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Victor Davis Hanson: Obama Won

chuckiechan

chuckiechan

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https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/obama-won/

This is an article that requires that you read the entire thing.

By traditional metrics, Barack Obama’s presidency was mostly a failure. The economy, in a new first, never hit annualized growth of 3 percent. His signature domestic policy—Obamacare—caused chaos. Millions lost their coverage and doctors, and paid far more in deductibles and premiums. The stagnant recovery after the 2008 recession was the worst in 50 years.

Myriads of new regulations, higher taxes, and socialist jawboning vegetated the economy. Scandals at the IRS, Department of Veterans Affairs, FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, Justice Department, General Services Administration, and National Security Council abounded. Obama weaponized the federal government by punishing opponents through the IRS, monitoring suspect reporters, scapegoating and jailing a video maker, and using the deep state to exonerate Hillary Clinton from serial wrongdoing and to sabotage the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.

Abroad, a diplomatic “reset” empowered Vladimir Putin’s Russia from the Crimea to the Middle East. The Iran deal legitimized Iran’s ascendant Middle East hegemony. Chinese trade cheating was of no concern. ISIS was but a “JV” terrorist clique. North Korea freely pointed nuclear missiles at the West Coast. Israel and the Gulf monarchies and Egypt were no longer close allies. Outreach and deference instead were shown to Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. “Lead from behind” bombing of Libya led to a disaster. Nonexistent “red lines” in Syria, flexible nonproliferation “deadlines” issued to Iran, and rhetorical “step-over” lines given Vladimir Putin all eroded U.S. credibility. And on and on.

Yet in terms of culture, Obama clearly won.

[SNIP]

The agenda of balkanizing America into tribes, and white/nonwhite binaries, and galvanizing the rich and poor against the middle class was Obama’s only real legacy. But it is a legacy that nonetheless fundamentally transformed America.
Click to expand...

Those of you that are political participants think that you are the way you are because of "I'm just being me". But not really. We all are what we are due to the way we filter influences put upon us by other's views of national events. We experience few national events directly. We experience through media now a days. None of us have control, yet the internet makes us feel as if we do.

The cause of this is that Obama left us with a nearly ungovernable country, due to every group being sliced and diced into tribes and we have louder, albeit smaller voices screaming with equal volume due to the internet. I don't think he did it on purpose. I don't think he even left the USA as an adult. I think his world view was very small. And that smallness is more mainstream today than it was back in the days of "the great leaders".

Barring a national threat - war, widespread disaster like pestilence, plague, etc, It's an open question as to what the next 50 year future will bring. Personally, I see the little tribes fighting over smaller scraps while the elites live just as well as they do today.

As the king and his court says at their sumptuous feast, "Keep the peasants fighting among themselves, and they won't have the energy to fight us!"
 
Yeah, the right's birtherism -- Obama did that. Sure thing.
 
I agree 100%, and that's why Obama is the worst President in history.
 
chuckiechan said:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/obama-won/

This is an article that requires that you read the entire thing.



Those of you that are political participants think that you are the way you are because of "I'm just being me". But not really. We all are what we are due to the way we filter influences put upon us by other's views of national events. We experience few national events directly. We experience through media now a days. None of us have control, yet the internet makes us feel as if we do.

The cause of this is that Obama left us with a nearly ungovernable country, due to every group being sliced and diced into tribes and we have louder, albeit smaller voices screaming with equal volume due to the internet. I don't think he did it on purpose. I don't think he even left the USA as an adult. I think his world view was very small. And that smallness is more mainstream today than it was back in the days of "the great leaders".

Barring a national threat - war, widespread disaster like pestilence, plague, etc, It's an open question as to what the next 50 year future will bring. Personally, I see the little tribes fighting over smaller scraps while the elites live just as well as they do today.

As the king and his court says at their sumptuous feast, "Keep the peasants fighting among themselves, and they won't have the energy to fight us!"
Click to expand...

Huh. What an odd coincidence. Everything you linked to and everything you just posted are laughably untrue.
 
chuckiechan said:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/obama-won/

This is an article that requires that you read the entire thing.



Those of you that are political participants think that you are the way you are because of "I'm just being me". But not really. We all are what we are due to the way we filter influences put upon us by other's views of national events. We experience few national events directly. We experience through media now a days. None of us have control, yet the internet makes us feel as if we do.

The cause of this is that Obama left us with a nearly ungovernable country, due to every group being sliced and diced into tribes and we have louder, albeit smaller voices screaming with equal volume due to the internet. I don't think he did it on purpose. I don't think he even left the USA as an adult. I think his world view was very small. And that smallness is more mainstream today than it was back in the days of "the great leaders".

Barring a national threat - war, widespread disaster like pestilence, plague, etc, It's an open question as to what the next 50 year future will bring. Personally, I see the little tribes fighting over smaller scraps while the elites live just as well as they do today.

As the king and his court says at their sumptuous feast, "Keep the peasants fighting among themselves, and they won't have the energy to fight us!"
Click to expand...

Victor David Hansen; now there's an unbiased opinion :lamo
 
Old white people blaming Obama for dividing the country in light of the last two years is ****ing rich.
 
Bahahahah. "Obama made the country ungovernable and that's why Trump's presidency has been such a flop!"

As opposed to Trump who's really tried to bring the country together and reach across the aisle. :roll:
 
chuckiechan said:
Barring a national threat -
Click to expand...

Actually, Trump is that threat. Just as the Republican before him George W. Bush he is picking apart everything that is good about this country and unifying us all against him.

Essentially what you're arguing here is that President Obama was such a good president, and his ideas were so centrist that he left us with a false sense of confidence much like we had after Bill Clinton was president. He left us believing that we had all triumphed over evil and that the days of disgusting conservative racism were behind us with little or no chance to come back. He left us feeling that Hillary Clinton's win would be such a lock that many people chose to nitpick about bull**** trivialities and emails.

Trump may go down in history as an Uniter all right, but like Hitler, before him, he will be uniting decent human being against him.
 
chuckiechan said:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/obama-won/

This is an article that requires that you read the entire thing.



Those of you that are political participants think that you are the way you are because of "I'm just being me". But not really. We all are what we are due to the way we filter influences put upon us by other's views of national events. We experience few national events directly. We experience through media now a days. None of us have control, yet the internet makes us feel as if we do.

The cause of this is that Obama left us with a nearly ungovernable country, due to every group being sliced and diced into tribes and we have louder, albeit smaller voices screaming with equal volume due to the internet. I don't think he did it on purpose. I don't think he even left the USA as an adult. I think his world view was very small. And that smallness is more mainstream today than it was back in the days of "the great leaders".

Barring a national threat - war, widespread disaster like pestilence, plague, etc, It's an open question as to what the next 50 year future will bring. Personally, I see the little tribes fighting over smaller scraps while the elites live just as well as they do today.

As the king and his court says at their sumptuous feast, "Keep the peasants fighting among themselves, and they won't have the energy to fight us!"
Click to expand...

The article is spot on except that I won't blame it all on Obama. This has been brewing since the Nixon years and was severely exacerbated in the Bork nomination to the Supreme Court, the ill founded Clinton impeachment, the BDS syndrome (Bush derangement syndrome) which was absolutely horrible--we just have some distance on it now.

Obama certainly didn't help when his mentor who trained him in to be a community organizer was himself an Alinsky disciple. Thus Obama was a master at the concept of the 'agitating' and 'polarizing' methods of divide and conquer and he and his ilk greatly divided us into warring factions. But the groundwork for the only thing Obama was truly successful at as President, i.e. polarizing and dividing the country and weakening it in the new world order to further leftist intent, was laid before he came to office.
 
chuckiechan said:
Myriads of new regulations, higher taxes, and socialist jawboning vegetated the economy.
Click to expand...

Well that's a lie right there. The economy wasn't "vegetated" under Obama.

What else would I expect from an author who has problems with race, and supports a racist president, but that he would attack the first black president with lies? Piece of scum.

Next.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
The bullet riddled body at the bottom of the ocean tells a different story. Is that what "winning" looks like to a Trump supporter?
Click to expand...

I think a good argument can be made that the successful attack on the twin towers started America on it's current decline. A couple of points:

1. It was a huge win for Bin Laden in terms of attrition. Al Qaeda spent less than one million dollars, the USA spent over 3 trillion by all accounts in response. That is roughly 3 million to one, probably the most lopsided victory in the history of mankind.

2. After this the USA lived in constant fear. Remember the "Terror Level"? It was never in the green, they kept Americans scared, and used that fear to pass laws to restrict freedom, to gather private information, to restrict travel.

3. That fear was also used to divide the country, remember the protests against the Invasion of Iraq? And I think it's led to what we have today, two sides that literally hate each other in many cases, and now to the election of, by the account of many top American officials, a moron to the highest office in the land.

4. The multi-trillion dollar debt has made the entire country poorer, which means there is less funding for the basics, for mental health, etc., and this is going to hurt the morale of any country.


There are other points as well, but I think this makes my point: That Osama Bin Laden won, and won Yugely.
 
JustHanging said:
I think a good argument can be made that the successful attack on the twin towers started America on it's current decline. A couple of points:

1. It was a huge win for Bin Laden in terms of attrition. Al Qaeda spent less than one million dollars, the USA spent over 3 trillion by all accounts in response. That is roughly 3 million to one, probably the most lopsided victory in the history of mankind.

2. After this the USA lived in constant fear. Remember the "Terror Level"? It was never in the green, they kept Americans scared, and used that fear to pass laws to restrict freedom, to gather private information, to restrict travel.

3. That fear was also used to divide the country, remember the protests against the Invasion of Iraq? And I think it's led to what we have today, two sides that literally hate each other in many cases, and now to the election of, by the account of many top American officials, a moron to the highest office in the land.

4. The multi-trillion dollar debt has made the entire country poorer, which means there is less funding for the basics, for mental health, etc., and this is going to hurt the morale of any country.


There are other points as well, but I think this makes my point: That Osama Bin Laden won, and won Yugely.
Click to expand...

It certainly was the beginning of the end.
 
JustHanging said:
Well that's a lie right there. The economy wasn't "vegetated" under Obama.

What else would I expect from an author who has problems with race, and supports a racist president, but that he would attack the first black president with lies? Piece of scum.

Next.
Click to expand...
That pretty much describes VDH to a tee.
 
chuckiechan said:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/23/obama-won/

This is an article that requires that you read the entire thing.
Click to expand...

I tried reading it, but it's typical VDH drivel. Just on immigration, he blames Obama, but fails to mention ANY change in immigration from the Bush II era, and that during the Obama era, net illegal immigration for whatever reason was roughly 0 (zero) people, compared to the +4 million in the previous 8 years. He blames Obama for racial politics, but seems oblivious that MAYBE the racial divide was stoked by Obama opponents, starting with the whole birther crap, and at least SHARE in some of the blame.

Etc.

There are lots of smart things to say about the polarization, the causes, etc. but VDH is a hack.
 
AlbqOwl said:
The article is spot on except that I won't blame it all on Obama. This has been brewing since the Nixon years and was severely exacerbated in the Bork nomination to the Supreme Court, the ill founded Clinton impeachment, the BDS syndrome (Bush derangement syndrome) which was absolutely horrible--we just have some distance on it now.

Obama certainly didn't help when his mentor who trained him in to be a community organizer was himself an Alinsky disciple. Thus Obama was a master at the concept of the 'agitating' and 'polarizing' methods of divide and conquer and he and his ilk greatly divided us into warring factions. But the groundwork for the only thing Obama was truly successful at as President, i.e. polarizing and dividing the country and weakening it in the new world order to further leftist intent, was laid before he came to office.
Click to expand...

I won't comment on most of your post except to say that it's at least still incomplete, and I disagree with much of it, but in context of the OP, you've at least made an attempt that is intellectually honest because you don't lay all the blame at the feet of Obama and the Democrats but mention the other half of the political divide as at least sharing in some of the blame. And you're not a professional writer or political commentator.

VDH does none of that which is why I don't respect him as a writer or thinker.
 
Too bad people cant stick to the point. I would have posted the entire article and bolded the highlights but it’s against the fair-use rules.

There are only four people here who read it. The rest are just **** talking the party line. No wonder Americans are so ignorant about what swirls around them.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Bahahahah. "Obama made the country ungovernable and that's why Trump's presidency has been such a flop!"

As opposed to Trump who's really tried to bring the country together and reach across the aisle. :roll:
Click to expand...

Obama takes office and this happened right away. Yeah, his fault:
Protests during Obama's presidency
2009
April 15 – Tea Party protests against high taxes and big government in Lafayette Park.
May 17 – the University of Notre Dame's selection of President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker led to a gathering of around 100 anti-abortion right activists to protest against Obama's stance on abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research..[2][3][4]
July 4 – About 2,000 small-government advocates gathered for Tea Party Day to protest the economic stimulus plan and health care initiative of the Obama administration and Congress.[5][6]
September 12 – Taxpayer March on Washington. Tea Party rally consisting of tens of thousands marched on Washington protesting the expansion of government spending.[7]
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_Barack_Obama

Nice pics in here:
def shepherd: Racism Is Alive And Well: 35 Incredibly Racist Anti-Obama Images
https://thinkprogress.org/racist-go...-kfc-watermelon-and-food-stamps-bc992e34c693/
 
Amelia said:
Yeah, the right's birtherism -- Obama did that. Sure thing.
Click to expand...
Interesting factoid. Birtherism has only been mentioned by the left in years. You guys never seem to progress beyond it.
 
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