Hacker News Reader

Comment by brenden2 | Hacker News Reader

Literally heard this story 100 times. Remember Obama and how he was going to change the world? The way it turned out, he basically changed nothing. Couldn't even get a proper health care bill passed.

View on HN

Yes because the entire Republican establishment changed their policy and objectives to essentially focusing on opposing anything and everything he tried to do - no matter how reasonable or how much compromise Obama made. And they admitted that was their only strategy. Stop governing and just oppose. To try to stop his reelection.

That's when this country went off the rails.

> Stop governing and just oppose. To try to stop his reelection.

Boy I'm glad nothing like that happened after 2016

The democrats have continually come to the table— it's still the republicans obstructing. Remember DACA-for-wall?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-immigration-deal...

Can't believe someone is saying this right now. DNC is currently behaving as if they were the party in power trying to fix the corona issues and the GOP is like maybe we will let you get test if you give us tax cuts for the rich. It is completely abnormal that the party in power walks away from any responsibility and the other party has to negotiate to stabilize the country.

"Can't believe someone is saying this right now."

Yeah, this is definitely the endgame of "both sides" equivocating at all levels— all media is equally unreliable, all politicians are equally corrupt, all people are treated equally by police, Obama's EOs were just as bad as Trump's. It's super harmful to the state of discourse when people are unable to see the shades of grey on these things.

I mean yes, but that doesn't really cover it. Many people think the DNC is bending too far over and getting played at the moment. Like the approved the Trump slush fund, and he said what oversight?

It is not normal for the opposition party to be this nice in any way. They are tried to save states like this is some kind of partisan issue, and McConnell is lol, why don't they just declare bankruptcy?

Normally I would agree with the shades of grey but currently there is just no factual justification.

Also on rule of law, and constraining the police brutality. I mean it is hard to take this pushback seriously.

That's simply false. They have, over and over, come to the table to work with Trump. It's a point of frustration for me considering how little compromise they have been able to achieve.

Also frustrating considering that Republicans set their asking price at unalloyed, unmitigated evil, and allow themselves to be haggled down to merely abhorrent. Then Democrats give it to them. It's like trying to sell a banana for $100000 and agreeing to settle for $1000, then crying "but I already gave up 99% of what I wanted!" in order to justify taking $999 profit on a $1 fruit.

I would respect Democrats more if they had a "F.U. moment" and did something like arresting and imprisoning executive employees under the capitol building for contempt of Congress, for failure to produce documents necessary for oversight, that are required by law to be furnished on demand.

In the 2015 parlance of Back to the Future Part 2, they "got no scrote".

Disagree, the country went off the rails with Newt Gingrich. He was the beginning of the end of moderates in this country.

Good ole Mitch

Brenden, you have a terrible understanding of the powers of the President. The President can propose and cajole, but it is both houses of Congress that must pass the laws and only then can the President sign them.

Secondly, there are plenty of things to criticize both parties about, but if you think they are indistinguishable, then you aren't looking very hard.

You can go through the voting records an various bills and see how they voted, it's all public data. I challenge you to do it one day, and you can see the difference between what they say in their speeches and what they actually do policy wise.

You can also cross that data with polling from the respective senators or representatives on individual policies and see how they line up. You can see quickly that they do not represent their constituents if you take the time to do it (I've done it myself).

They line up more often than they disagree b/c most bills that make it all the way to a floor vote aren't objectionable to anyone.

You're seeing a biased sample.

How the US was regarded internationally, soft power, increased markedly under him though.

If your softpower can change dramatically in 4 years you didn't really have much to begin with.

The arenas in which Obama tried to ~actually use~ soft power, such as Syria and Ukraine, seem more like failures than successes.

Soft power is based on trust - can you trust this ally.

Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.

My point is no one has really trusted the USA for decades.

And yet it's unclear to me how the popular opinion of the US president in France translates into meaningful policy differences.

Many in Europe see the US as more of a risky bet after the last four years, especially with the Iran deal hurting many EU businesses for what they have decided are not good reasons.

Local businesses suffering due to an ally will drive (and probably already has driven) policy changes in the EU 26.

What did they think 12 years ago when Iran was part of the Axis of Evil? If trust takes a long time to build, there shouldn't have been any generated here.

Can you include specific examples of how popular EU opinion has driven policy? Typically the foreign policy of nations depends less on popular opinion than on geopolitical concerns. Your argument might be stronger if it focused on Trump's isolationist military and trade rhetoric, which both pose a much more significant threat to the current order in Europe and are a more substantial break from past USA policy than its attitude towards Iran.

> Remember Obama and how he was going to change the world?

You do understand that big, lasting change needs to come from all three branches of the government right? It's pretty clear Obama was pushing for much greater reform than what actually came about and Trump has done everything he can to dismantle what he created.

I have issues with a lot of Democrats and I don't love Biden, but Obama was one of the most straight shooters in politics.

>Couldn't even get a proper health care bill passed.

Perfect? No. Hell of a good start? Yes.

Ever heard of pre-existing conditions? Well not anymore. That fucking ALONE is worth all the mess that everything took.

You realize that before obamacare.. let's say you lived abroad for 1 year, developed some type of health condition, then moved back to the US.. you would be denied coverage or have health coverage but everything related to your pre-existing condition not be covered.

That basically means that you were fucked. I mean literally, if you developed cancer living abroad.. and tried to move back to the US- you basically could not without a financial death sentence.

Also every health plan has to provide maturity coverage, large companies are required to provide coverage.. etc the list goes on and on with regards to healthcare.

So please, don't parrot this garbage that obamacare basically did nothing.

So what, we're supposed to wait 100 years for sensible policy? What are you advocating? Why can't we fix things now?

It seems like the parent commenter is "advocating" that your claim "Obama did basically nothing" is provably false.

If you want to argue he didn't do enough, sure go ahead. Saying he did nothing is being intellectually dishonest.

To be fair, he also had to work with a Republican Senate to get pass any laws.

Instead of apologizing, I think people need to understand the system doesn't work. It is fundamentally broken, just like the police.

Why don't cops go to jail for breaking the law? Because they are the ones who investigate themselves for their crimes. It's the same with politicians: they make the rules and write the laws for themselves. They go on TV and say things they think people want to hear, but when it comes to action they don't follow through.

Politicians are glorified TV personalities and aren't actually held accountable to their supposed policies. They wage a war of disinformation against citizens to get votes, and then engage in gerrymandering to make sure they stay elected.

> Instead of apologizing, I think people need to understand the system doesn't work.

You are claiming Obama didn't affect change, he absolutely affected exactly as much change as his office and the law allowed. Nobody is apologizing, its simply the way our system is designed.

Sorry but that isn't true. Obama had a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate for the first two years of his presidency[1]. It wasn't until January of 2011 that the House turned Republican.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress

Reply on news.ycombinator.com