It's today then ... (Trump thread)

[Carbomb]

3 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I'm not convinced Sanders would have beaten Trump. The Fox News watching flag-waving Trump supporter stereotype isn't going to vote for Bernie Sanders, big business is going to vote for or endorse Bernie Sanders, you're pretty much left with the same "liberal" vote that went to Clinton, but hoping that, in key states, those who feel "left behind" or just prepared to vote for a change will vote en masse for Sanders, not Trump. What Sanders would have had other Trump was a sense of honesty and integrity - which nobody saw in Clinton - and a lack of scandal compared to either Clinton or Trump, but the fact that Trump is president suggests that neither of those factors are dealbreakers for the American voter. Trump's share of the vote was effectively equivalent to the Republican base, and I don't think Sanders was going to top that.

Put simply, I struggle to look at an election that gave us a right-wing, bigoted billionaire as president, and think the solution could be, "if only we'd had a Socialist Jew".

 

Very true. And, to be honest, "not Trump" and "the status quo", without the benefit of hindsight weren't terrible policy platforms. When you see Donald Trump - this chaotic, bizarre human being who has no business being in politics, saying outlandish and dangerous things - the best thing to run against that is "the steady hand". The problem is that the Democrats are out of touch enough to have missed the point that, for an awful lot of American people, the status quo isn't good enough - when you feel like you've lost everything, or that politicians don't care about you, you don't want the status quo, and pushed hard enough, you'll vote for the Devil you don't know. But I don't necessarily blame the Democrats for running a "steady hand" candidate.

But maybe the whole "vote for a change" thing is overstated, just like the idea that Trump's support comes largely from the working class (it doesn't, the majority of Americans earning less than $50k voted Clinton, those voting over $50k voted Trump). Maybe the ugly truth is that millions of Americans share Donald Trump's views. The "vote for a change" argument is predicated on the idea that people feel left behind, cheated by politics, and would desperately vote for anybody that they feel could change - the same argument levied against the working class in the UK around Brexit - and I hate that, aside from painting working people as an easily swayed homogenous mass only ever one grievance away from voting for fascism, it's not borne out by the statistics, which show that the majority of wealthy and educated voters voted Trump.

Agreed with all of this. You make an excellent point about Sanders, actually. 

The last paragraph, you address something which was the centre of my point, which is that "more of the same" or "status quo" is exactly what people were not just tired of, but actively railing against. It was the status quo, i.e. neo-liberalist, de-regulated, free-market debt-economy which caused suffering to a lot of ordinary people, who also saw that the authors of their misfortune, the bankers and financiers, were getting not just bailed out, but actually rewarded for their incompetence and malfeasance - completely the opposite of what we in the West, and particularly the US, are told by our establishments (that if you do well you are rewarded, and if you do badly you fail, no help given).

[BomberPat]

22 minutes ago, David said:

The thing is, if Sanders had gotten an opportunity to put his message out there a lot of those disenfranchised, alienated voters who went for Trump would have seen that Sanders actually represented them a whole lot better. 

Sure, there were extreme right-wing bampots who were always going to vote for Trump, or who wouldn't vote for Bernie because he was a Socialist or whatever, but I honestly believe that those types are still a minority. The people who got Trump over the line were the middle-America crowd, who I don't believe are racist bigots at all. They're frightened by what their country has become, and they're duped by the media in a lot of ways, but they aren't morons.

Given the choice between Trump and Clinton they were always going to vote for Trump, because Hillary represented the root of their problems, which they believed was the crooked political establishment in the US.

It's all conjecture, though. The FOX News watchers of the world aren't voting Bernie Sanders. The wealthy and representatives of big business aren't voting Bernie Sanders. Millions of Americans brought up to think that Socialism is a dirty word, that nationalised health care and social security are just the government taking your money to pay for lazy people who just haven't worked hard enough, and that, one day, they'll be a millionaire too, they're not voting for Bernie Sanders - someone once said that poor white Americans vote against their interests because they don't think of themselves as poor, they see themselves as temporarily disadvantaged millionaires. The notion of the American Dream is so ingrained in people that there's this idea that it's their God-given right, if they just work hard enough, to make their millions - so someone who would be helped to move up the poverty line by someone like Bernie Sanders won't vote for him, because when they become rich, Bernie Sanders will be "taking their money". If nothing else, Bernie Sanders won less of the popular vote than Hillary Clinton in the primaries, so it strikes me as odd to take it as read that he would have performed better in the election.

I agree that people voting for Trump were voting against what they feel is a crooked political establishment - I don't know how that would have worked out against Bernie Sanders, as it's rare you would ever see two "anti-establishment" candidates face off against each other. Maybe that whole selling point would cancel each other out, and you'd be left with a battle over policy, or a conflict of personalities, we just don't know.

As much as I mentioned it earlier, and as much as it's the received wisdom, I don't think that people who feel "left behind" by conventional politics, or that they are disenfranchised, alienated, whatever else, are what won it for Trump. Because that just doesn't add up. Low earners voted for Clinton in far higher numbers than they voted for Trump. Higher earners voted Trump - every income bracket under $50k majority voted Clinton, every income bracket over $50k majority voted Trump - more college graduates voted Trump than Clinton, people in suburbia voted Trump, and so on.

When people are earning more than $100k a year, can we really say that their vote for Trump was motivated by the feeling that politics had "left them behind"? It's an easy narrative, but it doesn't add up. The working class are just a convenient scapegoat. I hate to say it, but the one thing that Trump voters overwhelmingly have in common across all other demographics is that they're white. Nothing else seemed to matter, in the end.

 

EDIT: That's not to say that you can't be well-off and still recognise that the political system is flawed, just that it doesn't fit the narrative of Trump voters being the victims of a flawed political system. Personally, I see Trump as an inevitable result of that flawed system, not a reaction against it, and things will only get worse without reform, or without acknowledging the underlying issues in American society, but as a country they're even worse at having frank discussions about their own history and culture than we are - just look at all the shitstorms around Confederate flags and statues.

In a broader, global sense, though, I would agree that Trump is part of a wider reaction against neo-liberalism and capitalist globalism, he's just a particularly American symptom of the death throes of that system.

Edited September 28, 2017 by BomberPat

[David]

Quote

It's all conjecture, though. The FOX News watchers of the world aren't voting Bernie Sanders. The wealthy and representatives of big business aren't voting Bernie Sanders. Millions of Americans brought up to think that Socialism is a dirty word, that nationalised health care and social security are just the government taking your money to pay for lazy people who just haven't worked hard enough, and that, one day, they'll be a millionaire too, they're not voting for Bernie Sanders - someone once said that poor white Americans vote against their interests because they don't think of themselves as poor, they see themselves as temporarily disadvantaged millionaires. The notion of the American Dream is so ingrained in people that there's this idea that it's their God-given right, if they just work hard enough, to make their millions - so someone who would be helped to move up the poverty line by someone like Bernie Sanders won't vote for him, because when they become rich, Bernie Sanders will be "taking their money". If nothing else, Bernie Sanders won less of the popular vote than Hillary Clinton in the primaries, so it strikes me as odd to take it as read that he would have performed better in the election.

Couldn't it have been said that those people weren't voting Obama either? 

Quote

As much as I mentioned it earlier, and as much as it's the received wisdom, I don't think that people who feel "left behind" by conventional politics, or that they are disenfranchised, alienated, whatever else, are what won it for Trump. Because that just doesn't add up. Low earners voted for Clinton in far higher numbers than they voted for Trump. Higher earners voted Trump - every income bracket under $50k majority voted Clinton, every income bracket over $50k majority voted Trump - more college graduates voted Trump than Clinton, people in suburbia voted Trump, and so on.

Being Scottish I know all too well the skewed view that these polls can give. When you look at figures that claim that people earning a certain amount voted for so & so, while others didn't, you have to question who exactly have been asked? 

It's also all too easy to narrow it down only to earnings. Many of those "middle of the road" American types who voted Trump would be earning above $50,000, wouldn't they? And it's not unknown for people in the US who hold a degree to be earning under $50,000, especially the younger demographic who were said to favour Clinton.

It's far too simplistic to view it as anyone who earned under $50,000 as being the "left behind" working class types, while those earning over that amount being the more educated, middle and upper class types.

Farmers and ranchers in the US can earn anything from under $50,000 to upwards of $100,000. It doesn't matter how much they earn, they're going to share their views with others who come from similar backgrounds, aren't they?

I personally know of two families from Ohio who voted Trump, think the country is going down the shitter, who believe in their right to own firearms etc, yet who own large houses with land, three vehicles each, and who send their children to very nice colleges as well.

It's too simplistic to believe that having money is enough to make someone think that everything is fine, and that the country isn't in need of some form of insane reform. Views and culture change depending on what part of the country you're in as well, doesn't it?

Quote

When people are earning more than $100k a year, can we really say that their vote for Trump was motivated by the feeling that politics had "left them behind"? It's an easy narrative, but it doesn't add up. The working class are just a convenient scapegoat. I hate to say it, but the one thing that Trump voters overwhelmingly have in common across all other demographics is that they're white. Nothing else seemed to matter, in the end.

Clinton is white as well. And if anything her stance was very conservative and traditional, which should have appealed to a lot of middle and upper class white people, no? 

I get your point about identity politics though, and I believe that such a factor will always exist.

I do think though that there is no real singular outstanding reason as to why Trump won this election. It was a perfect storm, so to speak.

The big question is, was it a freak occurrence? Or is it the start of something new?

[BomberPat]

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/29/we-should-have-seen-trump-coming

The Guardian's long read is pretty much on this topic today - "We should have seen Trump coming" - which chimes with my feelings, really.

One sentence that resonated for me, contrasting the feelings around Obama's election compared with Trump's, and how the election of Obama felt like it could finally see America move away from its divisive history;

Quote

We forgot that there were those who loved that old country as it was, who did not lament the divisions but drew power from them.

General premise is that periods of "post-racial" spirit in America, of pushes for equality, are always followed by a backlash in the other direction, and that the notion of white superiority, if not white supremacy, has always been a part of American political life, we're just seeing it bubble to the surface again, coupled with the ignorance of - and romanticising of - their own history.

Edited September 29, 2017 by BomberPat

[Carbomb]

100% agree. I think a big part of it is that people in general are actually rather resistant to change; any time there's significant progress made in anything during a "feelgood" period of society, it's almost always followed by a backlash during a "down" period, usually when the economy goes to shit, and idiots and demagogues look for someone to blame - usually immigrants, gypsies or gays.

In the case of what's going on at the moment, it's not just racial politics; we're seeing backlashes against gay rights (the recent attempts by Trump's DOJ to try to make being gay a sackable offence for employers, in addition to all the other stuff going on), and, of course, we've got the MRA lot, with the support of the likes of Fox and Breitbart, trying to roll back the gains women have made, trying to equate improvements in women's rights with the oppression of men. (I'm sure we're going to see one particular person show up in this thread following that statement.)

 

EDIT: Just to clarify: I do believe that, whilst people are resistant to change, in general we can and do change for the better. It's just a longer process than we'd like it to be. I tend to view human society and civilisation as being on an upward spiral: things move in circles, and the same things happen again and again, but each time around, at least one thing is better. Another analogy would be, I guess "3 steps forward, 2 steps back" (as Paula Abdul forgot to sing). I certainly wouldn't want to go back to life in the 80s, let alone the beginning of the 20th Century, 500 years ago, a millennium ago, or several millennia ago.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by Carbomb

[BomberPat]

There was a First Dog On The Moon cartoon recently about the same-sex marriage poll in Australia, that used the line, "Love will win the day, but it will also get the shit kicked out of it on the way and not everyone will make it", and that's pretty much how I feel about steps forward in equal rights, civil rights, and so on. I don't think people are that resistant to change - just that people change on a quicker pace to institutions.

We'll always win, eventually, but that doesn't mean it's not a hell of a struggle along the way. There will always be those who, for whatever reason, fight against equality and progress - and perhaps what the Trump election (and similar rises of the right across Europe) has taught us is that we were naïve to assume that those people were just a backwards angry minority, or that they weren't ingrained in American politics and the corridors of power; as the article said, those who "did not lament the divisions but drew power from them".

On an anecdotal note, I attended a lecture by a prominent archaeologist, and he talked a little about the politicisation of science, and how he won't allow of any of his team to speak to, or allow their work to be referenced in, the Daily Mail - he said, "you may think, well, why invest so much energy in asserting ownership over this work and its purpose? Well, it's because if you don't, you have to look at who will", and proceeded to show slide after slide of his work being cited on Stormfront. Speaking to him later (this would have been a matter of weeks after Trump was elected), he said, "we used to just laugh at these people".

 

I think it comes down to a combination of things - you have those who have succeeded in life precisely because of the divisions that exist in society, and recognise that breaking down those division would harm them, but you also have those who have succeeded because of those divisions but cannot, or refuse to, recognise it; I always think of this as the people who think they earned everything. This is the middle-class white guy who can't understand why people are still talking about black rights or women's rights, because he worked for everything he'd ever had, so surely everyone else can just do the same? It's a reluctance to acknowledge that even are divisions, because in doing so, you have to face up to the fact that you were advantaged by them - and nobody wants to admit to that, it's not a nice feeling, you want to think that you've earned everything, and that life is fundamentally, on some level, fair. That's the mentality that creates a lot of the backlash against feminism, against black rights and so on, because it's assumed that women and minorities already have the same rights as the rest of us, so they must just be trying to get more, and get an unfair advantage. Does that make sense? It's a thought I always have difficulty expressing all that well.

The other aspects are people who have had everything, metaphorically speaking, who are then afraid of sharing their toys - it's people who think that giving rights to minorities would somehow take their rights away, or make them mean less. You saw this with the GamerGate shit, where young white men who had been pandered to for decades seemed to think that video gaming starting to appeal to other demographics was taking something away from them, rather than sharing it with others. It's the assumption that rights and freedoms are a finite resource.

Then there's the whole "Germany in the '30s" thing - poor people, left behind, swept up in a wave of patriotism and false hope by a fascist demagogue. And finally, there's the old-fashioned liberal - the one who thinks that civil rights are great, and I agree in principle, but you've gone too far. Whether that's "oh, your methods are too violent, can't you just talk it out?" or on gay rights, to quote a Tom Robinson lyric, "the buggers are legal now, what more are they after?". There's always a mindset that the struggles and fights of the previous generation were hard fought and worthwhile, but this lot now? They're just getting uppity, they should be happy with what they've got.

 

We're seeing a combination of all of those things - basically either active resistance to socially liberal movements, passive resistance, or apathy - coming to a head at a time of economic turmoil, and that's always ripe for the right to seize on, particularly if you don't address any of the underlying problems. And America is terrible at addressing underlying problems - see the article I posted, or how even the more left-leaning media have made the NFL protests about Trump and not about American institutional racism, or how the right frame the removal of Confederate flags and statues as a destruction of history rather than the opportunity to have a much-needed frank discussion of history, which is what that actually is.

Edited September 29, 2017 by BomberPat

[David]

Did we actually see much change under Obama though? Apart from a cranking up of the use of drones, of course?

[Carbomb]

42 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

There was a First Dog On The Moon cartoon recently about the same-sex marriage poll in Australia, that used the line, "Love will win the day, but it will also get the shit kicked out of it on the way and not everyone will make it", and that's pretty much how I feel about steps forward in equal rights, civil rights, and so on. I don't think people are that resistant to change - just that people change on a quicker pace to institutions.

We'll always win, eventually, but that doesn't mean it's not a hell of a struggle along the way. There will always be those who, for whatever reason, fight against equality and progress - and perhaps what the Trump election (and similar rises of the right across Europe) has taught us is that we were naïve to assume that those people were just a backwards angry minority, or that they weren't ingrained in American politics and the corridors of power; as the article said, those who "did not lament the divisions but drew power from them".

On an anecdotal note, I attended a lecture by a prominent archaeologist, and he talked a little about the politicisation of science, and how he won't allow of any of his team to speak to, or allow their work to be referenced in, the Daily Mail - he said, "you may think, well, why invest so much energy in asserting ownership over this work and its purpose? Well, it's because if you don't, you have to look at who will", and proceeded to show slide after slide of his work being cited on Stormfront. Speaking to him later (this would have been a matter of weeks after Trump was elected), he said, "we used to just laugh at these people".

 

I think it comes down to a combination of things - you have those who have succeeded in life precisely because of the divisions that exist in society, and recognise that breaking down those division would harm them, but you also have those who have succeeded because of those divisions but cannot, or refuse to, recognise it; I always think of this as the people who think they earned everything. This is the middle-class white guy who can't understand why people are still talking about black rights or women's rights, because he worked for everything he'd ever had, so surely everyone else can just do the same? It's a reluctance to acknowledge that even are divisions, because in doing so, you have to face up to the fact that you were advantaged by them - and nobody wants to admit to that, it's not a nice feeling, you want to think that you've earned everything, and that life is fundamentally, on some level, fair. That's the mentality that creates a lot of the backlash against feminism, against black rights and so on, because it's assumed that women and minorities already have the same rights as the rest of us, so they must just be trying to get more, and get an unfair advantage. Does that make sense? It's a thought I always have difficulty expressing all that well.

The other aspects are people who have had everything, metaphorically speaking, who are then afraid of sharing their toys - it's people who think that giving rights to minorities would somehow take their rights away, or make them mean less. You saw this with the GamerGate shit, where young white men who had been pandered to for decades seemed to think that video gaming starting to appeal to other demographics was taking something away from them, rather than sharing it with others. It's the assumption that rights and freedoms are a finite resource.

Then there's the whole "Germany in the '30s" thing - poor people, left behind, swept up in a wave of patriotism and false hope by a fascist demagogue. And finally, there's the old-fashioned liberal - the one who thinks that civil rights are great, and I agree in principle, but you've gone too far. Whether that's "oh, your methods are too violent, can't you just talk it out?" or on gay rights, to quote a Tom Robinson lyric, "the buggers are legal now, what more are they after?". There's always a mindset that the struggles and fights of the previous generation were hard fought and worthwhile, but this lot now? They're just getting uppity, they should be happy with what they've got.

 

We're seeing a combination of all of those things - basically either active resistance to socially liberal movements, passive resistance, or apathy - coming to a head at a time of economic turmoil, and that's always ripe for the right to seize on, particularly if you don't address any of the underlying problems. And America is terrible at addressing underlying problems - see the article I posted, or how even the more left-leaning media have made the NFL protests about Trump and not about American institutional racism, or how the right frame the removal of Confederate flags and statues as a destruction of history rather than the opportunity to have a much-needed frank discussion of history, which is what that actually is.

I still haven't figured out how to divide quote blocks yet (can anyone tell me how, please?).

Bit in bold: Yes, exactly. The violence and the attempts to roll things back are what I meant by "resistance to change"; that people will be hurt or killed in the struggle to achieve equality and justice, that sometimes those rights fought for and won will be temporarily lost or suspended, for me this feels like the degree of resistance is relatively high. I suppose ultimately it's a matter of opinion as to what we feel it to be.

The bit about the archaeologist: that is genuinely fascinating, and it resonates with me about keeping up the fight against the right and the propaganda it attempts to generate by twisting the facts or cherry-picking. It's great that he refuses to allow the Daily Mail any kind of contact with his team's work, and I'm loving that Wikipedia have classified them as a "non-source". Finally, they're starting to pay for their lies and hatred.

Bit in italics: Absolutely true, and I think it's also why so many people now refuse to engage with discussions of imperialism and its legacy, or the existence of neo-colonialism. They simply don't want to recognise that the reason why Western countries are so prosperous is because their economies are built on the proceeds of theft, and that countries of what we called the Third World are in the state they're in because of that theft, and the perpetuation of the after-effects of it through neo-colonialism via economic strong-arming, corruption and bribery perpetrated up by Western corporations and governments. Just as MRAs don't want to entertain any feminist discussion because they see it as "attacking men", even though said discussion is addressing historical gender inequalities stemming from male-dominated, societal abuse, people who have benefited from living in Western countries, particularly the ones that had formal empires, see any criticism of the West's imperial history and its current political behaviour in relation to that as "attacking the West".

Bit in orange: I saw a number of tweets in a thread about Colin Kaepernick's kneeling protest that summed up that attitude perfectly:

 

 

 

[Carbomb]

5 minutes ago, David said:

Did we actually see much change under Obama though? Apart from a cranking up of the use of drones, of course?

I'm not a big fan of Obama, I don't think he was the Big Hope that everyone said he was - and let's face it, US presidents all operate within a specific system that is never likely to affect any meaningful change from the grassroots up.

But to be fair to him, he did repeal the DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, despite being president during a global depression and being up against a Congress dominated by outright hostile, uncooperative, and in a lot of cases outright racist Republicans. And he did manage to get Obamacare through.

He didn't change anything in any fundamental ways that will have long term benefits to the ordinary person, though. 

[David]

13 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I'm not a big fan of Obama, I don't think he was the Big Hope that everyone said he was - and let's face it, US presidents all operate within a specific system that is never likely to affect any meaningful change from the grassroots up.

But to be fair to him, he did repeal the DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, despite being president during a global depression and being up against a Congress dominated by outright hostile, uncooperative, and in a lot of cases outright racist Republicans. And he did manage to get Obamacare through.

He didn't change anything in any fundamental ways that will have long term benefits to the ordinary person, though. 

I'm sure he also used more drones to wipe people out in the Middle East as well, didn't he?

Let's be honest, if Obama was a fat white guy with bad hair who was terrible at public speaking instead of a slick, movie-style President with a winning smile I doubt he'd have gotten as much love as he did.

The whole system is a sham.

[Carbomb]

13 minutes ago, David said:

I'm sure he also used more drones to wipe people out in the Middle East as well, didn't he?

Let's be honest, if Obama was a fat white guy with bad hair who was terrible at public speaking instead of a slick, movie-style President with a winning smile I doubt he'd have gotten as much love as he did.

The whole system is a sham.

Oh, yeah. Like I say, I'm not a fan of Obama, but I'm not a fan of most US presidents. They predominantly read like a Who's Who of bastards, crooks, and traitors. Only ones that seemed to be halfway decent were Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower. And even then, I'm not sure about Lincoln.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Carbomb

[David]

12 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Oh, yeah. Like I say, I'm not a fan of Obama, but I'm not a fan of most US presidents. They predominantly read like a Who's Who of bastards, crooks, and traitors. Only ones that seemed to be halfway decent were Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower. And even then, I'm not sure about Lincoln.

Yeah, the hoops you need to jump through, and the hands you need to shake to get that far ensure that most of the candidates, never mind actual Presidents, are shady types.

[BomberPat]

15 minutes ago, David said:

I'm sure he also used more drones to wipe people out in the Middle East as well, didn't he?

Because drones became available. If any previous US President had access to drones, they'd have used them. That's not saying it was right for Obama to use them, but that the American presidency is inextricably tied up with military interventionism, so "at war in the Middle East" is the baseline, really. Even within that context, he pulled US troops from Iraq, began the closedown of the war in Afghanistan and reversed Bush's policies on torture, and reduced the defence budget by millions, and refocused the existing budget less on ground troops and more on intelligence.

Trump - despite him and his supporters criticising Obama for using drone strikes, and despite claiming that he wouldn't get involved in the Middle East - has proposed rolling back Obama-era restrictions on how and when drones are used, and ordered 75 air strikes in his first 74 days in office.

 

I think Obama did a lot of good - he could never have been the great hope that people wanted him to be, because nobody possibly could have been. But he introduced Obamacare and made nationalised healthcare part of the American political conversation for the first time in decades, he made huge investment in education, science, modernisation and healthcare (almost all of which since reversed by Trump, of course) - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was a monumental step in weathering the storm of the economic crisis and reinvesting in infrastructure and jobs; it was called "the biggest foray into industrial policy since FDR, biggest expansion of antipoverty initiatives since Lyndon Johnson, biggest middle-class tax cut since Ronald Reagan, biggest infusion of research money ever." - which doesn't exactly fit the popular image of Obama as a president who didn't achieve much in the way of policy. Bearing in mind that's coming off the back of a disastrous Bush presidency, and the worst U.S. recession since the '30s. He boosted growth from 1% to 4% the year after an economic catastrophe. The economy grew by $1 trillion post-crisis, and fared far better than most, if not all, other developed countries.  The ARRA and Obamacare should stand as Obama's legacy, and should be enough to view him as - domestically - a great President, but he came in with so much hype and people pinning so much to him that, particularly with a Republican-dominated congress, he couldn't help but disappoint.

Beyond that...same-sex marriage, cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12%, opened up relations with Cuba,

Yes, part of his popularity was because of good PR and his public image - but that is important. America being presented on the world stage as a dignified, intelligent, collected professional rather than the bumbling image of Bush, or the delusions of Trump, mattered. A black family in the White House mattered. A "scandal-free" presidency mattered.

 

He definitely wasn't perfect, but he's far from a president that "achieved nothing", and he did a lot of good that Trump seems to be reversing out of nothing more than spite. As far as presidents go, I think he was one of the good guys, so far as the system allows.

Unfortunately, his presidency also allowed for the lunatic fringe of the Republican party to more or less seize control of the Party, to allow the racist elements a platform, and allowed Trump to become a viable presidential candidate.

[NoUseforaUsername]

The fact that Hillary was married to a sex pest, and her own treatment of his victims, was consistently ignored or underplayed while every Trump accusation was played to the hilt.

The fact that Harvey Weinstein was in league with Obama, and then Clinton, and helped to fund their campaigns, while they surely knew of his proclivities, has failed to really gain any kind of traction.

The fact that Trump is called a "nazi" by all these people lampooning him, while Hillary was mentored by a former KKK member...

How can people protest Trump using these terms and act like Hillary and his predecessor are arbiters of social progress when one was married to someone with Clinton's baggage and both took campaign money off a serial rapist.

*moved from sexual harassment thread

[chokeout]

You entire post hinges on the assumption that to hate Trump, means you automatically support Clinton and all she does which is bollocks really, isn't it.