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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Obama is the most left-wing President in US history"
Now, I haven't been around an awful long time (as indicated by my username
), but I'm fairly certain that America's current POTUS is not nearly as "Left" as right-wingers give him "credit" for.
I remember, for example, from the 2008 presidential campaign, the President being a big-time "hawk"on Afghanistan and on going after al-Qaeda and similar groups as part of the Global War on Terror. The controversial drone strikes in Pakistan are a part of that hawkish foreign policy.
I also remember the conspicuous LACK of a public option in the Affordable Health Care Act.
In addition, I have been following the Obama administration's aggressive policies on cracking down on both medical marijuana dispensaries and undocumented (illegal) workers and immigrants.
Oh, and there's also the huge controversy over the Wall Street bank bailouts, or the way the auto bailouts have brought back the PRIVATE (capitalist) auto industry.
There's been a disturbing growth in income and wealth inequality since the recession "ended" and the "recovery" began. It look like most of that recovery is going to the wealthiest Americans.
The Bush tax cuts being extended. The creation of the "Cat Food" Commission. The administration's education policies. The relative lack of cuts to defense spending. The focus on deficit reduction and "entitlement reform" by the administration. The way in which ordinary Americans still struggle, while the business and Wall Street community are better than ever. And on and on...
If this is a scary left-wing socialist President, then his actions sure hide that well!
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)phantom power
(25,966 posts)tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)SpartanDem
(4,533 posts)SidDithers
(44,333 posts)Sid
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)with all the Great Society Programs. That's as close as we ever got to Scandinavian-style social democracy. Too bad LBJ ruined his reputation by stubbornly insisting on pursuing the Vietnam War.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Spot on about LBJ
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)That was the main guy who popularized the racist Southern Strategy and started the decades-long War on Drugs.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)has chosen to continue Nixon's War on Drugs.
Consider: Nixon signed the Clean Water Act of 1972. Obama recently sold off millions of acres of federal land to the highest bidder -- most of which seem to have been oil exploration companies (fracking anyone?).
Nixon wasn't responsible for the Southern Strategy, Johnson was. When he supported and signed the VRA he acknowledged that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation. The only thing he had wrong was the time. All Nixon did was take political advantage of the situation.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)The South did not go completely right until 1994 (and even voted for Clinton/Gore in 1996).
If Nixon created the Southern Strategy, it didn't work for 20 something years.
The people who brought you the Southern Strategy were the conservatives who bought all the media down here and then foisted Rush Limbaugh, with NO counter viewpoint, on us.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)heal all wounds if this could be believed.
demwing
(16,916 posts)Maybe Teddy Roosevelt, depends on how you define "leftwing"
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)FDR and LBJ had arguably more economically leftwing policies, but FDR's civil liberties policies made Dick Cheney's look like Noam Chomsky.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)America has a very conservative political system, this is true (though that's different from saying America is a right-of-center country, or that the public is conservative), but even within the context of that political system, many of the 20th century Democratic (and even, arguably, some Republican) Presidents were to the "Left" of where Obama is (the obvious answer being FDR, but I'd add Truman and JFK (to some extent) as well as LBJ (on domestic issues, certainly...)
Regardless, the Obama administration's actions speak for themselves. And Obama is the President who has faced the 'radical left-wing socialist" accusation more so than any President in recent history, I'd imagine.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Look it up.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)None of those are applicable. Three of them owned slaves.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)Johnson, Jackson, Madison, Adams...
Oh did you need more than 8?
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)...is noted.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)Did I say anything that was wrong, factually?
If I did, please point me to it, and I will correct it.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)Safely ignored.
markpkessinger
(8,913 posts)just1voice
(1,362 posts)It's another one of those ad-hom attack-bots that works for the "sales team". I recently cleared out my ignore list and it only takes about a week to fill it back up again with exactly that type of poster.
Marr
(20,317 posts)The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)President ever. And a lot of Presidents were further left than Obama, including Eisenhower, a Republican.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)and despite the Republican gibe about "We fought the War on Poverty and poverty won," the War on Poverty DID lift people out of poverty---until it was eviscerated by the Republicans, starting with Nixon.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)...because of the context of his time (Great Depression and the resulting mass poverty and desperation, the organization of left-wing and radical groups at the time, the labor movement, the beginnings of the liberal-left coalition and the civil rights movement...)
pampango
(24,692 posts)FDR entered the 1936 election with a strong, but not invincible, hand. The economy remained sluggish and eight million Americans still were without jobs. Critics from various points on the political spectrumsuch as Father Coughlin and Dr. Francis Townsendhad spent much of the previous two years attacking the President. (They supported Representative William Lemke of the newly formed Union Party in the 1936 election.)
http://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/essays/biography/3
...before the 1936 election "early in his career (Fr. Charles) Coughlin (who was considered a liberal at the time though he later became a supporter of Hitler and Mussolini) was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, before later becoming a harsh critic of Roosevelt as too friendly to bankers. In 1934 he announced a new political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor. The membership ran into the millions, resembling the Populist movement of the 1890s."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
Aware that Roosevelt had no intention to radically redistribute the country's wealth, (Louisiana Governor Huey) Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis. Long sometimes supported Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, saying that "whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it." He opposed the National Recovery Act, calling it a sellout to big business. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass-Steagal banking bill for favoring the interests of national banks over state banks.
In terms of foreign policy, Long was a firm isolationist. He argued that America's involvement in the Spanish-American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
In March 1933, Long offered a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" for the redistribution of wealth. The first bill proposed a new progressive tax code designed to cap personal fortunes at $100 million. Fortunes above $1 million would be taxed at 1 percent; fortunes above $2 million would be taxed at 2 percent, and so forth, up to a 100 percent tax on fortunes greater than $100 million. The second bill limited annual income to $1 million, and the third bill capped individual inheritances at $5 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long#Long_in_the_Senate_.281932.E2.80.931935.29
During his first term many on the left thought that FDR was, like Obama today, too friendly to bankers and a sellout to big business.
One can of course point to what FDR did accomplish and conclude that he was our most liberal president, but there were many on the left at the time who thought he did not go nearly far enough, especially since he had huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.
I wonder how DU would have treated him is we had been around at the time.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)your position that FDR was critiqued "from the Left".
Exceedingly odd.
pampango
(24,692 posts)Mussolini", according to the author. If you disagree with the author's assessment of Coughlin's placement on the political spectrum during FDR's first term, you are entitled to your opinion.
Coughlin was criticizing FDR at that time for being "too friendly to bankers" and had a platform that included "monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor". Those do not sound like "proto-fascist" criticisms and policies that he came to endorse later on his life.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)SpartanDem
(4,533 posts)baldguy
(36,649 posts)
pampango
(24,692 posts)http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/03/01/why-obama-might-be-the-next-fdr-for-the-stock-mark.aspx
The performance of the stock market under Obama has been great, but it pales in comparison to its performance during the first FDR term.
And the stock market in Sweden (where 'socialism' is about as real as it gets in the modern developed world) has more than doubled since 2008.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)others dreamed of all being equal
LBJ made it happen legally
Of course the John Birch Society and their like have not adapted to it very well
ChoppinBroccoli
(3,900 posts)............I always smirk and say, "Wow! Even more liberal than Richard Nixon?" Then I sit back and watch the confused looks on their faces as they try to make sense of it all.
The truth of the matter is Republicans have been using this line as some sort of half-assed attack against EVERY Democratic President of my lifetime. It's one of those things that you hear so often that it just loses all meaning. In 2016, Hillary Clinton will be the most liberal President in history too. Or whoever wins the Democratic nomination. It doesn't matter; they'll pin that one on ANYONE with a D after their name.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)The Republicans count on their low-information base, who wouldn't know a Socialist if Eugene V. Debs came back to haunt them, and who might actually LIKE some Socialist policies if they were implemented here, i.e. health care free at the point of service, no college tuition, labor representation on corporate boards, generous old-age pensions.
reteachinwi
(579 posts)and it had the Republican game plan for the 1936 election in it. Familiar stuff:
The GOP "sales team" identified several key points of attack, which they have used with almost no variation in every campaign since, whether appropriate or not.
* Accuse opposition of overspending
* Accuse opposition of supporting "big government"
* Identify a bogeyman - usually the communists and/or liberals , although they have gotten a bit creative and now include environmentalists, anti-gun folks, and scientists on their list of "enemies of freedom"
* Condemn New Deal (i.e., government social programs) as communistic or in some other way unAmerican
* Manipulate statistics to own advantage
* Accuse opposition of waging a class war.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=872755
JHB
(38,216 posts)...People who just want stuff: 1860.
Below is a conservative political cartoon from 1860, engraved by Currier and Ives and published in Harper's Magazine.
See if you recognize the playbook:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003674590/
"The Republican Party Going to the Right House"
Lincoln rides on a fence rail, carried by Horace Greeley (anti-slavery editor of the New York Tribune), leading his followers into a lunatic asylum.
GREELY: "Hold on to me Abe, and we'll go in here by the unanimous consent of the people."
LINCOLN: "Now my friends I'm almost in, and the millennium is going to begin, so ask what you will and it shall be granted."
Younger Woman: "Oh! what a beautiful man he is, I feel a passionate attraction' every time I see his lovely face."
Bearded Man: "I represent the free love element, and expect to have free license to carry out its principles."
Man with trim beard and hat: "I want religion abolished and the book of Mormon made the standard of morality."
Caricatured black man: "De white man hab no rights dat cullud pussons am bound to spect' I want dat understood."
Older woman: "I want womans rights enforced, and man reduced in subjection to her authority."
Scruffy man with bottle: "I want everybody to have a share of everybody elses property."
Barefoot man: "I want a hotel established by government, where people that aint inclined to work, can board free of expense, and be found in rum and tobacco."
Seedy top-hat man: " I want guaranteed to every Citizen the right to examine every other citizen's pockets without interruption by Policemen."
Man at the end: "I want all the stations houses burned up, and the M.P.s killed, so that the bohoys can run with the machine and have a muss when they please."
Lets go down the list, shall we?:
Supported by "liberal media": Check
Liberals will embark on profligate giveaways to THOSE PEOPLE? Check.
Flighty, emotional, entranced by charisma/celebrity? Check.
People conservatives consider sexual deviants? Check.
People conservatives consider religious deviants? Check (and how ironic, this particular turn).
Grasping minorities after special rights? Check.
"Feminazis"? Check.
There's a vast army of layabouts, thugs, and outright thieves who want to take your hard-earned stuff? Check, check, check, and check.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)Snort, choke, hiccup .....
Phew, what a side splitter. I needed that!
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)If you ask a Republican.
There is no real need to dig any deeper.
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)EXACTLY as I said he was.
Turbineguy
(40,081 posts)Nixon!
Response to YoungDemCA (Original post)
Jamaal510 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)In the world of American politics, cognitive dissonance is a mainstay of making sure people do not realize what is truth, or even that there is such a thing as the truth. The way propaganda works has nothing to do with truth or reason. It has everything to do with swaying opinion.
"Obama is the most right-wing Democratic president in US history" may not be true, but that is the retort that offsets the false meme on the right. Or, to keep it simple, "Obama is more Republican than many Republicans."
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Low I.Q., the embracing of stupidity, contempt for change and sheer hatred is a bad combination for a human to have.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)but anybody who claims he is further right than Nixon (or even Reagan) is kidding themselves. Both of those presidents were Grade-A racists. Nixon was the guy who started the Southern Strategy, while Reagan race-baited about "welfare-queens", he cracked down on the Black Panther Party, and he significantly lowered top tax rates during his presidency and helped popularize the trickle-down economics that still haunts this country today.
indepat
(20,899 posts)right-of center for all the reasons you list plus several others that could be added. Republicans hate and mis-label BHO because he is not a Republican and has a Kenyan father, i.e., for his temerity in having some black ancestry.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)That is my opinion. I think he came into office believing that he could get congress to have a coming together moment. I think he felt he could be transform the way Washington works. That can be seen by him starting many of the negotiations from a more middle ground. In the end, he is not transforming, his policies are not left, and fighting is just where it has always been. In this environment, he is an excellent Democratic President.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I have read both of his books and from those it is clear to me that he is an idealistic man and I think he had very high hopes for how people would behave. The venom we have seen is nothing like we have seen before. I don't think anyone expected them to be so angry and downright mean.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)Bernie Sanders is to the left of Obama. I'm to the left of Obama most of my democratic friends are to the left of Obama, the Independent radio host Norman Goldman's to the left of Obama.
Obama is no moderate Democrat, he's more of a moderate Republican. Which is why I've turned Independent. And no, being an Independent doesn't mean Ima eats my stoopid cearealz for brekfst every moenin cause I can'ts makes up my mind. For me it just means I don't condone a lot of things that Obama/Democratic party supports. I happen to be more left than that.
Obama a socialist? Not even close.
-p
Paul E Ester
(952 posts)well written, my friend.
demosincebirth
(12,826 posts)him a Fascist and a Nazi.
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Other presidents have been a long way to the left of him but in absolute terms, and on social issues, many presidents have been further left by the standards of their time, but because those standards change no other president has been as far to the left on social issues in absolute terms.
On the other hand, I suspect that most future presidents will be more so.l
treestar
(82,383 posts)Good luck getting right wingers to understand that not everyone left of center is a communist. To them, the center is communist.
Your complaints regarding what Obama has done or some of his positions would meet with stunning denial if you talk to right wingers. Contrary to your term "hawkish," Obama is a "wimp" or in actual collusion with the terrorists. A public option is no more communist to them than is Obamacare. Interesting they too do not get that it could be "worse" and they have the same debates amongst themselves about voting for radical leftists like Mitt.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2013, 11:19 PM - Edit history (1)
anymore, grew up with the totalitarian conservative type, not good for me. I've carried on much better conversations with my window sill than conservatives.
If you can still do it, all the power to ya. I'm burnt.
Although I have been known to burst out in laughter during a knuckle draggers conversation in the middle of a room. The laughter is good for the soul. At this point I'll take what I can get.
Peace
-p
progressoid
(53,195 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)"Left wing" as a simple descriptor can not be measured. But an argument based on context must recognize that other liberal presidents did not have near the opposition that Obama has even among Democrats. LBJ and FDR had congressional support that Obama has not had. Were they really bucking the system?
When Obama has called for healthcare, a jobs act, gun control.... he has been to the left of most of the other government reps on his own.