2007-2008.
Just about every candidate agrees that healthcare is ****ed and that it will only become more deeply so abused. Savaged by a dead sheep, as it were. The party-committed whittle it down to a man who wants to pass a one-time deducation (or was it credit? I think deduction) of $5,000/fam, $2,500 ind, for out of pocket HC costs.* Then there were Obama's vague and not entirely honest ideas.
Him? Obamacare. Socialist. I’m not sure how much that has to do with what comes next, but as we know Obama was the only president accused of all of the following:
~ 44% self-ID’d Rs in polls saying Obama was not born in the US.
~ 20% not sure
(Shamefully, half of each number for self-ID’d Ds)
- Same numbers for saying that he isn’t a Christian
- Litany of smears:
-- Socialist/Communist/Totalitarian (Glenn Beck, etc).
-- Racist against white people (alleged Wright “ties”)
-- Wants to turn America into a third world country (the above + global warming)
-- Wants to transfer US sovereignty to EU/other nations (related to the above)
-- ISIS breaking out was his fault because he followed the GWB agreement w/ Iraq and public opinion, even though nobody ever predicted that a Syrian civil conflict would produce a group intent on invading nearby countries and establishing a caliphate
-- The huge deficits at first were his fault, when he inherited the prior Fiscal Year’s TARP and didn’t change all that much of anything other than the stimulus, which was smaller than the strong majority of economists recommended.
Worst bit? The same media that claims liberal-leaning media is all biased didn’t investigate or denounce this. Right-wing media typically said “people are asking………” That slimey move where you imply by omission, and therefore – to a certain audience – you have plausible deniability of having implied the counter assertion. So, they're asking questions, but the liberal media is just dismissing smears on Obama's birth/religion/etc.
Just asking questions.
What did this contribute to? Counter-animosity.
And what is Trump, but an opportunist who smelled the near-vacuum and all that virulent animosity and counter-animosity.
We locked ourselves into a vicious cycle. Media on both ends contributed. I'm focusing on the right-side, yes, but that's because I place a bit more blame on them. If someone has access to a parallel universe, show up in my room right now and prove me wrong. I bet that if Obama hadn't been President, we wouldn't have seen this.
But you know what? It's on us. Me less than you, though.
I'm not sure entirely what to make of it. Healthcare? Stimulus? The simple fact that it's so easy to blame someone for inheriting a ****storm but credit them for inheriting good news? Outright hatred of the other side? Mass-communication and all its rabbit holes? A fundamental clash between respect and disrespect for the constitution if we are scared (aka, of Terror)?
*
John McCain'''s 2008 Health Plan Is Worth Revisiting | Fortune
