The University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance put on a Zoom panel of political scientists Wednesday to analyze the rising prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement in national politics and how it might interact with the 2020 presidential election.
All but one of the panelists were African-American. None said anything supportive of Donald Trump, perhaps the least-subtly racist president in the past century. They were quite confident that Trump would get little to no support from black voters, but they made no clear predictions on how the election will turn out.
It occurs to me to mention right at the top something that seems obvious, but which dominated the background of the discussion. While large majorities of African-American voters have, since roughly the Franklin D. Roosevelt era, by significant and perhaps growing majorities, voted more for Democrats than Republicans for president, there has been no president in recent history who has relied as openly on barely coded racist appeals as Donald Trump. That’s just me talking, but that fact dominated from the background the panel discussion, except when it dominated from the foreground.
An ‘enormous partisan divide’
Panelist Ashley Jardina of Duke University (the only white scholar on the panel) said that implicitly and explicitly racial issues affect many aspects of the Trump-Biden contest, creating an “enormous partisan divide.” She added that “many white Republicans do hold views that are more racially prejudiced and less supportive of the Black Lives Matters movement” than in any previous election.
LaFleur Stephens-Dougan of Princeton added that the Joe Biden campaign is “not immune to losing support over race among white reactionaries.”
Christopher Parker of the University of Washington said that fears of black people among many white voters were activated by the 2008 election of the first black president. “It was [Barack] Obama and everything he represents that occasioned the rise of the Tea Party,” he said. It’s a pattern that “goes back to Reconstruction” [in the post-Civil War period]. “Anything that helps black people has a backlash,” he said, adding: “If we didn’t have Obama we wouldn’t have Trump. That’s a fact.”
The Confederate flag issue
Parker said the rising display of and defense of the Confederate battle flag by Trump and his supporters is “going to make political violence even worse” during the campaign. The flag, which southerners say is a celebration of their history and identity, really represents “rape and oppression,” Parker said.
According to current trends, in 2050 whites will no longer make up a majority of the U.S. population. University of Minnesota political science professor Michael Minta brought up that fact and suggested that as whites approach the end of their “majority” status, it may increase the degree to which their whiteness represents their “identity,” implying perhaps increased implications for their voting behavior.
Biden has said he will nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, and pick a woman running mate, and, although he hasn’t committed to choosing a woman of color for veep, there are several on his known list of candidates for that spot. Stephens-Dougan noted that blacks, and especially black women, have been among the most loyal of Democratic voters, implying that such a choice might help reward or motivate that demographic group to back the Democratic ticket.
While it certainly is true that the election of Obama motivated some white people to vote for Trump, it is also true that many white people who voted for Obama ended up voting for Trump because they saw the Hope and Change of Obama to be mostly fraudulent, and Hillary too. It is also true that around 8% of black voters voted for Trump, and roughly 13% of male black voters.
I would also like to solicit some actual facts about what precisely Obama did for black people, other than act as a symbol. Because I know at least the folks at the Black Agenda Report see Obama as far more villain than hero.
https://blackagendareport.com/obama_legacy_part10_counter-insurgency
I’d also like to point out that Glen Ford, happy to denounce Trump, is also willing to point out:
“Joe Biden is a proud architect of mass Black incarceration, a friend and ally of segregationist politicians, and a warmonger of the lowest type who has promised to veto Medicare for All. No one in Congress is more loyal to the corporate class.”
https://blackagendareport.com/democrats-will-never-choose-transformative-change-so-give-them-no-choice
Weird, because Joe Biden is the nominee because African-American voters overwhelmingly preferred him to Bernie Sanders.
“Black Agenda Report was quite intentional in coining the term black misleadership class. The misleaders include Democratic Party politicians and allies in civil rights organizations, journalism, churches, and the foundation world. This group is entirely self-interested as they work to get funding for pet projects, well paid jobs, election to office, media attention, or all of the above. They are subservient to the Democratic Party and its donor class while giving the impression of working in the interests of black people.
“Joe Biden’s position as presumptive democratic party presidential nominee is a direct result of these corrupt relationships. It was Congressional Black Caucus member James Clyburn who gave him the seal of approval during the all-important South Carolina primary. Clyburn also gave Bernie Sanders the shove under the bus and resolved what the Democrats considered their biggest problem in the 2020 election.”
https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-joe-biden-and-black-misleaders
I’ve heard that all before from the Sanders apologists who can’t figure out why African-Americans didn’t vote for him. And it pretty much explains itself. The idea that African-Americans can’t think for themselves, that they are all under the sway of the corrupt Democratic establishment, is about as racist as you can get.
Try going on the Black Agenda Report and call them racist, lol.
I don’t know if they are racist as much as they are a marginal group out of touch with most African-Americans. White Sanders supporters using their arguments to claim that African Americans can’t decide on their own who to vote for was extremely racist.
That is you putting words into other people’s mouths in order so you can call them racist and discount everything they say. The people at BAR have never said such a thing. They are saying most of the Black Congressional Caucus has misled the black community. They go into detail as to why they think that. They are clear about what they want instead.
But it is good to know you are so in touch with the black community.
I won’t weigh in on your debate with Mr. Duncan as to why African-Americans supported Mr. Biden. But I will note that studies have confirmed what is obvious to the casual observer: only a tiny percentage of Americans of any stripe can offer a fact-based, cogently reasoned justification for their voting choices. If most of us white folks could “think for ourselves,” Mr. Trump hardly would be sitting in the White House. The engineered civic incompetence across the sweep of our nation is pretty color-blind.
I don’t think that’s true at all, and I certainly don’t think its true for African-Americans voting for Biden and not Sanders. The Sanders supporters making that argument (which was a small, vocal portion and did not include Sanders himself) was white supremacy at its worst.
The only one making that argument here is you.
Not really — you can always find a handful of people who will say anything.
The question is how many voters the groups cited by Mr. Duncan represent.
The number of people who prescribe to an idea is no measure of it’s truth or validity.
At least Angela Davis in the Black Agenda Report gives a rationale for why she is supporting Biden. “I don’t see this election as being about choosing a candidate who will be able to lead us in the right direction,” said professor emeritus Davis. “It will be about choosing a candidate who can be most effectively pressured into allowing more space for the evolving anti-racist movement.”
This all or nothing approach that Mr. Duncan is always hammering on is going to be nothing if his type of candidate is going to run. The “What about Obama” argument has validity, but when you look at the prospect of Trump having 4 more years it seems most like a petulant reaction to Bernie losing. Incremental change comes slowly; but at least it has a chance. The French Revolution type of change scares the hell out of too many folks and that’s going to be the focus of Trump’s campaign.
You mistake my trying to get Dems to be more honest about Obama and Biden, war, income inequality and ecological devastation, for advocating for a Jacobin removing of heads.
Petulance is for those who insist that Bernie fans accept the kind of incrementalism that makes for more income inequality, war and ecological devastation.
Angela Davis gets it. Most people on the left get it. It should be enough that Bernie Sanders himself is enthusiastically supporting Biden. But there are always going to be some people who are so privileged and callous that they don’t care about DACA recipients being deported, about transgender people losing their civil rights, about the millions who will lose their ACA coverage, etc. They are as beyond help as the people going maskless to Trump rallies.
Interesting…the High Court that Liberals have said the sky is falling about just reaffirmed DACA and Transgender rights.
Sometimes Minnpost commentary is like talking to my mom, who used to tell me how Obama was going to take all our guns and put all Christians in camps…and dispite nothing like that ever happening, she now says Biden is going to institute Communism and take all our property. She is otherwise a sweet old lady.
Sometimes I feel like I am living in some alternative universe where I can’t say anything at all without it being ignored entirely and replaced with all the worst fears of the person hearing it.
No, that is completely wrong. This is the problem with relying on the obscure sources you like to cite instead of actual news.
The DACA victory was procedural. The court did not rule on the merits of the program, rather, it found that the Trump administration did not end it properly. If Trump is re-elected, he can try again and likely will be able to deport hundreds of thousands of people here legally now. So I guess you weren’t necessarily being callous. Just very, very badly misinformed.
And while the transgender rights case was good and important, there are still many other areas where the Trump administration has and can undermine transgender and other LGBT rights. Again, you have demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the state of the law.
The alternative universe may be the result of where you get your information. I expect that most of the commenters here understood those court decisions and what they meant in terms of a Trump victory, but you got the facts completely wrong. That’s a real problem. You may not be callously disregarding the rights of the people involved, but your lack of understanding makes it seem that way.
Everything I know about those decisions I heard on public radio. You take one word I said, reaffirmed, and turn me into a fountain of ignorance.
It is a wonder that anyone comes to these pages to “discuss” anything, unless they are willing to parrot the orthodoxy.
There is no such thing as unanimity in any human endeavor.
Leftier-than-thou purists need to face the fact that their disdain for Biden or the contemporary Democratic Party, while no doubt a sign of great virtue, still amounts to a vote for Trump. If you’re going to write-in Bernie Sanders, you might as well wear a MAGA hat and scream about building the wall, because there is absolutely no difference between the effect of your vote and going full-on Trumpista.
What if Dems held the party as accountable as they do Bernie fans?
Paternalistic condescension/contempt is certainly a way to demand their allegiance, but in no way effective.
First of all, I count myself as a Bernie fan. One of my last ventures out in public was the rally in St. Paul.
Second, the die hard fans need to grow the hell up and realize that politics isn’t about getting what you want all the time. It’s about securing the best result possible for the most people.
For example, I’m not crazy about the neoliberal mish-mash that is Obamacare, but I am even less enamored of what we had before. Would I prefer single payer? Of course. Do I think there was a realistic chance of getting it when the ACA was passed? Surely you jest. I’ve read the magical thinkers who tell us that we could have had single payer if Obama had just tried hard enough (I think Yves Smith is one of them). These are people who, for the most part, have adequate coverage and can just shrug off the failure to put in something that is ideal. If they spent a little less time trying to train their pigs to fly, they would appreciate the on-the-ground realities of governance, and spend less time worrying about what ought to be.
I’m pretty sure what Yves said was, Obama might have found the support among the electorate if he had tried, but that he and Dem elite had no intention of trying, just as Biden and Dem elite mock the idea as too expensive, even while they pretend they don’t know that the Fed will print as many Trillions in the next year as are required to keep TBTF afloat.
The thing is too, I just don’t think the last 40 years have been really that good for about 90% of Americans, at least not getting better, no matter who is prez, so I don’t think this election with these two guys will change that.
I’m pretty sure Yves views everything through the lens of an Upper Est Side limousine liberal and doesn’t have much clue about what is happening on the ground in much of the country. If you will recall the “debate” about Obamacare, even that mild measure was a hard sell, to put it mildly.
Ten years later, Medicare for all or single payer might be an easier sell. In 2010, I don’t think it would have been possible.
Oh, wow, you just took my breath away, RB.
Yves I believe is currently living in South Carolina taking care of her elderly. 90+ mother. She has some health issues of her own.
She has done some groundbreaking work calling out abuses in the California Public Pension Fund. The work of NakedCapitalism has been a relentless takedown of private equity, hedge funds and monopoly/oligopoly. They regularly report on government and corporate abuses, and pollution and ecological issues. They are a great source for connecting different economic theories and discussion about them.
What you said is a totally unjustified, ruthless takedown and I want you to take it back.
Or what?
I used to be a regular reader of Naked Capitalism; in fact, I read her book and found it very insightful. Over time, her views on national politics seemed less and less grounded in reality. I am not the first one to make the argument that Yves and her close circle are living in an elite never-never land, whether their physical territory is the Upper East Side or a sojourn in South Carolina.
This is what they are referring to when people talk about Woke Cancel Culture. If they don’t follow the orthodoxy, insert categorical pejorative/assassinate character/disappear everything they have ever said and done.
There are many different types of orthodoxy, Mr. Duncan. They are all characterized by membership that believes they are the only ones who are truly thinking for themselves.
The chief orthodoxies in America, often overlapping: Democrat, Republican, Christianity, Scientific Materialism, Growth, Markets, Consumerism and Eternal Progress.
Obama was a disappointment to many, including me, particularly after he cozied up to Timothy Geithner and the bankers who were at fault in creating the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing Depression. But I would not say he was a fraud. Obama campaigned on “hope and change” and his reputation for reconciling conflicting viewpoints.
Obama’s election might not have triggered the Tea Party immediately. The Tea Party morphed out of the “Birther” movement after the Santelli rant about poor people getting bailed out of their defaulted mortgages. These were only manifestations of the underlying Republican intransigence to Obama’s remarkable election. The Republicans were hardened against reconciliation with Obama in any way. This was to me epitomized by the “Change? I’d like mine back please” bumper stickers and Mitch McConnell’s boast to block any legislative initiative by Obama’s administration and, in the end, the refusal to even give a hearing to Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. None of this was overtly about race but all racist to the core in motivation. Obama was a conservative in office which I believe was due to his fear or concern of assassination. I’m relieved he was not and can say that while I don’t agree with a number of his policies, his two terms were still a greater success than the current occupant’s and many others before him.
The racial dynamic, what has come to be known as the “Southern Strategy”, is still in play and also in the East, the North and the West. We’re going to hear a lot about “law and order” and “protect police lives” and all the usual tropes that play stereotypes of African-Americans that appeal to white prejudice and bigotry.. The Republican Party, the Party that led the country to end slavery and brought the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution after the Civil War has today become the party of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, standing for the very things they opposed in 1861-1877. They are the face of white supremacy under Trump and McConnell and their ilk in the Senate and Congress.
One of the saddest things in America is how many working poor white people have been conditioned to hate people with less social power than they have, and vis versa, and how working class people in the city are conditioned to hate working poor white rural people, and vis versa. I blame the elite of both “sides”, and anyone who traffics in such “nonsense”.
“Christopher Parker of the University of Washington said “It was [Barack] Obama and everything he represents that occasioned the rise of the Tea Party,””
I question the accuracy of this statement. My recollection is that the Tea Party was as much a response to the spending excesses of the Bush admin as a reaction to the Obama admin. As I recall, one of their first victims in a primary was Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia.
I do agree that what began as the Tea party morphed into support for Trump’s birther movement & subsequent growth in white nationalism.
My recollection is that the Tea Party got its start from a screed by Rick Santelli less than a month after President Obama’s inauguration. All their pieties about taxes and small government were bollocks: they hated the Kenyan-born Islamo-fascist usurper, and were going to stop at nothing to thwart him
The Tea Party was also very much a result of the bank bailouts and Fed QE in the aftermath of 2008, while 9 million Foreclosures happened. Obama’s indifference to the resulting suffering and despair was indeed a reason for the election of Trump, no matter how many a Liberal would say it is all about racism, bigotry and misogyny.
And the answer is:
“Santelli drew attention for his remarks made on February 19, 2009, about the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan, which was announced on February 18. While broadcasting from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Santelli accused the government of “promoting bad behavior”, and raised the possibility of a “Chicago Tea Party”. He suggested that individuals who knowingly obtained high-risk mortgages (and faced impending foreclosure as a consequence) were “losers”.[9] The Tea Party remark was credited by some as “igniting” the Tea Party movement as a national phenomenon”
AND
“The Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan is a U.S. program announced on February 18, 2009 by U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the US Treasury Department, it is a $75 billion program to help up to nine million homeowners avoid foreclosure, which was supplemented by $200 billion in additional funding for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase and more easily refinance mortgages. The plan is funded mostly by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. It uses cost sharing and incentives to encourage lenders to reduce homeowner’s monthly payments to 31 percent of their gross monthly income. Under the program, a lender would be responsible for reducing total monthly mortgage payments (PITI) to no more than 38 percent of the borrower’s income, with the government sharing the cost to further reduce the payment to 31 percent. The plan also involves potentially forgiving or deferring a portion of the borrower’s mortgage balance. Mortgage servicers will receive incentives to modify loans and to help the homeowner stay current, though participation by lenders is voluntary”
So, we know that the Tea Party was in part inspired by Obama’s efforts to protect lower income home owners. Which I thought would make WHD happy and inspire him to give credit to Obama where credit is due…
The thing about HAMP was, 9 million foreclosures still happened. And, if you signed up, if you ever failed to pay the morgage after that, that debt would become like student debt that you can never discharge. So no, after they handed out 4.5 trillion to those big banks, I have never been and will never be happy about that.
It wasn’t ideal. Nothing created by humans is ever going to be perfect.
What, realistically, was the other choice? Not what should have happened, but what would have happened in the real world?
We didn’t need to send the message that TBTF means that no matter what you do, the Fed will make you whole. What has TBTF done since then? Gotten bigger, building up more debt to make execs and investors rich, and now the Fed is bailing them out again, and giving them all the money they need to buy up more of the wreckage of the economy.
The terms of HAMP were an insult in the face of that.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but I’m asking what, in the United States of America in 2009-2010 was a realistic possibility?
Obama had the bully pulpit, all of Congress, and a populace hungry for hope and change. Who knows what might have been possible? How would he have been beloved by the people if he had taken down many an elite banker? What if he had said we are going to take the profit out of Health Care and make it about Public Health? Instead he gave the keys to the kingdom to bankers, and he delivered an ACA that he said would reduce everybody’s rates but in fact turned Health Care into an even greater exercise in racketeering.
That is why I say, when people here talk about incrementalism, I ask if they mean greater income inequality, more war and more ecological and social devastation. Because from my point of view, that incrementalism gets ever more expensive, and out of reach for more and more people.
“Obama had the bully pulpit, all of Congress, and a populace hungry for hope and change.”
In addition, he faced strong opposition that, due to the arcane rules of Congress, could stymie anything he hoped to do, and, in fact, expressed their intention to do just that.
The arcane rules of Congress would have meant little if he had appealed to the people first before banks or grand bargains with Republicans.
Other than elections, how do citizens override Congress?
And Senators have six year terms.
The arcane rules of Congress are the procedure through which laws are made. One of the less-than-arcane rules is that everyone, even those with opinions one may find odious, has the right to speak and to attempt to influence policy.
Do you really think Obama could have gotten the masses to storm the barricades for single-payer or a less bank-friendly bailout policy?
Not really. It was racism and bigotry.
An incoherent reason, but a reason nonetheless. I don’t treat the cut on my arm by digging the melon-baller into my eye socket.
Trump owns the white bigot vote because he has deliberately worked to get it. As bigotry becomes less and less acceptable, his approach is self defeating to the Republican Party. It is inconsistent with what most Republicans believe – that people should be able to succeed in our land of opportunity.
Esteemed Adolph Reed, Professer at Penn U, understands that the best way to build black wealth is to reverse income inequality and improve incomes of working black people – which will also help all working class people, and much reduce the anger in America.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158059/racial-wealth-gap-vs-racial-income-gap-modern-economic-inequality
“This key finding suggests strongly that the racial wealth gap’s ultimate source is the racial income gap—and therefore closing the income gap would be the most effective route to narrowing the wealth gap. The right-wing panaceas of tax cuts and privatization count for little in redressing the black-white wealth gap, in other words; policies that redistribute income downward will have the greatest direct effect on most African Americans’ capacities to accumulate household or family wealth. There’s a vital lesson here for liberal economic reformers as well: Reversing the great concentration of income at the top that has occurred during the last half-century not only would benefit all working- and middle-class Americans but also would be especially beneficial to African Americans hoping at long last to overcome the economic legacies of discrimination.
“This crucial insight should be at the center of revived efforts of substantive reform aimed at eliminating the wealth gap—and making the American socioeconomic hierarchy flatter and fairer across the board. The path forward is to pursue broadly redistributive policies, combined with serious enforcement of anti-discrimination law and related interventions. By contrast, an interpretation of racialized economic disparities that places the wealth gap, in isolation, at the top of the agenda, has not and will not yield any such clear and concrete diagnosis. Examinations of the racial wealth gap seldom do more than document the existence of statistical disparities—and are tellingly vague about their deeper causes.”
“the best way to build black wealth is to reverse income inequality and improve incomes of working black people – which will also help all working class people”
I will read the source material later, but this premise is pretty spot on. The fundamental issue at hand is that it’s much tougher to get a fair day’s pay for a day of work than it used to be. Trump tapped into that resentment in a divisive, bigoted way; but the sentiment is non-partisan, and for many fed into support first for Obama, then Sanders.
That dem leadership still fails to understand this is precisely how Trump got elected in the first place. That he’s been such a colossal disaster will likely put Biden into office & Dem leadership will continue to learn the wrong lesson, that moderation works.
The thought of 4 more years of Trump is…uggg
But then, Biden et al doubling down on neoliberal austerity for the many and every and all advantage for the few makes me expect something worse than trump, 2024.
What, as of July 17, 2020, is our other option?
I don’t know, other than, if Dems want me and people like me to vote for Biden, quit treating us like if we demand accountability on economics, war or ecological devastation then we are somehow disconnected, hyper-purist Trump/Bernie/Putin stooges.
First, while Barack Obama seems to me a far better man, and even a far less divisive political leader of the society, he also served as a fine case study of why most of us, Black OR White, are ill-equipped to pass judgment on Black politicians as a group. The assumption too often made is that Black equals far-left, and that’s not how I experienced Obama at all. I thought – twice – that I’d voted for a moderately-liberal Democrat, but based on what I saw and heard over his 8 years in office, I concluded that Obama was, in fact, more a moderately-liberal Republican. He had good intentions, and still does, and plenty of personal integrity, but he lacked the political oomph from his party, and perhaps lacked the occasionally-confrontational force of personality to keep from getting rolled by McConnell and others who might as well have been wearing their KKK robes.
I saw no point in trying to build bridges to a GOP that seemed, even a dozen years ago, hostile to the notion of a Black man in high office – Moscow Mitch McConnell’s vow to do all he could to make Obama a one-term president being but one of many relevant examples – while simultaneously embracing the various conspiracy theories and other irrational modes of thought that now pass for reason and analysis among its purported leaders. Obama’s repeated efforts to compromise with the Republicans in Congress only weakened his position and influence, and once the Senate was in Republican control, it didn’t matter what Obama and Democrats had in mind for the country. We were going to be ruled by the right-wing ideology of the minority, at both national and state levels. Republican ideas of compromise mostly revolved around – still too often revolve around – no compromise at all. Do it our way, or it won’t get done at all. And, as continued support for the tantrums of the toddler in the Oval Office demonstrate, they’d rather rule and exercise power than actually govern.
Second, and not specifically Obama-related, is this. In part, at least, what we’re seeing now is the “coming home to roost” of the chickens born of a century and-a-half of Jim Crow, covert and overt discrimination in hiring and pay over those decades, racist real estate practices by both individuals and the real estate industry over the same period – practices that created and ensured residential and school segregation in this and many other metropolitan areas, and assorted other indignities and insults inflicted on people whose primary offense is that they don’t look like me or Donald Trump. George Floyd’s death is simply a somewhat extreme example, notable this time because someone’s cell phone video left no way for police misconduct to be covered up. Income and “total wealth” or “opportunity” gaps of the size evident in the Twin Cities and elsewhere in the country did not develop by accident, or through the intervention of some mystical cosmic force. They’re the result of policies put into place, on purpose, by people seeking to advance and / or protect their own interests at the expense of others.
It’s natural for people in power to try to continue to be in power. Privilege begets privilege. As an old White guy myself, I find I’m sometimes uncomfortable when the social and political ground begins to shift under my feet, but I’m not sure there’s anything substantive I can do about it, and I’m also not sure I SHOULD try to do something about it. As Jenny Yang tweeted in May of 2018, “When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
I’m not really sure what this panel was trying to accomplish, and the reaction to EB’s post has seemed to focus on the “Obama backlash” theory of Trump. I find this rather unpersuasive.
WHD’s analysis of Obamian failure seems to forget that Obama was quite handily re-elected, despite his (unfortunate) decision to let the Wall Street Wzzrds off the hook. Where was the white backlash against Obama in 2012? It took another 4 years to adequately build? Even after the Dem rout of 2010? It’s possible I suppose. But unlikely.
The Tea Party was a phony, astro-turfed reactionary mini-movement funded by rightwing billionaires that our useless and complicit corporate media either credulously fell for, or actively promulgated. To the extent it had a message, it was “Taxed Enough Already” [TEA], hence the ridiculous appropriation of the 18th Century tricorne hats, garb and musketry, replicating the bygone days of Boston harbor. (As though any of today’s “conservatives” would have rebelled against their lawful monarch in 1775. They don’t even understand their own personalities!)
The backlash against Obama in 2010 revolved mostly around Obamacare and the absurd impression by dummies that the Dem Congress was “doin’ too much!” Too much change to combat the greatest financial crisis since 1929. Yup, great thinking, American dopes!
On to the Trump phenomenon. The backlash against Obama was more the sort of natural resistance to having the same party control the executive branch for more than 8 years. Obama’s policies were largely popular, and despite total paralysis of the national legislature by Repubs, there was actual progress being made on policy until 2016, given the awesome power that has been delegated to the president.
The degenerating and failed “conservative” movement and its horrendous base then latched onto the openly fascistic and wildly unqualified Trump for largely one reason: he campaigned on a platform of extreme hostility to immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants. That was his only coherent message, and the (lower education) white electorate ate it up.
Dems responded with the dubious and unprecedented idea of returning the same family to the WH as resided in it for the decade of the 90s, instead of a new figure of progressive policies. Because of the completely ridiculous (while also dangerous) candidacy of Donald Trump, the American electorate clearly chose the stale 90s donut over the ridiculous unhinged crank, but the failed Constitution mandated that the crank had “won”. Essentially the white electorate demonstrated that it is completely broken and likely cannot be repaired.
So here we are. We are about to experience a backlash campaign, but it won’t be a backlash about Obama, of all things; Trump has made very clear his 2020 campaign will be about BLM Backlash and Singin’ the Blues over the Lost Confederate Heroes. That’s what the moment is all about. That and more hating on Latino immigrants, Trumpolini’s most popular message.
Obama is a fading historical memory in a people who can’t remember last week.
Obama is far more present in the minds of Americans than whoever ran against him in 2012. Probably most people couldn’t even say. There was no way Obama was going to lose that election to Mitt “The bottom 50% don’t even pay any taxes”, looting-leveraged-buyout Romney.
As for Trump, he had three very clear messages at least, that resonated for a lot of people other than your “lower education” white people. One, pulling back on that corporate power grab called the TPP trade agreement, that would have disempowered state and local governance in favor of a unelected international tribunal, such that any corporation could invalidate any local law by suing for the “lost profits” that law did not allow.
Two, bring back the productive capacity of the United States.
Three, no more regime change wars.
He has delivered on two of those. He also said he would redo NAFTA, and he did, whatever you think of the merits of it. As for bringing back the productive capacity of America, if he has not been overly successful there, the Pandemic has shown that the instinct is right.
So give the devil his due. I can’t imagine another 4 years of Trump, and I am certain BLM can’t either. But I am loathe to the idea that TPP will be resurrected, that another few million refugees would over-run the border, we will be lead into another regime change war in Russia, and corporations, banks and billionaires will continue to rule the roost.
Given your rather fantastical views on what Trump ran on and “accomplished” (and your fear of a “few million refugees would over-run the border”, seriously?), it’s becoming clearer to me why you are so complacent about another 4 years of Trumpism. And why couldn’t Obama lose in 2012, when it must’ve been clear (to you) that (as a failed Dem) there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Obama and Looter Mitt?
“Delivered on two of those.” Yes, this certainly contrasts with the campaign of Hillary the Hawk (who also disclaimed TPP.) I doubt the most enthusiastic Trumpite views his abysmal record any more favorably! “Another regime change war with Russia”. When was the first one? The Cold War? You seem not to understand that our 21st Century regime-change efforts are focused on nations that can’t defend themselves. Isn’t the reality that you are rather sympathetic to the autocratic organized crime regime of Putin, just like Trump? But the idea that Clinton and/or Biden (and the Dem party!) seriously plans a “change” of the Putin regime (via a “war” of all things!) is rather, um, frivolous and lacking in seriousness. I do agree that there was extensive ignorant yapping about lost manufacturing by Trumpolini in 2016, but that was a Grievance Without a Plan, which is the backbone of Trumpism. “Redo NAFTA” isn’t a claim worth rebutting, as it’s the sort of thing Kellyanne Conway says.
The only significant campaign promise Trump “kept” was increased sadism against helpless Latino immigrants. (I discount more rightwing judges and the ubiquitous tax cuts, of course, since they are the product of a “conservative” regime in every circumstance…)
To start, Hillary Clinton called TPP the “gold standard” of global trade rules. Her walking away from it is what politicians do when they know a thing won’t sell -and everybody knows, politicians often turn around and do what they say they would not do, once elected. Biden hasn’t been asked and surely won’t bring it up, but I fully expect one of his first acts will be to revive it.
When I say regime change war in Russia, I am saying that is what Liberal Dems are being primed for. Which is one of the reasons I am ambivalent about Dems in power again, particularly when they treat Obama like the gold standard of presidents, and are showing the same willingness to ignore the ugly about Biden. Sanctions are an act of war, btw. So is pushing NATO to their border. So were the Obama Admin shenanigans in Ukraine.
As for millions flooding the border, send the message that it is open and watch what happens. Hillary often talked too, in the years before 2016, about that being her dream too, open borders.
Otherwise, I hope readers if there are any can recognize by what I have posted here and elsewhere, I despise autocrats and authoritarians of all kinds, it doesn’t matter if they are left or right.
Thanks for your reply, and my apologies for my too snotty response to you, WHD.