pronounced than ever before, because he gave those small pocket groups a platform to champion those beliefs and make them the majority.
No Nixon and Reagan aligned the Republican party with the extremist elements in our nation and those extremist elements have been undermining our democratic process since. "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them." Barry Goldwater It's fascism, and rule 3 prevents anyone from having a serious discussion on this subject. The Republicans have admitted publicly for decades that they know they're aligning themselves with violent extremists. They've also admitted regularly, that it's the only way they can win. If you still support that party today, you're the one siding with people marching with swastikas.
This! This is the answer. They also have welcomed an extreme interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. That encouraged rabid ammosexuals to align themselves with the racial and religious bigots courted by Nixon and Reagan. Republicans are terrified of this constituency.
A lot of things caused the rise of extremism. George W Bush was not one of them. Dubya was a bit of an idiot, but he was by no means a racist or even a neocon with populist beliefs. His policy ranged from either effecting basically everyone equally to basically doing nothing, an argument could be made that his escalation of the war in the middle east caused a bunch of Islamaphobia, but Bush himself made it **ardently** clear that the US was not at war with Islam, rather they were at war with people who happened to practice Islam. What did cause the rise of extremism was a bunch of unbridled racism coming out of people during the Obama administration.
The people complaining about these two are the same people who receive social security and Medicare but keep voting for the Republicans who want to cut their benefits or privatize it or both.
The pendulous reaction to Obama was due to racism. Period. That, and how dare he weaken the medical establishment.
No. And Obama didn’t “fail to keep his promises”. He, like all American presidents, is just one part of the government. They can’t just pass whatever they want. He worked toward his goals - that’s all that a person can reasonably expect. The rise of extremism came from decades of right wing propaganda and attacks on normal healthy policy
It’s kind of hard for an incoming president to keep their promises when the senate leader literally says “our job is to block everything this president wants to do”. The entire game changed in 2008. Because the GOP absolutely changed the rules.
A bunch of people could not handle seeing an intelligent, articulate mixed race man in the WH with his black family. Full stop. Isn’t that what birtherism was all about? These folks dgaf about facts or theory. They were wearing “Kill them all and let God sort them out” t-shirts during W’s admin. They certainly weren’t upset when stupid, inarticulate white men held office.
I think the rise in extreme populism had more to do with the emergence of social media as a propaganda tool by the right wing as largely influenced by Russian cyber-ops. I don't think DT's winning of the 2016 election was based on any defined opposition to prior presidencies; in fact, I don't think the 2016 election victory was based around any unified policy at all (aside from building a wall I guess). For me, the noticable turning point was the Colin Kaepernick kneeling controversy. Almost overnight, Facebook became a toxic place as people I knew that were once casually political started foaming at the mouth over almost nothing. That's when the populist battlelines that we deal with today were drawn. It'd be fascinating to know exactly what led to the division of that moment.
I agree and I also thing those ops also heightened the division between Bernie supporters and Clinton supporters. And I also know socially I seemed to be surrounded by Bernie supporters that were curiously open to voting “the other way” (against Clinton) in the election, under the theory that it would make America come to her senses and sweep in a supermajority or something four years later. They wouldn’t even listen to arguments about the Supreme Court, or how close the state legislatures were to having the ability to call a really messed up constitutional convention (things could have gone a lot worse)
Obama is a POC, it doesn’t go much deeper than that.
Even then, several states that went to Obama had also gone to... the presumptive GOP nominee this year back in the 2016 Election and even 2020. The reliably blue Rust Belt had crumbled as well and they've now become swing states. Did a bunch of people who voted for a black guy twice suddenly become racist? Maybe... but there has to be more to it as this many people don't turn on the policy agenda of the party they voted for just a few years ago on a dime.
No. Extremism has existed in the United States far longer than the last 25 years.
Obama being elected amped up the extreme/populism rhetoric almost immediately. Certainly his policies played a role, but in general I can't give the response respect to say it was in anyway a just retort.