Dividing the United States

lizzie said:

Same here, but I don't think Carter was trying to divide the country politically. I believe his intentions were good. I can't really say the same about the current prez.

Click to expand...

I agree with that. I think Carter was genuinely doing what he saw as the most good, even if I disagreed with much of it and he wasn't up to the task.

Obama reeks of opportunism. And isn't up to the task.

obama reminds me of Clinton more than Carter. Carter was an inept buffoon while Clinton was a shrewd manipulator and implemented the triangulation strategy which is really the divide and conquer strategy with another name and obama is following that example.

Goshin said:

My point was it reminds me of the Carter years. Doom and gloom, high energy prices, everyone in a panic about something, foreign threats multiplying... and no sign of effective leadership.

Click to expand...

Nobody can effectively lead when half the people they are supposed to lead are committed to opposing them in all circumstances and in every way they can from the very beginning of their tenure. America doesn't have effective leaders (in Congress or elsewhere) because it is incapable of producing them, because it doesn't distill virtues like respect or obedience.

Morality Games said:

Nobody can effectively lead when half the people they are supposed to lead are committed to opposing them in all circumstances and in every way they can from the very beginning of their tenure. America doesn't have effective leaders (in Congress or elsewhere) because it is incapable of producing them.

Click to expand...

So you agree that Obama isn't an effective leader.

Morality Games said:

Nobody can effectively lead when half the people they are supposed to lead are committed to opposing them in all circumstances and in every way they can from the very beginning of their tenure. America doesn't have effective leaders (in Congress or elsewhere) because it is incapable of producing them.

Click to expand...

I know all about McConnell statement about making the president and one term president at the beginning of his first term. But a lot of the opposition the president has gotten is his own fault. If you look back through history, you will see the successful presidents always had reached out to someone from across the aisle that they could work with when the going got tough. Eisenhower did that with LBJ, then the senate majority leader and had LBJ over to the White House at least 3 times a week to discuss IKE’s agenda. JFK and LBJ worked very closely with Everit Dirksen, then the Republican Senate minority leader. Nixon as far as I can recollect worked with no one and we all know what happened to him.

Ford wasn’t in office long enough to developed a working relationship with members of the opposing party, but knew most of congress personally and the potential was there. Carter was another one who didn’t work with anyone from the across the aisle. In fact he had a hard time working with members of his own party which were in the majority and Jimmy boy actually shut down government 4 times during his tenure.

Reagan and Tip O’Neal, the Democratic House Speaker, their relationship is a famous one and they worked great together. Bush Sr. relied on Dan Rostinkowski and was always seeking his advice. Even Billy boy Clinton was able to work first with Gingrich and then with Hastert after the GOP won congress back in 94. Clinton also had a pretty good working relationship with Trent Lott, then the Senate majority Leader.

Bush Jr., who had majorities in both chambers of congress for his first six years, really didn’t have to develop a close working relationship with any one across the aisle. Obama with his huge majorities in both chambers when he came into office, followed Bush Jr. in not developing and friendship or working relationship with the opposite party. He thought he didn’t need to. But the election of 2010 changed all of that and for the next two years, he and the republicans knocked heads.

Now Obama is starting to realize he has to develop some sort of working relationship. Perhaps that will happen with Speaker Boehner, maybe not. But finally the president is trying. Better late than never, time will tell if his charm offensive succeeds.

GmH said:

In my lifetime, I have never seen a President try to divided a country more than Obama. He campaigned on being the great uniter and ends up being just the opposite. The examples are too numerous to list.

Click to expand...

I do not know if dividing the country is the right word. I do know the president unlike many before him hasn’t until the last couple of weeks tried to reach across the aisle to find someone from the opposing party to work with. I have notice the rancor between the two major parties is at an all time high. But this developed at various times during other president’s tenure. There was a time when LBJ worked better with Republicans than Democrats.

The division you talk about is among political parties. Those independents/swing voters in my opinion do not feel the divide. Like every president before him, President Obama makes them happy at times and gets them peeved at him at other times depending on the issue at hand. The rift of which you speak of is not there for these independents which make up around 40% of the electorate. The rift is there between members of the parties, those who associate themselves with the two major parties. I agree to a certain extent that during his first two years in office, Obama didn’t respect or give a hoot about the GOP. He didn’t have to with the huge majorities he had in both chambers.

He got use to this and when 2010 happened, I think the president spent the next two years not know what to do. He needed to reach across to find a couple of Representatives or Senators from the opposing party that most presidents had done at the beginning of their first in the past. He is now trying to bring everyone together. Time will tell if he is successful or not.

What does it mean, exactly - "divide the country"? Carter or either Bush at the end of their tenures were broadly unpopular, i.e. were "uniters" of sorts. Reagan, Clinton and Obama (so far) kept themselves popular with about a half of voters, and unpopular with another half - i.e. technically these are "dividers" - Reagan eliciting, arguably, stronger feelings on both sides, primarily because he was an actual reformer upsetting status quo.

So, my answer would be Reagan - but it is meant as a compliment. Unity in defense of a rotten system is not a virtue.

Obama is easily the most partisan President of the last 40 years.

Obama has divided the United States in a way that is absolutely guaranteed to ensure eventual destruction.

Obama has taken the United States off of it's path and historical significance as a country that grows ever richer and more prosperous and instead, turned the United States into a country in which forward progress is stopped and the existing richness and equity is then redistributed, redistributed not only to some Americans, but in a virtually endless list of places and groups.

While the initial result of this change garners a huge number of Democrat votes from the beneficiaries, a moment's reflection reveals that any future then becomes finite and failure as a country is assured. Those initially grateful beneficiaries will then experience a far worse future than anything that they could have imagined. This will occur regardless of how angry they become and regardless of whom they are instructed to blame for their plight.

This is the insidious division and destruction Obama has wrought upon our once beautiful and prosperous country.

Perotista said:

I do not know if dividing the country is the right word. I do know the president unlike many before him hasn’t until the last couple of weeks tried to reach across the aisle to find someone from the opposing party to work with. I have notice the rancor between the two major parties is at an all time high. But this developed at various times during other president’s tenure. There was a time when LBJ worked better with Republicans than Democrats.

The division you talk about is among political parties. Those independents/swing voters in my opinion do not feel the divide. Like every president before him, President Obama makes them happy at times and gets them peeved at him at other times depending on the issue at hand. The rift of which you speak of is not there for these independents which make up around 40% of the electorate. The rift is there between members of the parties, those who associate themselves with the two major parties. I agree to a certain extent that during his first two years in office, Obama didn’t respect or give a hoot about the GOP. He didn’t have to with the huge majorities he had in both chambers.

He got use to this and when 2010 happened, I think the president spent the next two years not know what to do. He needed to reach across to find a couple of Representatives or Senators from the opposing party that most presidents had done at the beginning of their first in the past. He is now trying to bring everyone together. Time will tell if he is successful or not.

Click to expand...

Good afternoon, Pero. :2wave:

Unfortunately, it is not easy to bring people together when basic trust has been eroded by past actions. I agree, time will tell. eace:

I don't think it is entirely the president but look at the quality of speaker of the houses we have had recently.
After Newt Gingrich we immdediately went downward. Next you had Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, and John Boehner.

No way can you compare those last three with the likes of Tip O'Neil.

Is Obama the Most Divisive President in Modern History?

Hope turned out to be “my way or the highway” politics in his first two years. He completely shut out the Republicans in the Senate and the Congress. He shoved his health bill down our throats. And then attempted to derail the last fragment of life out of the economy with his Cap and Trade Bill. Thankfully that one we were able to stop.





Afterward, the American public threw the bums out of Congress who shoved his government mandated health bill down our throats. So, then, he went whining and crying to the lame-stream media about how all these extremist Republicans were derailing the recovery, purposely causing the economy to fail, in order to destroy his presidential re-election hopes. The next step was to provoke and encourage the self-delude, socialist masses against the 1%, who apparently caused all the problems in society.

Gallup’s, Jeffrey Jones, in a memo summed up the results, saying,

Obama’s ratings have been consistently among the most polarized for a president in the last 60 years. That may not be a reflection on Obama himself as much as on the current political environment in the United States, because Obama’s immediate predecessor, Bush, had similarly polarized ratings, particularly in the latter stages of his presidency after the rally in support from the 9/11 terror attacks faded.....snip~

Is Obama the Most Divisive President in Modern History? | Political Matters

Obama by far is the Most Divisive Modern President this Country has ever had.

Cardinal said:

Have you even listened to am radio? It's an infinity-lengthed infomercial against liberals. Literally every to every other sentence has the words "liberal" or "the left" in it. When your agenda is to convince one half of the nation that the other half is your enemy, that crap is divisive. And it's much more harmful to the country than practically anything a politician does because when a country is this polarized, it guarantees that no matter how bad an idea is, at least 50% of the population will support it.

Click to expand...

The major difference is this:
radio talk show hosts have no legislative power over me. Elected politicians do.

l have seen but not in USA

so be gratefull to your presidents who are proud of being american

polgara said:

Good afternoon, Pero. :2wave:

Unfortunately, it is not easy to bring people together when basic trust has been eroded by past actions. I agree, time will tell. eace:

Click to expand...

This is very true. I do not know if these luncheons or what ever will work, it may be a beginning or it may not. It may be that Obama is serious, then again it may be just for publicity to show independents he is trying to reach across the aisle. Yep, for sure, time will tell.

Cardinal said:

What do you think he should be doing about the misery index and nuclear whatnot (and how does that even relate to this thread)?

Click to expand...

His job would be a good start, getting out of the way would be a great start. Realizing he doesn't know **** about economics and the theories he regurgitates are proven historical failures and they are failing yet again would be another great direction. Instead he arrogantly doubles down, at least when Rome burned Nero was somewhat entertaining with his fiddle.

LaMidRighter said:

His job would be a good start, getting out of the way would be a great start. Realizing he doesn't know **** about economics and the theories he regurgitates are proven historical failures and they are failing yet again would be another great direction. Instead he arrogantly doubles down, at least when Rome burned Nero was somewhat entertaining with his fiddle.

Click to expand...

Yes, because the policies enacted during the Bush administration were so successful..?

Harshaw said:

Obama is easily the most partisan President of the last 40 years.

Click to expand...

I would say you have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find close to that level of partisanship.

Fruityfact said:

Yes, because the policies enacted during the Bush administration were so successful..?

Click to expand...

Did I say they were? Bush had some decent policies in his first term and horrid ones in the second. Obama is batting zero in year five.

The Poll is divisive.

Crosscheck said:

I don't think it is entirely the president but look at the quality of speaker of the houses we have had recently.
After Newt Gingrich we immdediately went downward. Next you had Dennis Hastert, Nancy Pelosi, and John Boehner.

No way can you compare those last three with the likes of Tip O'Neil.

Click to expand...

Yeah, agree here. O'Neil was pretty blue as a politician but he could cross the aisles when necessary, and he didn't mess with the process, the batch after Newt was useless, the game the system and have really polluted the legislation process.

LaMidRighter said:

I would say you have to go back to Woodrow Wilson to find close to that level of partisanship.

Click to expand...

Maybe because bipartisanship has come to look as realistic as all those awful movies where some hot chick falls for some disgusting dude's inner nerd......................

Bonzai said:

Maybe because bipartisanship has come to look as realistic as all those awful movies where some hot chick falls for some disgusting dude's inner nerd......................

Click to expand...

Bipartisanship is not a problem, when both of those rotten parties agree on **** ideas it's a major problem, the ideas have gotten ****tier and ****tier, and this president is pushing the worst, his predecessor wasn't much better.

LaMidRighter said:

His job would be a good start, getting out of the way would be a great start. Realizing he doesn't know **** about economics and the theories he regurgitates are proven historical failures and they are failing yet again would be another great direction. Instead he arrogantly doubles down, at least when Rome burned Nero was somewhat entertaining with his fiddle.

Click to expand...

Not shown above: ideas on what he should be doing.

lizzie said:

The major difference is this:
radio talk show hosts have no legislative power over me. Elected politicians do.

Click to expand...

And yet talk shows are consistently feeding the idea that we're divided to the point where people now believe that half the country is their enemy. That divisiveness is much more insidious even than bad government policies because it sets citizen against citizen at least as much as they are against elected officials.

And again, the divisiveness will guarantee that at least 50% of the people will ALWAYS be in favor of an idea, no matter how bad it is. A perfect example of this is the Patriot Act. It was a rotten idea when it was first enacted by a Republican, and it's a rotten idea now that it's tacitly excused by the Democrats just because a Democrat is in charge. But thanks to the polarization of this country, a rotten idea gets a free pass either way. Things like talk shows and am radio are to thank for this.

If it wasn't for the media specifically setting out to demonize half the country, bad ideas wouldn't be Republican or Democrat in origin, they'd just be bad ideas.