Obama gives 'State of our Democracy' speech

Bullseye said:

It's an uphill battle. Since the day Trump was elected, the economy started improving, in spite of the left's damnedest efforts to stop it or distort the results. From the start of week of the 2016 elections to the end of it the DJIA gained almost a thousand points. Be the time he was inaugurated it was up nearly 3000. And since then we've seen over a 30% increase. While our beloved progressive friends try to poo-poo that as benefiting only the rich they conveniently ignore that fact that nearly 50% of all families have market exposure through mutual funds, stock ownership plans, direct ownership or through variously retirement plans, including public pensions. They chirp about "tax cuts for the rich" even though even LW studies say 80-95% of families see benefits. They conveniently ignore the millions of employees that saw immediate wage increases, bonuses and benefits upgrades. They bad mouth an economy creating job openings so fast they outnumber the today unemployed. They don't see workers who totally gave up or those forced to accept part time work rejoining the full time workforce. They ignore minority unemployment dropping to approach white or Asian levels. I could go on but I think the point is obvious:

Trump isn't a nice guy​

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Obama's economy was improving, without inflating the deficit. The federal deficit is skyrocketing under Trump...

Media_Truth said:

Obama's economy was improving, without inflating the deficit. The federal deficit is skyrocketing under Trump...

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To the Right, deficits only matter when the Dems are in office.

Nap said:

So if you are trying to put out a fire, is the proper response to pour gasoline on it? This is essentially the Democrats response to the fire you believe was started by Republicans.

You seem to believe this is a recent phenomenon caused by Trump, Obama was correct in that Trump was a symptom rather than the cause however the cause is the constant demonization of the Republicans as racist and hateful. Trump was essentially them saying they weren't going to take it anymore.

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No, you put out a fire by first acknowledging the fire. The GOP refuses to see their fire. The GOP absolutely started this garbage and it has been the GOP that has been the driving force behind it, long before conservatives rubbed shoulders with neo-Nazis at Trump rallies. The history is very clear:

- It was Newt Gingrich that shocked his own Party by insisting that Republicans denigrate Congress and Democrats with extremist rhetoric in 1979.
- From 7 filibusters a year in the 1970s to 80 in 1993-1994 against Clinton.
- With Gingrich as Speaker of the House, the GOP adopted a documented "no compromise" approach.
- The impeachment tool was reduced to merely a partisan tool and employed over a technicality just to get Clinton.
- The House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay instructed Bush in 2000 that the GOP policy is to "not work with Democrats."
- Throughout Bush's Presidency, Republicans abused redistricting and gerrymandered all across the nation.
- Right-wing media outlets (like FOX News) began promoting stories that linked Democrats to Al-Qaeda in the years following 9/11.
- McCain had to correct voters who wanted to declare Obama an Arab as his running mate pushed the idea of Obama being a terrorist and unAmerican.
- Characters like Gingrich, Giuliani, and Trump sought to de-legitimize Obama through the "birther movement."
- House members, led by Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan made the GOP the documented "Party of No," which meant that their plan was to not cooperate ever.
- The Tea Party intimidated and down right bullied conservative candidates into extremist positions, casting aside those conservatives who were moderate in the 2010 run for Congress.
- In 2015, the Republican Senate openly ordered the states to ignore the seated President.
- In 2016, for the first time in American history, the U.S. senate refused to even consider an elected President's (Obama) nominee for the Supreme Court.


There is no Democrat history like this that allows it to take the blame off of Republican hands. Democrats, however, did escalate the use of the filibuster in Bush's last year to 139. But because of this, Republicans feel as if they can abandon their responsibility here? The Democratic response to the fire is to declare it for what it absolutely is. All of this extremist and venomous behavior led conservatives down a path where they don't see opposition. They see enemy. They see disgusting fascists, socialist, and communists liberals who hate America and loves terrorists.

So when a "birther" started denigrating GOP members, denigrating government institutions, blasting political opposition with hate, calling for violence against the free press, and latched on to all the mindless hatred that was manufactured over the course of years, he was embraced with 14 million votes in the Republican Primaries. THIS is why Trump is a symptom. It is most definitely not because liberals hurt conservatives feelings. Trump is here because conservatives allowed themselves to be led down a path of irrationality and political extremism for years and years. It started with Newt Gingrich in the early 1980s. It escalated in the 1990s. It went beyond absurd against Obama. And in 2016, conservatives chose a "birther" who personified all of that irrationality and want to practice extremist politics.

Nap said:

So if you are trying to put out a fire, is the proper response to pour gasoline on it? This is essentially the Democrats response to the fire you believe was started by Republicans. You seem to believe this is a recent phenomenon caused by Trump, Obama was correct in that Trump was a symptom rather than the cause however the cause is the constant demonization of the Republicans as racist and hateful. Trump was essentially them saying they weren't going to take it anymore.

This list is precisely what I am talking about:



This is the demonized view of Republican/Conservative views rather than what the majority hold.

1. The vast majority of Republicans are not anti-gay, they are pro- religious freedom. Just because you don't believe the government should force a Christian to bake a cake in support of something they believe is wrong is not "anti-gay". If you believe holding that marriage is to be between a man and woman is anti-gay, well then both parties are traditionally anti-gay as this is a relatively recent change for Democrats.

2. There is a difference between anti-Muslim and anti-Muslim extremism.

3. There is a difference between anti-immigration and anti-illegal immigration.

4. Race has nothing to do with it. Most conservatives will generally err on the side of the officer involved but to try and make this a racial issue is nothing but Democrats and the media trying to gaslight Republicans as racist.

5. Another attempt at gaslighting Republicans as racist. They feel that the protest is done in a way that is disrespectful to the country. Yes, they ignore the point of the protest because they feel disrespected. He should have protested in a way that would bring people together rather than alienate those that feel he is disrespecting the country.

Are there racists, bigots, and homophobic people in the Republican party? Of course, but they don't represent the majority and the more Democrats and the media gaslight the idea of Republicans as the hateful bigots the better chances Trump has at winning reelection.

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Tea Party was nothing but a response to the black guy in the White House. Racists.

ataraxia said:

Obama did better for African Americans than Trump, even by Trump's own preferred metrics. They have netted 700,000 jobs under Trump; They gained 2.8 million during Barack Obama’s two terms.

And "your guy" is taking credit for the whole thing. A little silly, wouldn't you say? Even a 5th grader in an inner city public school would realize that.

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Still cannot admit you were wrong, can you?

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Original Data Value

Series Id: LNS14000006
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Rate - Black or African American
Labor force status: Unemployment rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
Race: Black or African American
Years: 2008 to 2018

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2008 9.1 8.4 9.2 8.6 9.6 9.4 10.0 10.6 11.3 11.4 11.5 12.1
2009 12.7 13.7 13.7 15.0 15.0 14.8 14.8 14.8 15.3 15.8 15.7 16.1
2010 16.5 16.1 16.8 16.6 15.5 15.2 15.6 15.9 16.0 15.6 16.2 15.5
2011 15.8 15.5 15.8 16.5 16.3 16.2 15.9 16.4 15.9 14.6 15.6 15.4
2012 13.6 14.0 14.0 13.3 13.5 14.5 14.2 13.8 13.6 14.1 13.3 14.0
2013 13.7 13.8 13.0 13.3 13.4 14.2 12.6 12.8 13.0 12.8 12.3 11.9
2014 12.1 11.8 12.1 11.5 11.4 11.0 11.6 11.4 11.0 10.6 10.9 10.6
2015 10.4 10.2 10.0 9.7 10.3 9.6 9.1 9.3 9.2 9.0 9.3 8.5
2016 8.9 8.7 9.0 8.9 8.2 8.7 8.4 8.0 8.3 8.3 7.9 7.9
2017 7.8 8.1 8.0 7.9 7.6 7.1 7.4 7.6 7.0 7.3 7.2 6.8
2018 7.7 6.9 6.9 6.6 5.9 6.5 6.6 6.3

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calamity said:

Tea Party was nothing but a response to the black guy in the White House. Racists.

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Why do you and the rest of the radicals always focus on Race when the reality is liberalism is all about keeping people dependent and the African Americans o="On the Plantation?" it is truly about the incompetence of Obama shown in the actual results generated, results in context which destroy your credibility. It has nothing to do with race but everything to do with actual results. The true racist was Obama

Ikari said:

A) There is a thing called Libertarian-Socialism
B) Social Democrat positions are not socialism. I'm not sure you right-partisans understand that word or it's meaning
C) I thought his speech was good, I didn't say I would vote for these people should they make the move
D) Pushing to Social Democrat, regardless of my personal support, I do think will play on whole with America and is a way for them to break with the status quo corporate structure the Republocrat Oligarchy currently runs
E) I have my own mind, my own brain, and instead of falling into mindless, emotional partisanship, I will always look at things rationally and intelligently, making up my own mind. I liked Obama's speech, perhaps because it's been so long since we've had someone speak elegantly and intelligently. Certainly don't get it out of Trump

So go take your generalizations and what you think I should believe in, or even like, and cram it with walnuts.

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A) It's socialism
B) It's socialism
C) You're just pushing socialism
D) Everyone says that about themselves.

Ikari said:

No, it's too hyperpartisan these days.

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And just out of curiosity...who do you suppose created this hyperpartisan environment? Hmmmm?

American said:

A) It's socialism
B) It's socialism
C) You're just pushing socialism
D) Everyone says that about themselves.

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Wait, you say "socialism" like it's a bad thing. What's wrong with socialism? We're not talking Soviet Communism here. Public schools are socialism. Social Security is socialism, and Donald Trump has said he wants to save it. You wanna get rid of them?

American said:

A) It's socialism
B) It's socialism
C) You're just pushing socialism
D) Everyone says that about themselves.

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Social Democrat positions are not socialism. I think the partisan-right just likes to throw that word out as often as they can as a fear tactic. But end of the day, it's not socialism. I think it would behoove many on the partisan-right to actually learn what socialism is.

Buzz62 said:

And just out of curiosity...who do you suppose created this hyperpartisan environment? Hmmmm?

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The Republocrat Oligarchy.

ataraxia said:

Wait, you say "socialism" like it's a bad thing. What's wrong with socialism? We're not talking Soviet Communism here. Public schools are socialism. Social Security is socialism, and Donald Trump has said he wants to save it. You wanna get rid of them?

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You have no control over how far socialism goes, so don't tell me what you're not talking about. And knock off the crap about social security and stuff. You're playing word games, and I'm talking reality. Socialists today think they're smarter than the socialist of yesteryear. Well they aren't; and smarts how nothing to do with a fundamentally flawed ideology.

American said:

You have no control over how far socialism goes, so don't tell me what you're not talking about. And knock off the crap about social security and stuff. You're playing word games, and I'm talking reality. Socialists today think they're smarter than the socialist of yesteryear. Well they aren't; and smarts how nothing to do with a fundamentally flawed ideology.

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It seems to be working great in Norway. :roll:

Like I said many times before, if the USA was all White, we would be the most socialist country on earth. But for some reason, people freak out when POC get something the whites perceive as a handout.

Proof: look at all the free **** we give American farmers, who are well over 90% white.

VanceMack said:

Some other things Obama didnt mention. The nonstop drumbeats of hatred that have been banging like Animal on acid since Nov 9. Inept Democrat politicians and their unwillingness to take part in the CPOnstitutional democratic process of governing the nation. George Soros. ANTIFA. Maxine Waters. Thomas Steyer. Donald Sussman. James Simons. ANY of the ****ed up leftists contributing to the problems.

He also didnt mention a thriving economy. New unemployment numbers. Manufacturing at high levels, public assistance reaching record lows. 201,000 new jobs in August alone. Balancing trade.

Leftists are 100% committed to the destabilization of race, economic, and social relationships in an attempt to win back power. Thats literally ALL that matters. Look at the threads on this site...its no different here.

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Bingo!

Obama is mad because "he didn't build that" when it comes to the successes of Trump now, and Obama's own legacy is rife with racism, divisiveness (that still permeates the left today as their "crutch") and his utter incompetence in office. But hey... he speaks well, and is pretty clean (according to Biden) and that's all that matters to symbolism over substance addicted Liberals.

Conservative said:

Still cannot admit you were wrong, can you?

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Probably because he wasn't wrong and is used to you being far too obtuse to have a conversation with. And as always, you present deceit as your foolish argument:







Of course, Trump is seeing better numbers, because like the economy and jobs growth, he inherited a trend. He only had to do nothing. In the meantime, you are somehow needing Obama to be a racist now?!

And this is how we all know that "results" is not something you care about. You are so pathetically obsessed with worshiping Trump, that you deny historical facts, rely on FOX News-instigated lies, and exaggerate for Trump. And when Trump moronically declares that the economy will be destroyed and that everyone will be poor if he is impeached, you eat that **** up, don't you?

Ikari said:

The Republocrat Oligarchy.

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Uhhh... really?

VanceMack said:

Some other things Obama didnt mention. The nonstop drumbeats of hatred that have been banging like Animal on acid since Nov 9. Inept Democrat politicians and their unwillingness to take part in the CPOnstitutional democratic process of governing the nation. George Soros. ANTIFA. Maxine Waters. Thomas Steyer. Donald Sussman. James Simons. ANY of the ****ed up leftists contributing to the problems.

He also didnt mention a thriving economy. New unemployment numbers. Manufacturing at high levels, public assistance reaching record lows. 201,000 new jobs in August alone. Balancing trade.

Leftists are 100% committed to the destabilization of race, economic, and social relationships in an attempt to win back power. Thats literally ALL that matters. Look at the threads on this site...its no different here.

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Yes, Barack Obama certainly did mention the economy, maybe your mind just tuned it out. It's natural that your president continues to take the credit for the economy, it's the only pole he has left to hang his flag on. As far as your claim that "leftists are 100% committed to the destabilization of etc. etc." I think you know deep inside your conscience somewhere that what you said is simply deflection and gas-lighting and couldn't be further from the truth. I can provide proof of exactly the opposite being true but all that documentation would take up suck up the entire bandwidth of this website, but the proof is out there, google it.

Barely a day passes without Trump boasting about the growing economy, claiming with a mix of exaggeration and fact that it is “booming like never before.” But the “booming” started on President Obama's watch. This isn't just a false claim in an attempt to discredit or diminish what Trump has accomplished, it's great that the economy is doing well and banks and stockholders are getting richer than they could have ever imagined. But he has absolutely no statistics to prove that he's responsible for it other than the fact that he made the rich richer with the big tax cuts he handed them.

There's much more at stake here than ordinary political bragging rights. Central to Barack Obama’s historical legacy is the economy’s recovery after its dove to the brink of a new Great Depression in 2007. The reality and facts are absolutely essential to the continually expansion of this hyperbole by Trump on a daily basis.

Documented statistics don't lie;
In the 19 months starting after Trump’s inauguration, the economy has created 3.58 million new jobs, but that is still shy of the 3.96 million created in the last 19 months of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The nation’s economy has grown at a steadily higher pace in the past year than it did during the end of Mr. Obama’s term, reaching an annualized rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter of this year. But the last time it was that high was in 2014, when Barack Obama was in charge.

The Trump tax cuts for the wealthy corporations and billionaires likely made the economy stronger, but it worsened our long-term fiscal imbalance.

MrMike said:

Uhhh... really?

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Really. Hyperpartisanship aids the Republcrats and solidifies their power. It removes thinking and intelligence from the equation, and both sides use it at a tool for propaganda and control.

Sorry if I don't buy into your partisan world. Anyone who looks at the system objectively will come to the same conclusion I have.

MSgt said:

Probably because he wasn't wrong and is used to you being far too obtuse to have a conversation with. And as always, you present deceit as your foolish argument:


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Of course, Trump is seeing better numbers, because like the economy and jobs growth, he inherited a trend. He only had to do nothing. In the meantime, you are somehow needing Obama to be a racist now?!

And this is how we all know that "results" is not something you care about. You are so pathetically obsessed with worshiping Trump, that you deny historical facts, rely on FOX News-instigated lies, and exaggerate for Trump. And when Trump moronically declares that the economy will be destroyed and that everyone will be poor if he is impeached, you eat that **** up, don't you?

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The recover under Obama didn’t occur until after 2010. The first “fixes” the Democrats imposed were minimum wage hikes, mandatory medical insurance and trillions of dollars in federal grants to state and local coffers. They combined those actions with tax hikes and the threat of additional financial sanctions on anyone who created wealth. The economy and jobs were horrible during those two years. It wasn’t until the Republicans, swept into office on a wave of Democrat failure, managed to stall things long enough for a sense of security to set in that we began to see economic and job advances.

Ikari said:

Really. Hyperpartisanship aids the Republcrats and solidifies their power. It removes thinking and intelligence from the equation, and both sides use it at a tool for propaganda and control.

Sorry if I don't buy into your partisan world. Anyone who looks at the system objectively will come to the same conclusion I have.

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Hogwash. Only I am the objective observer. If you don’t come to the conclusions I have, well you’re just partisan.

calamity said:

Tea Party was nothing but a response to the black guy in the White House. Racists.

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Yeah, that's why it was formed when Bush was in office, against the massive government bailouts. Do the lies get any more blatant?

There's a piece at WaPo this morning that says there's a jobs boom with blue collar workers. They say growth rate in this sector is occurring at the fastest rate since 1984.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...it-last/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4ba65a8f487f


That's great news.

calamity said:

It seems to be working great in Norway. :roll:

Like I said many times before, if the USA was all White, we would be the most socialist country on earth. But for some reason, people freak out when POC get something the whites perceive as a handout.

Proof: look at all the free **** we give American farmers, who are well over 90% white.

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Are black farmers excluded from these government handouts? Are you against the government handing out money to farmers?
I think you are seriously underestimating people's values if you think an "all White" America would be "the most socialist country on earth". All the people that want what they earn would give it all away because of race?

Boy, you sure are having a bad thread here, time to grab some pine and sit this one out.

Aberration said:

Hogwash. Only I am the objective observer. If you don’t come to the conclusions I have, well you’re just partisan.

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lol

In terms of the hyperpartisanship which infects our system, yes. There's on one side which is better than the other in this regard, and both sides have acted in ways to promote and exacerbate the hyperpartisan environment of our politics. This is a product of the Republocrat Oligarchy.

Ikari said:

Really. Hyperpartisanship aids the Republcrats and solidifies their power. It removes thinking and intelligence from the equation, and both sides use it at a tool for propaganda and control.

Sorry if I don't buy into your partisan world. Anyone who looks at the system objectively will come to the same conclusion I have.

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Well you can probably go back and find where we agree on that (partisanship) but if you'd notice, you broke from your own mantra and went hyperpartisan and blamed "The Republican Oligarchy" for it in the post I responded to above.

So, if you don't buy into my partisan world, don't expect me to buy into yours (especially when it was so obvious you were being.... partisan)