(02-19-2016, 10:04 AM)stupac2 link Wrote:[quote author=ThePOC link=topic=14611.msg156802#msg156802 date=1455852954]
[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=14611.msg156800#msg156800 date=1455851266]
[quote author=CornFed link=topic=14611.msg156799#msg156799 date=1455850010]I will tell you that I personally feel that he's been a divider, not a uniter
Why? What has he done, outside of being a Democrat, that's more divisive than what W did?
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Not to butt in, but I couldn't seem to find where CornFed compared Obama's divisiveness to that of W.
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Right but I think a statement like that only makes sense as a comparison. I mean, "politicians opponents don't like him" is hardly news, so calling someone "divisive" without a frame of comparison is utterly meaningless, unless you're bringing up specific actions that he's doing. For instance, if Obama were doing news conferences saying "McConnell is a big smelly doo-doo head who looks like a turtle and the voters in Kentucky who elected him are a bunch of inbred hicks", then sure, he's being divisive,
but he's not doing anything like that. At least that I'm aware of.
Anyway I tend to think that if you're going to make a claim like that you should back it up, because what I think CornFed really means is "I don't like Obama". Which is fine, but if that's the case then trying to paper over that with statements about "divisiveness" (or whatever) is disingenuous. If you really think that Obama is actually unnecessarily divisive, you can't just assert it, you need to have some evidence.
Also, I think that polling evidence is meaningless here, because all that tells you is that our politics are becoming more polarized. It doesn't actually mean that there's anything about the presidents themselves causing this, just that ~50% of the population is going to hate anyone with a D next to their name and ~50% is going to hate anyone with an R next to theirs. And, really, that sort of reflexive hatred is stupid. I think that, on balance, W's presidency was disastrous, but that's mostly because of the Iraq war. He did a lot of good things, like his focus on fighting AIDS in Africa, that are wildly under-appreciated. There aren't many people in politics who are actually monsters and treating them like they are is dumb.
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In a thread that has already manifested uncharacteristically harsh rebukes, I was and am reluctant to provide specific examples of divisiveness that would set off more of the same tendentious tone. Stupac is right, though. My use of the term "divisive" deserves at least some explanation of why I have come to see Obama in that way.
I am interested in policy not personalities. I understand that it is very difficult to separate the two when it is the individual who promotes certain policies and the personality of that person can sometimes detract (or enhance) one's view of the policy. I will admit that Obama lost me almost immediately when he declared during his first campaign that he wanted to "fundamentally transform America". Is that, in itself, a divisive comment? You don't have to think that America is without blemish to believe that a fundamental transformation would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bath water. Perhaps that falls into the category of policy disagreement, but I can say that I was/am offended that he felt that the nation had been failing so badly that we needed to start over, essentially.
It is not simply because he is a democrat that I consider him divisive. I wouldn't consider him divisive due solely to his policies. I voted for John Anderson in 1980 and for Perot (once I was convinced he couldn't win - ;) ) and I have voted for a number of Democrats (not a large number) including Diane Feinstein at one point. I think Stupac is right that it requires specific divisive acts or statements to be perceived as such.Â
A counter example that comes to mind would be Bill Clinton. In the first two years of his first term he pursued a somewhat liberal policy agenda. Tax increases, a proposal to involve the Federal government much more in the healthcare industry, etc. Even that modestly left of center agenda received an historic slap down in the 1994 mid-terms. His reaction was to get out in front of his opposition and lead the parade. He supported and signed Welfare Reform, which he had previously pilloried, he dropped Hillarycare like a hot rock, he signed and promoted NAFTA and he began "triangulating". Not only did he listen to the opposition, he adopted many of their policies.
In the meantime, Obama dedicated his first two years to his revamp of the nation's healthcare system, passed the Stimulus Bill, tried to tax carbon emissions which lead to discussion of cap-and-trade, which failed to pass and in general conducted a very liberal policy agenda. Even in this period he badmouthed republicans as clinging to their guns and gods and unable to get comfortable with "people that don't look like them". That is a divisive comment. I have met a lot of conservatives in my lifetime and that is just flat untrue. Not only that, but many of them don't look like me.
The mid-terms in 2010 were no kinder to Obama than those in 1994 were to Clinton. As I mentioned above, the truly remarkable election of Scott Brown-Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts was the last in a series of elections that Fall that could not have been a clearer signal of the deep distrust of Obamacare by the electorate. More than 60% did not like the prospective legislation. The Democrats in the House and Senate had shut out the Republicans from the entire process in the lead up to that election and yet he frequently described them as obstructionist. Ultimately he received not a single Republican vote to support Obamacare, and why would he expect otherwise? And what was Obama's reaction to those disastrous mid-term results? He conspired with Reid and Pelosi to manipulate the passage of the Affordable Care Act through a parliamentary sleight of hand that excluded Republicans and ignored the electorate. This whole healthcare transformation was handled very divisively.
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