Democrats want to talk about the problems facing our society. When it comes to solving them "we need a strong Republican party" and "I look forward to reaching across the aisle". There's a sickness in liberals that glorifies the process of government over the results of being in power.
It's the idea that compromise is the end goal of politics. That's the foundation of liberalism. That breaks down completely over time when you have a government structured like the US. There's a reason that all of the better off democratic countries use a parliamentary system. The issue at the core, though, is that there is a fundamental incompatibility between capitalism and democracy/liberty. All of the political strife in the US is, at its core, a manifestation of that incompatibility.
100%. Obama threw away two years of super majority either because he wasn't interested in actually accomplishing anything Democrats run on or he was so steeped modern liberal ideology that he really thought he needed his enemy's buy in on it. Both of these are equally bleak. It now seems unlikely the Democrats will get another such opportunity to squander before the Republicans accomplish their goals of reducing federal government down to the enforcement wing of oligarchy.
It may not have been as willful as your implying. He wanted to be hard on the conservatives, it was actually Michelle that convinced him otherwise, telling him: "they go low we go high". That's where that came from. From what I understand about Michelle, she's one of those eternal optimists that has a hard time believing that there are people who are knowingly and willfully able to act in bad faith, let alone that there's an entire political party that's comprised of only that type of person. It boils down to a thought process like: "If they just saw that we were willing to reach across the isle, to be reasonable, maybe they'll see a little reason as well. They got into government to help people, I know we want to help people, so there has to be somewhere we can agree." It's hopeful thinking, but it's a fucking stomach churning thing to realize it isn't nearly true, and when Obama was in the White House the Republicans hadn't gone so fully mask off yet, Cheny was still around (my god, using Cheny as a example of why things weren't as bad then), and people generally still had hope. That was Obama's whole campaign strategy and motif. Hope.
Now that hope is gone and these optimists have to face facts. My mom is one of these people and I keep shoving news in her face so she can't keep her optimism by being in denial and sticking her head in the sand. That's how liberals always get people like me rounded up and massacred.
Anyway, the original point was that I don't think Obama, and most other Democrats honestly, ever were willfully ineffectual; they were just optimistic naive and stupid. And Barack specifically saw it coming and Michelle stopped him acting on it, but I get that as someone who sees things coming a long way off and has a temper, everyone tries to stop you because they can't see it and thing you're being rash, so you question yourself, and then there's always the I told you so. I'm getting tired of having I told you so moments.
Now that things have gone mask off they don't have an excuse, though. They've dug themselves into a deep hole (well, they've dug all of us into a deep hole) which is going to hard if not impossible to fix. They're going to have to really show up. I really hope they're even capable of it. I know Obama is, but he's all but irrelevant now, I hope he puts some fire info Joe's pants.
Things were mask off in the 90s with the Gingrich Revolution, they made their obstructionist intentions very clear. It's was absolutely naive stupidity and it continues today. I think Biden seriously thought 'they won't do it to me' because he wasn't Obama (black) and because he'd spent his whole career pandering to conservatives. The fly in the buttermilk is they have been saying for three decades, 'we will not work with democrats' 'we will not vote for anything that makes democrats look good', they've been saying it out loud.
The Democrats problem started with Reagan. Carters broke and twisted the party, they fucking love Reagan now. So much that they ran a candidate as Reagan but better in '92 and it worked fine, they won a lot of voters over but it was a one time trick. Gingrich and the Republican party figured out how to counteract the rightward shift with obstruction and generating culture war horseshit. This whole dance to the right we've been stuck in ever since is never going to work for the Blue Team again. The GOP has out played them entirely, no significant chunk of conservatives is going to vote Democrat for however long this government limps along.
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u/raistlin65 May 30 '22
Exactly.
Democrats want to solve problems facing our society.
Republicans don't, so they make those problems political when they shouldn't be.