Current Events > Did Obama divide the country as much as Trump is doing now?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was it always this divided? Or is this a recent trend...?

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Trump is trying to fix what Obama did

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It seems set up to be divided. The whole 2 party system thing where one person is strongly against everything you like and the other seems more reasonable by comparison.

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Obama was shit. Yeah he was way more cool and likable but his policies gutted the country.


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Suchomimus posted...

but his policies gutted the country.

like what
actual question, I have no particular favoritism for obama

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Dragon239 posted...

like what
actual question, I have no particular favoritism for obama

Obamacare, largest deficit in history, expansion of mass surveillance and drone strikes

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what did Obama do besides be black that divided America

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Suchomimus posted...

Obamacare, largest deficit in history, expansion of mass surveillance and drone strikes

nice not only have none of these changed but they have gotten drastically worse

thanks trump

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metralo posted...

nice not only have none of these changed but they have gotten drastically worse

thanks trump

Never implied trump is the solution

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metralo posted...

what did Obama do besides be black that divided America

Obamacare. Even some people on the left were pissed about that-- specifically the lack of a public option that he caved on to the Insurance lobby.

But I think honestly we've been pretty damn divided for decades, we just have more media now to make it more obvious to those who wouldn't pay attention otherwise.

If you have the time. I think it paints a fair picture of Obama, good and bad. Part 2, which is also on YouTube, is focused on Trump.

https://youtu.be/SnMBYMOTwEs

Not at all. Obama only "divided the country" because the Right lost their shit and let themselves be further and further radicalized.

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I honestly think that social media is the problem. Before myspace became popular, only nerds communicated through the Internet. People would need to interact with people out in the real world to talk about politics, which often meant dealing with people with different world views. Being able to do this required a flexible mind, and promoted understanding despite disagreement.

Nowadays, every point of view has a subreddit, a Facebook group, a discord, etc. Its become extremely easy to talk to anyone you want, and who most people want to talk to is people who have the same opinions as them (Because of course they do. Its easier.).

So, people get into whatever online community most effectively parrots their own views back at them, become sure that their right and the other side is the problem and no longer need to understand the opposition, because they have an infinite amount of people available at any time who already understand them.

And so, we end up with two sides that are so sure theyre right that theyre deafened to anything from the opposition. And even if they could hear the oppositions points with a clear mind, it wouldnt matter because both sides feel like its so obvious theyre right that they turn to insults and name-calling and further alienate the two sides from each other.

So, while petty tweets and whatever Obama did may not help matters, I think this was bound to happen eventually either way.

Trump goes out of his way to shit all over the people and areas of this country and you wonder who was more divisive.

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If anything Southern Dixiecrats becoming Republicans after the Civil Rights movement is what divided the country.

Obama's rhetoric was pretty consistently aimed towards compromise, bridging divides, and so on. Now, that was naive about who he was dealing with, and the Republican backlash to him is one part of our present divisions, but you can't picture him going up at a rally and talking about Republicans in the ways Trump currently describes Democrats.
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BruceWayneJr posted...

Trump goes out of his way to shit all over the people and areas of this country and you wonder who was more divisive.

this.

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Obamacare was good in that it made it so all companies have to provide health insurance. I wish he didn't let the banks off the hook for crashing the economy, or destroy Libya and start the war in Syria.

He wasn't that great a president for Black people specifically, but just being black was enough to make the tea party alt right wing nuts go apeshit

The only thing Obama did to divide people was being a black president which made Republicans lose their minds.

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Obamacare was a Republics idea and what they were asking for years. Obama literally gave them what they wanted , and these people are the first to he divided the nation.

That mother fucker even went out of his way to make sure he doesn't do much for black people just so he would not look like he was "dividing " the country.

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Nah, the media is to blame

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For the large majority of his presidency Obama was a candidate of compromise, to a real fault. His first term was spent making every attempt to appease a conservative party that was openly hostile to him and everything he did suffered enormously for it, from his huge reluctance to act on gay marriage for fear of the backlash in conservative states, to the ACA which was basically picked apart and remade to appease republicans who nevertheless still decried it by the time it was actually implemented in a toothless near-useless state.In his second term he was more headstrong but by then it was too late an the unique chance to pass progressive legislation freely had more or less been missed.

The division regarding Obama was wholly based on a false presentation of him as a dangerous radical or a socialist or whatever else, which was used to fire up the right en masse into offhanded rejection of anything and everything he did. Naturally it was untrue, yes; he was a tepid corporate democrat with a penchant for wall street and drone strikes on the middle east. But the country was aware enough of its current state to realize that something was obviously wrong with what was going on and things like wealth disparity and a shrinking middle class and suffering working class were on everyone's minds.

It was a perfect political and social climate for things like the tea party and the alt right, who wanted a scapegoat for the world being nothing like it used to be for older members and nothing like was promised for younger conservatives. And even though Obama, and by extension democrat, were nothing but a cog in that bougie shit machine just as much as republicans were, everything was in the right place at the right time to dump the blame on them.

So, no, I don't believe that Obama was a divisive character. Honestly, if he was, I think he would have been a better remembered president in general because he would have actually been getting the things he promised done. Instead, he was the ass end of the most successful campaign to pass the buck for America's woes pretty much ever, and now we're in the position of sitting and waiting to see when it ends. Trump isn't doing much for the long term benefit of the people that were really the driving force of the pissed off movements that painted obama as the devil, and ultimately it's just a matter of time before people realize the same shit is still falling apart regardless of him being in power.


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So far in this topic it seems like the right people are actually talking and having discussion while the left people just want to talk shit about trump. Wild.

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Obama was alright, the only reason the country was divide it because he was black and a democrat, that's the only reason why Republicans and their voter base couldn't shut the fuck up about him for 8 years. All they did was cry and whine about him 24/7.

Yes in my experience. As a southerner you can imagine the things I heard he was "doing" and things he "intended" to do.

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In all honesty, as time goes on whoever is president will be seen as the most divisive president.

Clinton was divisive
Bush Jr. was divisive
Obama was divisive
Trump was divisive
Klobuchar will be divisive

You see my point

ThanksUglyGod posted...

In all honesty, as time goes on whoever is president will be seen as the most divisive president.

Clinton was divisive
Bush Jr. was divisive
Obama was divisive
Trump was divisive
Klobuchar will be divisive

You see my point

I started caring a little bit about politics since Obama's second term, since that's when I first left college. I always wondered: are all presidents this mired in bullshit and controversy, with all the media frenzy, like Obama and Trump has?

I guess by your point, the answer is "yes", and I just didn't pay attention


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IdiotMachine posted...

I started caring a little bit about politics since Obama's second term, since that's when I first left college. I always wondered: are all presidents this mired in bullshit and controversy, with all the media frenzy, like Obama and Trump has?

I guess by your point, the answer is "yes", and I just didn't pay attention

It's definitely getting worse over time, especially with social media around

Trump literally bragged that he could kill people in the street and his supporters wouldn't care
He repeatedly accuses Democrats of both doing nothing and being radical and against America
He claims the media is the enemy of the people and that opposing him is opposing America and God.

Trump is undeniably aggressively dividing the country. He's pretty much a cult leader.
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obama didn't really divide anything. The right was racist because he was black, compounded with the islamophobia from 9/11.

The real divide is boomers vs milenials. Younger people are fed up with the economy and having to work. This is why bernie is gaining such traction because they want new servaces that will make their lives better.

Trump supporters are concerned about immigration and their guns. While the chirstian right hail trump as some sort of savior.

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Kami_no_Kami posted...

I honestly think that social media is the problem. Before myspace became popular, only nerds communicated through the Internet. People would need to interact with people out in the real world to talk about politics, which often meant dealing with people with different world views. Being able to do this required a flexible mind, and promoted understanding despite disagreement.

Nowadays, every point of view has a subreddit, a Facebook group, a discord, etc. Its become extremely easy to talk to anyone you want, and who most people want to talk to is people who have the same opinions as them (Because of course they do. Its easier.).

So, people get into whatever online community most effectively parrots their own views back at them, become sure that their right and the other side is the problem and no longer need to understand the opposition, because they have an infinite amount of people available at any time who already understand them.

And so, we end up with two sides that are so sure theyre right that theyre deafened to anything from the opposition. And even if they could hear the oppositions points with a clear mind, it wouldnt matter because both sides feel like its so obvious theyre right that they turn to insults and name-calling and further alienate the two sides from each other.

So, while petty tweets and whatever Obama did may not help matters, I think this was bound to happen eventually either way.

This is a good post.

Although our politics have been divisive forever. It just keeps getting worse though.

a mix of factors have led to our current state

• The GOP's lurch farther to the right to counter Clinton, who was (arguably) probably the most Right Wing Dem since James Garfield occupied the White House
• paranoia caused by the 9/11 attacks
• Obama's election and his background was like an ice cream cone of every aspect of American liberalism that the Right feared, A Half African Liberal from the Dem bedrock of Chicago who embraced a changing America caused many to flee into outright panic mode
• the economic recovery has been quite slow for much of the country's populace
• the rise of social media causing more alternative political views to leak into the mainstream
• Trump's brand of politics is often actively hostile to groups not part of the Middle America white mainstream brand of Conservatism

to add Trump is often a walking gaffe machine, is not well spoken and frankly shoots faster than his brain moves making him easy to mock and become a lighting rod for criticism and his admin have some of the goofiest personnel in recent administration history, Obama was a much smoother operator who quite frankly could be boring to follow at times and his admin didn't have nearly the fireworks that this one does.

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No, he did not. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.
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Reminds me of how bad the Left freaked out when Bush Jr. won. Remember that? People were calling him the actual Antichrist, saying theyd move to Canada. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and many other comedians got famous making fun of him every day.

Although tbf I respect Jon Stewart a helluva lot more than that fucking clown Colbert. I actually used to be way more aligned to the left; i watched the Daily Show every day, hated Fox News without ever watching it, read and watched everything Michael Moore did. What turned me away from the left were several things. One was the constant complaining and slandering people, the overall bitchmade feel of the ideology. Nothings my fault, boohoo, poor me!

Another was flipping radio channels at work, tired of hearing the same old rock and pop and i stumbled onto talk radio. Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. And I liked that their messages were more pro America, encouraging people to be self reliant and talking about how the US was a land of oppurtunity worth defending. That appealed to me because ive always loved this land, and i noticed many on the left did not and I never understood that. An interview with Pat Buchanan was the nail in the coffin for my liberalism, i read all Pats books and they changed my life. Now i see liberalism as an empty, complete fucking joke that leaves people miserable and encourages victimstance.

Something tells me @Keith_Valentine was never on the left lol

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Keith_Valentine posted...

I never understood that.

You never understood anything. I'm very sorry for you.

No, but at the same time, the media didn't constantly harp on how horrible Obama supposedly was while the Republicans pulled out supposed scandal after scandal to try and sink Obama only to fail and look bad.
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Crazyman93 posted...

while the Republicans pulled out supposed scandal after scandal to try and sink Obama only to fail and look bad.

Lol

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No

Republicans divided
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Doom_Art posted...

Something tells me @Keith_Valentine was never on the left lol

I literally had toilet paper with Bushs face on it. I was watching Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher while you were popping pimples and locking yourself in your bedroom to cry. But i wouldnt expect you to understand that people can grow in life and change their views. You dont have to change because you're perfect and always right! Right Doom? Thats why you dont listen to people you disagree with.

Omnislasher posted...

You never understood anything. I'm very sorry for you.

You arent sorry at all, you just wana talk shit. Being passive aggressive is your nature it seems.

Obama divided America used by the right tends to be a whistle for we fucking hated having a black president

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Sure you did

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Why would i lie about that, Doom?

Dude I am pro legal marijuana, would decriminalize drugs, for prison and sentencing reform, rehabilitation over retribution, against foreign wars, pro gay marriage, would raise taxes, neutral on abortion, and I could go on and on. You dont know much about me, so if my words dont fit the caricature youve created of me in your head, maybe consider youre the problem. -_-

"Any and all dislike or criticism of Obama was because of racism."

This board spouts off idiocy on par with 261.

Obama was very divisive. You partisan drones just agreed with the crap he was saying about the other side or weren't paying attention at all.

SixStringHero posted...

Obama was very divisive.

How?

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SixStringHero posted...

Obama was very divisive.

Yall hear that whistling

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For some reason, yeah. I mean I thought Obama was a pretty cool guy but the fox news crowd literally believe he's the devil or something.

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Keith_Valentine posted...

Dude I am pro legal marijuana, would decriminalize drugs, for prison and sentencing reform, rehabilitation over retribution, against foreign wars, pro gay marriage, would raise taxes, neutral on abortion, and I could go on and on.

Yeah that totally sounds like an individual who consumes Hannity, Savage, and fucking Pat Buchanan

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Keith_Valentine posted...

And I liked that their messages were more pro America, encouraging people to be self reliant and talking about how the US was a land of oppurtunity worth defending. That appealed to me because ive always loved this land, and i noticed many on the left did not and I never understood that.

I dont think its that the left doesnt love America. They just understand that it isnt perfect and want to see it improve.

Both sides want this, albeit in different ways. Why do you feel the left is the side that doesnt love America when the rights slogan right now only works under the pretense that America is not currently great?

VitalGetPrank posted...

The only thing Obama did to divide people was being a black president which made Republicans lose their minds.

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