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Comment by HaZeust | Hacker News Reader

I implore everyone to listen to Obama's 2004 DNC speech [1], endorsing John Kerry. Specifically, for 12:00 and beyond:

"For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American Saga: A belief that we're all connected as one people [...] If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up, without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens MY civil liberties [too]. It is that fundamental belief. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, that makes this country work."

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWynt87PaJ0

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You're talking to a nation that was so traumatized by Obama that it went as far in the opposite direction as it possibly could.

There was a time when such ideals mattered. That ended about a decade ago. Today we do not believe that we are connected as a people, and that my civil liberties must be protected at all costs (so long as they're your costs).

> so traumatized by Obama

What exactly did Obama do to traumatize you? Be not white?

True. Obama delivered after the depression caused by Iraq war and housing crash, if anything.

Obama kicked the failing can of neoliberalism down the road. He could have very easily bailed out the American people directly but chose not to do that and as such I feel like he alienated liberal Americans as much as he did conservative ones.

Ta-Nehisi article "Trump is the first white president" explains it well, imo.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-fir...

https://archive.is/YEbJZ

That title is interesting. I've heard the corollary that the social justice/identity politics of the 2010s through Peak Woke is what awakened a "white" identity in the US.

The MAGAs responded to the "sins of the fathers" narrative by accepting and celebrating their identity. Unintended consequences.

People who fight against racism know full well that doing so incites the racists to action. Confronting them head-on is an intended consequence.

I suspect that a lot of people show genuine symptoms of trauma from the 24-hour news cycle telling them to be afraid. This person may not have been affected personally by Obama, but if they watched Fox News throughout his presidency they probably felt traumatized by the end of it.

This "traumatizing media" effect certainly applies to the left, too, and I think social media is the common accelerant.

> You're talking to a nation that was so traumatized by Obama that it went as far in the opposite direction as it possibly could.

Half of a nation, at best. Many of us still hold Obama in deep regard as one of the best presidents in modern history.

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