President Obama recently warned Democrats against pursuing purity litmus tests and rigidity in their politics.
Yesterday, speaking at the Democracy Alliance, he called for reform : “This is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. They like seeing things improved. But the average American doesn’t think that we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. And I think it’s important for us not to lose sight of that.”
The only way to build consensus is to win over public opinion to our cause.
Impeachment is a start.
Electing democrats up and down the ballot next November would be a sweet finish.
Please share widely!
What message did Obama win a landslide election with?
He won with hope and change we ALL can believe in.
I’m excited to tell my grandkids that moderate incrementalism is the best we could do as we talk about how there used to be a city called Miami.
I will tell my grandkids that we had to learn to walk before we ran.
I only pray that it’s not too late.
I just want my granddaughter to live long enough for me to have these conversations with her.
I don’t want to have to flee a hot civil war driven by gangs of right-wing extremists armed by a Putin-funded NRA.
Nonviolent change is the hallmark of all democratic republics.
But if we must fight to secure that democracy, I’m prepared to take up arms in its’ defense.
Agreed.
Even at 70, I think I’m still as able to pull the trigger of an assault weapon as a 19 year old. I’m disgusted and appalled that I even have to think about it.
I may choose Canada instead.
When we wake up at the beginning of next week there may be not much left to Venice.
I think a great many people, including yours truly, incorrectly made an essentially racist assumption that Mr. Obama was MUCH more left-leaning than he actually is. I think voters made the same mistake with Deval Patrick in two Massachusetts gubernatorial races.
I think that voters — white and minority alike — expected both Barack Obama and Deval Patrick to govern as activists finally bringing the progressive agenda to the forefront.
I think that each man actually governed as a moderate Republican in the Nelson Rockefeller tradition.
Obama and Patrick soon realized that you’re not leading if nobody is following.
I disagree, especially with Mr. Obama.
He made his loyalties and priorities clear as soon as he began choosing his cabinet. Barack Obama never gave his enthusiastic grassroots organizations a chance to follow him anywhere. He instead devoted his considerable political skills to an ultimately unsuccessful effort to win over a racist GOP.
Once elected, Barack Obama took his supporters for granted — he failed to even toss us a bone. His immediate capitulation on single-payer and a public option is a representative but not isolated example.
Forgive me ,Tom. but I just don’t agree with your analysis of Obama.
I would cut off my right arm to have 8 more years of the most honest administration in our history.
@ I don’t agree:
Diversity is great, this would be a boring place if we all agreed.
I certainly would have supported Mr. Obama for a third term if the onerous 22nd Amendment had never happened, just as I would have supported Mr. Clinton for a third term in 2000.
Absolutely. The cabinet picks were an incredible tell. It was an administration committed to securing the same political economy that preceded it, and one of the biggest missed opportunities of a generation.
That Trump is much much worse should not shield Obama from criticism.
Also, it is continually stunning the desire of some people, including Fred, who desperately want to return to the period before Trump, that period THAT GAVE US TRUMP. Without significant and widespread change, we are doomed. Resetting for a couple years so that someone worse than Trump can come along is so dangerous.
Ha. Local writer Luke O’Neil sums up Obama’s sudden entrance into the race nicely.
I plead guilty as charged.
Yes, I want to return to integrity, patriotism, honor, peace, prosperity, human rights and progress for America and the world.
Cool. When was that?
It was when President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was when the pukes freaked out over the Obama’ Administration’s biggest scandal — the horror when he wore a TAN SUIT to work!
Not prosecuting any Wall Street bankers after the financial crisis, not dealing with the war crimes of the Bush administration, expanding the use of drones, assassinating American citizens and their children on a kill list, and not meeting his day one promise of closing Gitmo were all bigger scandals than the suit.
Obama’s Nobel was foolish. If tens of thousands of deaths can be tied to actions you ordered, your Nobel Peace Prize is a sham.
Let’s all keep forming that circular firing squad, shooting our own, doing the puke’s dirty work for them.
Keep trashing the speck in our collective eye while ignoring the beam in our real opponent’s eye.
Purist diversion, holier-than-thou distraction. Now that’s a winning strategy.
Some of us can criticize clear bad actions of our friends and still work for a better future. Others must protect the clan at all costs.
I learned a long time ago that a sane person never shits on the same plate he eats off of.
Let’s add the lack of clawbacks on bailed out banks, his record on deportations, the “line in the sand” on Syrian chemical weapons, the failure to provide lethal weapons (including Javelin anti-tank weapons to Ukraine), the failure to go public over Russian meddling in the 2016 election to the obvious and predictable Obama failures. Add the ridiculous failed giveaways in the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Obama is a good and decent man but it takes a lot more than that be a great POTUS.
So you think people though OK, let’s see if the GOP will prosecute WS, prosecute Bushites, and close Gitmo? That’s hilarious!
Obama only gave us Trump in the sense that a black man being elected President triggered racial hostilities among some whites. Surely we will not fault him for that or say that we must then never elect someone like him again.
Both of them could have mobilized their grassroots armies to inundate their respective legislatures with phone calls, emails, etc. to support their initiatives. For whatever reason, neither did.
I don’t think the assumption was racist. I think it came from the fact that he was an early critic of the Iraq War while Hillary Clinton had voted for AUMF. I recall Deval Patrick being unapologetic on things like marriage equality. I think voters went on the rhetoric they heard rather than simply thinking black guy must be liberal.
He also called out hashtag activism and wokeness a while back. I think his advice is worth at least listening to, but I do hope we learn the lessons from his presidency regarding the likelihood of Republicans acting in good faith.