Didn’t O have the house and Senate under Democrat control for a time? Why didn’t they pass their bills then?
Probably a multitude of not good enough reasons.
Does and/or should that have a bearing on people genuinely believing Obama had a chance at bipartisanship with a Republican congress circa 2010+?
edit: @ActivitiesGuy beat me to it. I like his answer better. Let’s go with that
To be fair everyone is judging Trump a failure because he can’t get things done with Reps ruling both houses. As well they should.
But O’Care passed by the skin of the teeth and they had to bribe multiple Dem legislators to make it work. That’s his only real legislative victory, and it’s a train wreck.
To be fairer a large part of it is how long the GOP had to come up with legislation and then it was revealed they spent 6 years brainstorming new and interesting ways to filibuster and not create legislation.
Then you’ve got Trump’s explicit promises that things would be easy and done in X amount of time, only for him to say things like “who knew HC could be so complicated.”
Also good to remember a lot of people judge Trump as a failure because his son tweeted about his collusion with a foreign hostile nuclear superpower. I mean dayum, that’s a stoopid.
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They’ve had the nuclear option the entire time. You don’t need a filibuster proof majority. Took them till 2013 to figure it out.
I know there’s a perception that I’m left-leaning because I’ve been heavily critical of Trump, but I’m really not. I just only have so much time and effort for forum chatter, so I go with the lower-hanging fruit, and it’s a lot easier to poke fun at the guy who can’t spell on Twitter than go down rabbit holes about proper Congressional procedure and all that, lol.
But, along with pfury, this is my feeling:
I don’t view this as a net positive, FWIW.
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I was only talking about Syria. Being that it’s nearly 90% Muslim, I am clearly not for indiscriminate killing of Muslims. I don’t hate Muslims by default. I was musing about what would have been needed to to ‘solve the problem(s)’. The problem(s) being a tyrannical Assad government and ISIS and like extremism posing a threat to human life near and far to the territory.
I was not a fan of the ticky-tack approach funding this counter group and that counter group. Not a fan of the terrible response regarding the ‘Red Line’ from the chemical weapons use and the letting in of Russia to tackle those issues.
Standing in 2012, what solves ISIS, Assad, chemical Weapons? War. It’s the only way we could insure the interests turn our way and we are not paying nefarious elements in the country. It’s not a pretty solution, it would not have been well liked by anybody and there would have been it’s own set of nightmarish issues.
But what you would not have had to deal with is arming rebels who hate the West and lie about it. You would not have to deal with Assad and his forces dropping chemical weapons on people anymore. And ISIS would be swept up in the melee…
Things did not break that way and it’s no longer even a hypothetical solution now that Russia has boots on the ground.
It’s more of a what-if game. What if we broke ugly in Syria, would things there be better or not? It’s tough to know the answer to that. Certainly would have solved the above mentioned problems, but the unforeseen consequences may have been better or worse and there is no way to really know.
Sorry, I don’t buy that most members of congress are that shallow. Some, sure. All, no. Obama had a rich history of not wanting to compromise at all. There was not a prevailing desire to see Obama fail as a President, the consequences of that are too grave. I don’t want any president to fail, because we all fail if he or she does. Not agreeing with the president and wanting the president to fail are two different things.
Hell, even left leaning organizations were getting tired of him throwing executive orders at every problem instead of using the system of legislating. It’s supposed to be hard to pass laws, the system is designed for gridlock. Because gridlock is better than bad legislation. Hell, even SNL threw shade at him and they loved him:
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If you require 60% of congress to be one party of one mind, in order to get bills passed, they are probably not good bills. The parties are supposed to work together or against each other to ensure compromises are made. This is a good thing not bad.
And the passing of obamacare as formally mentioned, passed without a single republican vote, meaning that the 60% rule is not in play all the time and filibusters run out.
You are simply incorrect. I also have no interest in swaying you to my view. Feel the way you wish to feel, and we’ll just pretend like every major leader of the Republican party wasn’t on record saying their goal was to make Obama a 1 term POTUS.
Ocare passed with 60% in the senate. You should read up on how Ocare actually came to be.
Going into the 2008 elections, the Senate consisted of 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and two Independents (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont) who caucused with the Democrats. When the smoke cleared from those elections, the Democrats picked up eight seats to increase their majority to 57-41 (although Democrat Al Franken’s recount victory was not official until July 7). With the two Independents, the Democrats were one vote shy of the supermajority magic number of 60 they needed to ward off any filibuster attempts and move forward with broad healthcare reform legislation.
But on April 28, 2009, the dynamics changed when Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Spector changed parties, giving Senate Democrats that coveted 60th vote.
Now the Democrats had a safe majority in the House and a filibuster-proof supermajority of 60 in the Senate. That scenario lasted only four months before fate intervened. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts died on August 25, 2009, leaving the Democrats, once again, with 59 seats (counting the two Independents). Exactly one month later, on September 25, Democrat Paul Kirk was appointed interim senator from Massachusetts to serve until the special election set for January 19, 2010 – once again giving the Democrats that 60th vote. But the intrigue was just beginning.
With the supermajority vote safely intact once again, the Senate moved rather quickly to pass the ACA – or ObamaCare – on Christmas Eve 2009 in a 60 – 39 vote (Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning chose not to vote since he was not running for reelection).
So your saying, that since the vast majority of democrats wish to see trump be a 1 term president means that they will just sit with their hands folded and refuse to work for their constituency? That type of attitude renders single termers, the one’s who hold that attitude.
I don’t know if you communicate with your representatives or not, but I do. And I know my reps did not hold this attitude. They wanted to work with the president and were willing to compromise. So I know of at least 3 people, who are republicans, who don’t fit your profile.
You presumably want trump to be a one timer, right? Or possibly less. Do you want him to fail on behalf of the country?
I did not want obama to fail, unfortunately, particularly in foreign policy he had a legion of terrible failures. This was not good for us or him.
I mean hell, where do you want to start? The Russian ‘Reset’ button debacle? The assassination of Gaddafi? The ‘Arab Spring’? The announced withdrawal of troops from Iraq? The Syrian ‘Red Line’ and subsequent deal with the Russians that didn’t even stop Assad’s use of chemical weapons? Aleppo? The restriction on rules of engagement for the military that allowed the Taliban back in to Afghanistan compromising the gains we made there?
The list goes on and on…
But hey, in the end I am glad he leaned heavily on executive orders. They are easily erased. It’s much harder to undo a law as you saw with the attempted repeal of obamacare.
Nah I doubt it. That move kinda blew up on the Republicans. Would be foolish to attempt it.
LOL. I’ll ignore the joke of you trying to tell me a politician wanted to work directly with his adversary because “he said so.” You have a very strange view of how American politics work.
For shits and giggles, who are your reps? Just curious.
Of course I do. Without him failing he won’t be a 1 term POTUS. That’s kinda how you become a 1 term POTUS. By failing.
No idea why you’re ripping into W Bush here. Doesn’t seem to fit the general gist of the rest of the paragraph.
Funnily enough I feel the exact same way about Trump with his EOs.
Just so I have this strait, you are willing to suffer and the country to suffer, just because you hate trump?
That’s not me. I just want him to quit being petty and quit tweeting. I do not want him to fail and therefore fail the country. That’s bad for everybody. Keep me out of your doomsday plans.
I’m a straight white college educated male working in the financial industry. I’m probably the last demographic that suffers.
Also Trump failing =/= country suffering. He’s been failing a shitton up til now and I haven’t had to suffer anything more than reading about him being stupid.
Senators: Perdue and Isakson
Rep: Woodall
You assume all politicians lie about everything by default?
Saying stupid shit != failing the country.
Don’t assume your supposed ‘white privilege’ will render you impervious to suffering, particularly in the financial sector. All you need is one sickness, one member of your family to get sick or otherwise sideways and your boom quickly turns in to bust even in the best of times.
LOL. I’ll be honest. I was going to look up these guys and see if they were among those on record saying they’d never vote for anything Obama supported. Then I started with the guy who told people to pray for Obama’s days to be numbered and just started laughing too much to continue.
I assume all national level politicians will deliver whatever line most appropriately fits their way of getting reelected.
When did I say that was the same?
I’ll let you know when the white privilege stops working. So far it’s been crushing it my entire life.
Funnily enough, this is much much more likely to happen under Trump. Weird.
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Good because it was meant to be a joke. I suppose you didn’t read that far? I didn’t find it as funny as you did apparently. I was mildly amused, but you LOL’d, but I am glad you enjoyed it.
Apparently, you are very young. Betting, in your 20’s and unmarried. Your time will come, everybody’s does. The bell will toll on everybody sooner or later. I used to think I was indestructible too. I used to take for granted that the way things are, are the way they are going to be too. They won’t be.
I used to be indestructible, then my back went. Never had back pain before, felt better when I trained, but it got worse and worse. Had surgery, Dr. screwed it up, put me in a world of hurt. Eventually, I had another surgery and it took two years to heal after that, still not totally healed but better. When 2014 hit, my medical bills and treatments sky rocketed, I mean through the roof. My med bills became a crushing burdern… Thanks Obama. In that time I had read in the news, that the FDA was targeting the removal of a med I was taking, one I needed for that time.
I contacted, my usual 3 reps. Woodall’s office called me back, referred me to the FDA. But they didn’t give me a number to call, they made the FDA contact me. A division president from the FDA called me back, that same day. I was flabbergasted not only that they called, but that a high level person called me back. I laid my issue out before her and she assured me that rather than remove the meds, they were just going to make a small ingredient requirement change and put out a warning about it.
Yeah, they are all bad people who play badminton with the prosthetic knee of a child hurt in war.
The may powers we have to affect change are voting and writing. You can protest too, but that isn’t as effective as receiving letters from that same amount of people. The reps cannot read your mind, unless you tell them they won’t know. But hey, you have a right to not get involved, but that lesson’s your right to complain.
I hope you actually bothered to vote. I hope you are not a side-liner who bitches but doesn’t participate. You did vote in the election, didn’t you?
28, married, 2 kids. 
Also there isn’t a time in my parents or grandparents lifetime where being white in America wasn’t the best possible scenario. Not sure if age really matters here.
You think your back going is somehow tied to you losing your white privilege? wot?
The fiscal conservative in me would tell you that you clearly weren’t hedged against something like that happening.
I’ve voted in every local state and federal election since I turned 18. Nearly all by mail in ballet when possible.