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In reply to the discussion: 7 years! [View all]sheshe2
(97,506 posts)88. Yes, actually Obama did start the revolution.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110232999
But that's how America works: we have no sense of history. We don't understand just how bad it was right before the 2008 election. In actuality, we were losing 700,000 jobs per month. Unemployment was twice what it was now. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was below 8,000. The financial industry had crashed the global economy and was seemingly continuing those very same actions as if nothing they had done was even wrong. Retirees were losing their life savings. Millennials were unable to find their first jobs and were being crushed by student debt. Our country was bogged down in two costly wars that were contributing to the deteriorating conditions and instability of the Middle East. While all this was going on, the rich in this country, seemingly unaffected by everything going on around them, continued to profit at record levels.
When it came time for him to run for president starting in 2007, Barack Obama did not run on a promise of revolution.
What he did run on was convincing millions of Americans that were was a better way to govern. That we were all in this together and that if enough Americans stood up and voiced their concerns then Washington, D.C. would be forced to listen. His soaring rhetoric was based upon the idea that through hope and change we could advance the mission of our founding fathers and get ever so closer to our perfect union. That was his pitch: not simply that he would go in and overturn nearly 220 years of constitutional governance but that he would advocate for a way to govern more effectively. By voicing their support for his candidacy, Barack Obama's supporters were confirming that they too, agreed that we needed a candidate whose policies and whose views on government would best provide a way to make our system run as it was intended to run.
And so in 2008, America made history with its resounding election of Barack Hussein Obama. It was such a decisive victory that even Fox News had trouble describing it: nearly 69.5 million popular votes, a 365-173 victory in the Electoral College, and the winning of nearly all swing states including Florida, Ohio, and even North Carolina. Even better was the fact that Democratic senators rode Obama's coattails and with the defection of Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and the delayed seating of Democrat Al Franken of Minnesota, Barack Obama found himself in April of 2009 of having a filibuster-proof Senate and a Democratically-controlled House. Here was his chance to enact a progressive wish-list with things like universal healthcare, a way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, an increased minimum wage, and free colleges and universities.
Does any of this sound familiar?
It should. Because it is the very same platform that now Senator Bernie Sanders is echoing for president. Yet despite this huge "wave" of enthusiasm that brought Barack Obama into the White House, he faced stiff opposition from not only Republicans, who vowed to make him a one-term president but also Blue Dog Democrats who felt Obama's "radical agenda" wasn't in the best interest of the American people. During a bitter and fought-out battle for the Affordable Care Act, not only did the landmark legislation not receive a single Republican vote from either the House or the Senate but Obama had to compromise on the legislation and even the idea of a public option was too much for certain Blue Dogs to swallow. The ACA that we now have in place passed after a nearly eight-month battle on Christmas Eve of 2009 with Obama needing all 60 votes in the Senate as well as having to fend off 34 Democrats who voted against the legislation in the House.
snip//
The American people are living through a revolution. It is not a revolution from a seventy-four-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont. It is the revolution from a fifty-four-year-old biracial man from the south side of Chicago. A skinny man with large ears and a funny middle name who has put our country on the path to prosperity for decades to come. A man staked his presidency on providing affordable healthcare to tens of millions of people. A man whose actions staved off a second Great Depression despite the fact that these actions gave his opponents the ability to misinform the public and to retake Congress. A man who slowly and methodically worked with Congress to improve our crumbling infrastructure. A man whose very first bill was a bill to help protect women in the workplace. A man who has used the bully pulpit to advocate for higher wages and more affordable college. A man who has done all this despite having two of history's least productive Congresses since 2010.
Read More: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/2/24/its-all-been-done-how-barack-obama-already-achieved-bernie-sanders-revolution
**********************
Who is going to fly in on BS coattails? No one, he refuses to even raise money for them.
But that's how America works: we have no sense of history. We don't understand just how bad it was right before the 2008 election. In actuality, we were losing 700,000 jobs per month. Unemployment was twice what it was now. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was below 8,000. The financial industry had crashed the global economy and was seemingly continuing those very same actions as if nothing they had done was even wrong. Retirees were losing their life savings. Millennials were unable to find their first jobs and were being crushed by student debt. Our country was bogged down in two costly wars that were contributing to the deteriorating conditions and instability of the Middle East. While all this was going on, the rich in this country, seemingly unaffected by everything going on around them, continued to profit at record levels.
When it came time for him to run for president starting in 2007, Barack Obama did not run on a promise of revolution.
What he did run on was convincing millions of Americans that were was a better way to govern. That we were all in this together and that if enough Americans stood up and voiced their concerns then Washington, D.C. would be forced to listen. His soaring rhetoric was based upon the idea that through hope and change we could advance the mission of our founding fathers and get ever so closer to our perfect union. That was his pitch: not simply that he would go in and overturn nearly 220 years of constitutional governance but that he would advocate for a way to govern more effectively. By voicing their support for his candidacy, Barack Obama's supporters were confirming that they too, agreed that we needed a candidate whose policies and whose views on government would best provide a way to make our system run as it was intended to run.
And so in 2008, America made history with its resounding election of Barack Hussein Obama. It was such a decisive victory that even Fox News had trouble describing it: nearly 69.5 million popular votes, a 365-173 victory in the Electoral College, and the winning of nearly all swing states including Florida, Ohio, and even North Carolina. Even better was the fact that Democratic senators rode Obama's coattails and with the defection of Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and the delayed seating of Democrat Al Franken of Minnesota, Barack Obama found himself in April of 2009 of having a filibuster-proof Senate and a Democratically-controlled House. Here was his chance to enact a progressive wish-list with things like universal healthcare, a way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, an increased minimum wage, and free colleges and universities.
Does any of this sound familiar?
It should. Because it is the very same platform that now Senator Bernie Sanders is echoing for president. Yet despite this huge "wave" of enthusiasm that brought Barack Obama into the White House, he faced stiff opposition from not only Republicans, who vowed to make him a one-term president but also Blue Dog Democrats who felt Obama's "radical agenda" wasn't in the best interest of the American people. During a bitter and fought-out battle for the Affordable Care Act, not only did the landmark legislation not receive a single Republican vote from either the House or the Senate but Obama had to compromise on the legislation and even the idea of a public option was too much for certain Blue Dogs to swallow. The ACA that we now have in place passed after a nearly eight-month battle on Christmas Eve of 2009 with Obama needing all 60 votes in the Senate as well as having to fend off 34 Democrats who voted against the legislation in the House.
snip//
The American people are living through a revolution. It is not a revolution from a seventy-four-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont. It is the revolution from a fifty-four-year-old biracial man from the south side of Chicago. A skinny man with large ears and a funny middle name who has put our country on the path to prosperity for decades to come. A man staked his presidency on providing affordable healthcare to tens of millions of people. A man whose actions staved off a second Great Depression despite the fact that these actions gave his opponents the ability to misinform the public and to retake Congress. A man who slowly and methodically worked with Congress to improve our crumbling infrastructure. A man whose very first bill was a bill to help protect women in the workplace. A man who has used the bully pulpit to advocate for higher wages and more affordable college. A man who has done all this despite having two of history's least productive Congresses since 2010.
Read More: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/2/24/its-all-been-done-how-barack-obama-already-achieved-bernie-sanders-revolution
**********************
Who is going to fly in on BS coattails? No one, he refuses to even raise money for them.
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Just a moment, please. I thought Obama was a neocon. A Third Way neoliberal. This doesn't add up.
Buzz Clik
Apr 2016
#2
... but not the ones who live entirely in the artificial reality of their twisted minds.
Buzz Clik
Apr 2016
#73
How! Our other trade agreements have cost us good jobs (that have been replaced by
JDPriestly
Apr 2016
#94
My line is that Democratic Presidents generally disappoint me slightly whereas GOP ones invariably
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#106
I don't think anyone on here is saying continuing what Obama has done would be a bad thing.
liberalnarb
Apr 2016
#36
So is the solution to sit out the presidential election and allow the White House to
Squinch
May 2016
#114
I'd be willing to bet dollars to holes in donuts that within DAYS of a Sanders inauguration ...
Hekate
Apr 2016
#61
"All of that and more" -- Bernie Sanders, when asked by Chuck Todd if he would use drones
betsuni
Apr 2016
#51
Its certainly a good graphic, but I also like to imagine the bread lines that were avoided
BootinUp
Apr 2016
#8
FDR is one of my heroes, but FDR was not God.The rewrite of history on FDR could get to be as bad...
Hekate
Apr 2016
#66
"And to think that the RWNJs were afraid that Obama was going to destroy America!"
Plucketeer
Apr 2016
#18
The fool, larry elder, says its weakest recovery ever. Cant stand to see a black man succeed
Liberal_in_LA
Apr 2016
#92
"Destroy America"? Fuck, I only wish I'd had some liquid cash to put in the stock market early 2009.
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#105