This used to be the case, but recently things have changed and in the wrong way. Rather than one party getting better, over the past 15 years Republicans have gotten far worse on pretty much every metric I care about.
I'd love to go back to when I felt they were just modestly different.
Yes because the entire Republican establishment changed their policy and objectives to essentially focusing on opposing anything and everything he tried to do - no matter how reasonable or how much compromise Obama made. And they admitted that was their only strategy. Stop governing and just oppose. To try to stop his reelection.
Can't believe someone is saying this right now. DNC is currently behaving as if they were the party in power trying to fix the corona issues and the GOP is like maybe we will let you get test if you give us tax cuts for the rich. It is completely abnormal that the party in power walks away from any responsibility and the other party has to negotiate to stabilize the country.
Yeah, this is definitely the endgame of "both sides" equivocating at all levels— all media is equally unreliable, all politicians are equally corrupt, all people are treated equally by police, Obama's EOs were just as bad as Trump's. It's super harmful to the state of discourse when people are unable to see the shades of grey on these things.
I mean yes, but that doesn't really cover it. Many people think the DNC is bending too far over and getting played at the moment. Like the approved the Trump slush fund, and he said what oversight?
It is not normal for the opposition party to be this nice in any way. They are tried to save states like this is some kind of partisan issue, and McConnell is lol, why don't they just declare bankruptcy?
Normally I would agree with the shades of grey but currently there is just no factual justification.
Also on rule of law, and constraining the police brutality. I mean it is hard to take this pushback seriously.
That's simply false. They have, over and over, come to the table to work with Trump. It's a point of frustration for me considering how little compromise they have been able to achieve.
Also frustrating considering that Republicans set their asking price at unalloyed, unmitigated evil, and allow themselves to be haggled down to merely abhorrent. Then Democrats give it to them. It's like trying to sell a banana for $100000 and agreeing to settle for $1000, then crying "but I already gave up 99% of what I wanted!" in order to justify taking $999 profit on a $1 fruit.
I would respect Democrats more if they had a "F.U. moment" and did something like arresting and imprisoning executive employees under the capitol building for contempt of Congress, for failure to produce documents necessary for oversight, that are required by law to be furnished on demand.
In the 2015 parlance of Back to the Future Part 2, they "got no scrote".
Brenden, you have a terrible understanding of the powers of the President. The President can propose and cajole, but it is both houses of Congress that must pass the laws and only then can the President sign them.
Secondly, there are plenty of things to criticize both parties about, but if you think they are indistinguishable, then you aren't looking very hard.
You can go through the voting records an various bills and see how they voted, it's all public data. I challenge you to do it one day, and you can see the difference between what they say in their speeches and what they actually do policy wise.
You can also cross that data with polling from the respective senators or representatives on individual policies and see how they line up. You can see quickly that they do not represent their constituents if you take the time to do it (I've done it myself).
Many in Europe see the US as more of a risky bet after the last four years, especially with the Iran deal hurting many EU businesses for what they have decided are not good reasons.
Local businesses suffering due to an ally will drive (and probably already has driven) policy changes in the EU 26.
What did they think 12 years ago when Iran was part of the Axis of Evil? If trust takes a long time to build, there shouldn't have been any generated here.
Can you include specific examples of how popular EU opinion has driven policy? Typically the foreign policy of nations depends less on popular opinion than on geopolitical concerns. Your argument might be stronger if it focused on Trump's isolationist military and trade rhetoric, which both pose a much more significant threat to the current order in Europe and are a more substantial break from past USA policy than its attitude towards Iran.
> Remember Obama and how he was going to change the world?
You do understand that big, lasting change needs to come from all three branches of the government right? It's pretty clear Obama was pushing for much greater reform than what actually came about and Trump has done everything he can to dismantle what he created.
I have issues with a lot of Democrats and I don't love Biden, but Obama was one of the most straight shooters in politics.
>Couldn't even get a proper health care bill passed.
Perfect? No. Hell of a good start? Yes.
Ever heard of pre-existing conditions? Well not anymore. That fucking ALONE is worth all the mess that everything took.
You realize that before obamacare.. let's say you lived abroad for 1 year, developed some type of health condition, then moved back to the US.. you would be denied coverage or have health coverage but everything related to your pre-existing condition not be covered.
That basically means that you were fucked. I mean literally, if you developed cancer living abroad.. and tried to move back to the US- you basically could not without a financial death sentence.
Also every health plan has to provide maturity coverage, large companies are required to provide coverage.. etc the list goes on and on with regards to healthcare.
So please, don't parrot this garbage that obamacare basically did nothing.
> In 2011, Congress began placing restrictions on Guantanamo transfers in its yearly defense authorization bill, effectively stopping the president from transferring the detainees to a U.S. facility.
Here's some evidence that refutes your claim that he "did nothing". If you want to judge results in a binary fashion then fine. Luckily, most reasonable people don't think that way.
> On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order restricting interrogators to methods listed and authorized by an Army Field Manual, ending the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques." [...] The prisoner population of the detention camp fell from 242 in January 2009 to 91 in January 2016, in part due to the Periodic Review Boards that Obama established in 2011. Many members of Congress strongly opposed plans to transfer Guantanamo detainees to prisons in U.S. states, and the Obama administration was reluctant to send potentially dangerous prisoners to other countries, especially unstable countries such as Yemen. Though Obama continued to advocate for the closure of the detention camp, 41 inmates remained in Guantanamo when Obama left office.
If you want to argue he could have done more, or failed to live up to expectations, you'd have many people agree (probably including myself). Saying he "did nothing" is just willful ignorance of the facts.
And I admire yours. I also agree with you the revised version of the statement above. :)
Friendly advice: if you want to engage in meaningful dialogue here avoid making absolutist (and lets' be honest, provably false) statements like "Obama did nothing" since you won't be taken seriously.
I disagree. Most people will read that as saying the changes he made were inconsequential (in other words the changes "basically amounted to nothing").
Instead of apologizing, I think people need to understand the system doesn't work. It is fundamentally broken, just like the police.
Why don't cops go to jail for breaking the law? Because they are the ones who investigate themselves for their crimes. It's the same with politicians: they make the rules and write the laws for themselves. They go on TV and say things they think people want to hear, but when it comes to action they don't follow through.
Politicians are glorified TV personalities and aren't actually held accountable to their supposed policies. They wage a war of disinformation against citizens to get votes, and then engage in gerrymandering to make sure they stay elected.
> Instead of apologizing, I think people need to understand the system doesn't work.
You are claiming Obama didn't affect change, he absolutely affected exactly as much change as his office and the law allowed. Nobody is apologizing, its simply the way our system is designed.
Sorry but that isn't true. Obama had a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate for the first two years of his presidency[1]. It wasn't until January of 2011 that the House turned Republican.
One party is doing everything in its power to undermine democratic institutions and erect barriers to participating in democracy. The two parties are not the same because only one party is doing that.
And parties change, and are made up of individuals. Go watch some of last years Democratic presidential debates to see where things are now, not 4-12 years ago.
What people say in debates is irrelevant. The only thing that matters are their actions. People keep falling into the trap of listening to the speeches, but ignoring the actual policies, policy implementation details, and the whole bureaucratic side of things. People are hyper focused on the TV version of reality, and completely ignore the day to day humdrum action.
I think part of the problem today is the TV-ification of politics. For example, Trump is obsessed with "ratings" and Twitter likes, rather than actually doing anything meaningful. What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying him by focusing on grandstanding, Twitter likes, and getting more news airtime, rather than actually getting work done.
Democrats have had minimal power at the federal level since 2014, which is around when the party started seriously drifting leftward. Look at the state and local level. Cities have gotten rid of bail, states legalize marijuana, protections for trans people, hugely increased minimum wages, widespread criminal justice reform, tons of environmental laws, etc, etc. Not all Democrats are bold lefties these days, but some are, and they are actually doing shit.
> What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying
It has always been this way. Professional politicians are just better by nature at hiding unseemly attention grabs. Which is most definitely not something that fits with Trumps personality type.
Sure, there are pretty significant differences in the day-to-day conduct between the two parties, but it is true that both parties are beholden to major corporate interests and are decreasingly supporting positions held by the public at large.
The centrist wing of the Democratic Party refuses to seriously consider universal healthcare as a platform while we all watch the current healthcare system fall further and further into dysfunction via private bureaucracy.
Numerous progressive policies have wide support across the political spectrum, but aren’t being seriously considered by either major party. And that is something that both parties are very guilty of.
The Democrats are the spineless party. They have no courage to take a position. It’s all wishy-washy trying not to offend anybody (especially not their donors).
The republican parties position seems to be "whatever the opposite of the democratic position is". Nothing can be clearer than that point especially contrasting their conduct during the Obama administration vs the current administration.
I also wouldn't consider staunch opposition to LGBT rights as a spine worth having.
This is exactly right. At the end of the day they only answer to the people who write the biggest cheques and pay for the fanciest dinners and vacations they get to enjoy.
I would like to point out that it's still cherry picking, and ignores the cases where Democrats voted against sensible legislation. They supported the Patriot Act for example, and recently supported bailouts for large companies that didn't need free money from the government but still got it, all while keeping it difficult for people to access unemployment benefits.
