Regarding Obama, that's a fair take. There was a hefty amount of naivety in his belief that Republicans would sincerely reach across the aisle and work together for the common good. Those days were long over, and they'd happily slap his hand down every time while accusing him of being partisan. It just happened over and over again. And because right-wing media has such a grip on America, the general apathetic citizen didn't recognize this, and by the time Obama realized it, he had lost his strength in Congress.
True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. Unfortunately his "pragmatic progressive" approach did not work out. Though you know on hindsight I can't really fault him. At the time we needed a leader to bring back stability and rebuild the country on the brink. He had to fix the broken puzzle, but lacked the circumstances to build upon it. Two of the biggest faults to his presidency was not prosecuting the bankers and not listening to Ambassador Ford's advice to support the FSA and put an end to the Assad regime — but for the latter, again I somewhat understand in the context of seeking withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was supposed to be purple already, and quickly turning Blue in the next 20 years. And that was before Dobbs. I just don’t see that motion yet. I hope to see it soon.
Texas is tricky. It's my view that New Mexico is 10 years ahead of Arizona politically-speaking, while Arizona is 10 years ahead of Texas. AZ had yet to even shed Arpaio at the time while the thought of having "2" Democratic US Senators seemed a far-away concept (hopefully AZ remedies the disaster that is Sinema). I still have some hope for Texas, but of course change never comes soon enough.
Trump wasn’t supposed to have a chance in the Primary.
What's crazy is that the idiots could've likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system. All the "moderate" Republicans initially too scared to vote for someone as crazy as Trump split their votes across something like 8 other "normal" candidates. This party sustains itself off ignorant fear, anger, and greed. Ethics and reason have no place beneath their banner.
Your reply deserves more time than I have, I'm sorry. I am really grateful for this type of conversation where nobody reduces to name-calling. It's refreshing after reddit.
But I do want to point to 1 thing. "True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. " I don't think that's actually true.
I used google historical search a couple years back to look at what Obama ACTUALLY campaigned as and proclaimed. Surprisingly, he wasn't saying a ton of progressive things. He campaigned heavily on words that could be taken multiple ways, but on the issues he seemed fairly conservative. When I pulled up even slightly over, lots of news articles from unbiased (or left-biased) sources referring him to a Party Moderate.
I think the wool was pulled over our eyes, and I go back and forth between thinking he did it, thinking his campaign staff did it, and between thinking our optimism did it.
What’s crazy is that the idiots could’ve likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system.
I didn't follow it as closely as I'd like to. Didn't it go like Primaries usually do, with the bottom-polling candidate trying to step out and redirect their votes towards their favorite... with a lather-rinse-repeat? The final vote was apparently down to 4 candidates. And Trump got more votes than the other 3 combined, nearly 50% of the Primary Votes. RCV doesn't beat him basically having a majority vote among the field.
Regarding Obama, that's a fair take. There was a hefty amount of naivety in his belief that Republicans would sincerely reach across the aisle and work together for the common good. Those days were long over, and they'd happily slap his hand down every time while accusing him of being partisan. It just happened over and over again. And because right-wing media has such a grip on America, the general apathetic citizen didn't recognize this, and by the time Obama realized it, he had lost his strength in Congress.
True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. Unfortunately his "pragmatic progressive" approach did not work out. Though you know on hindsight I can't really fault him. At the time we needed a leader to bring back stability and rebuild the country on the brink. He had to fix the broken puzzle, but lacked the circumstances to build upon it. Two of the biggest faults to his presidency was not prosecuting the bankers and not listening to Ambassador Ford's advice to support the FSA and put an end to the Assad regime — but for the latter, again I somewhat understand in the context of seeking withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Texas is tricky. It's my view that New Mexico is 10 years ahead of Arizona politically-speaking, while Arizona is 10 years ahead of Texas. AZ had yet to even shed Arpaio at the time while the thought of having "2" Democratic US Senators seemed a far-away concept (hopefully AZ remedies the disaster that is Sinema). I still have some hope for Texas, but of course change never comes soon enough.
What's crazy is that the idiots could've likely prevented this in the 2016 GOP primaries if they rank a ranked choice voting system. All the "moderate" Republicans initially too scared to vote for someone as crazy as Trump split their votes across something like 8 other "normal" candidates. This party sustains itself off ignorant fear, anger, and greed. Ethics and reason have no place beneath their banner.
Your reply deserves more time than I have, I'm sorry. I am really grateful for this type of conversation where nobody reduces to name-calling. It's refreshing after reddit.
But I do want to point to 1 thing. "True I can only theorize, though Obama did proclaim himself to be a progressive through the 2008 campaign with progressives naturally drawn to him as well. " I don't think that's actually true.
I used google historical search a couple years back to look at what Obama ACTUALLY campaigned as and proclaimed. Surprisingly, he wasn't saying a ton of progressive things. He campaigned heavily on words that could be taken multiple ways, but on the issues he seemed fairly conservative. When I pulled up even slightly over, lots of news articles from unbiased (or left-biased) sources referring him to a Party Moderate.
I think the wool was pulled over our eyes, and I go back and forth between thinking he did it, thinking his campaign staff did it, and between thinking our optimism did it.
I didn't follow it as closely as I'd like to. Didn't it go like Primaries usually do, with the bottom-polling candidate trying to step out and redirect their votes towards their favorite... with a lather-rinse-repeat? The final vote was apparently down to 4 candidates. And Trump got more votes than the other 3 combined, nearly 50% of the Primary Votes. RCV doesn't beat him basically having a majority vote among the field.