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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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One could argue that, before Trump, Obama inspired an unusual amount of resistance and hostility from the Right. You have the above-mentioned culture-war items, paired with slightly-less-culture-war things like the ACA, and the Republicans spent all 8 of his years burning political capital on opposing Obama, to the point of government shutdown. I find it hard to say why or how things got this heated after Bush II--buried culture war from Bush II finally coming home to roost, the simple fact of Obama being a progressive Black man, the Republican coalition starting to fracture at its seams, economic strain turning up the temperature of social conflicts, social media polarization already taking effect as far back as 2008, or some or all of the above.

All I can say is that it definitely laid the ground for what happened in 2016, and large segments of the left and center-left were wholly unprepared.

Well yeah, there was an unusual amount of resistance from the right, and the GOP grassroots was so in favor of it because Obama kept saying quiet-part-out-loud blue tribe sentiments that progressives aren’t good enough at the ideological Turing test to realize would come off as callous and hideous to the red tribe. It doesn’t help that Obama decided to play hardball with the GOP in Congress early on and they returned the favor when he lost his supermajority.

If he’d delivered Clinton-level economic growth he might have gotten away with it, but he didn’t, and it was probably beyond his ability to do(objectively, fast and furious and the irs targeting conservatives weren’t as big a deal as ruby ridge, after all) so it blew up in his face.

Republicans spent all 8 of his years burning political capital on opposing Obama, to the point of government shutdown.

Govt was shutdown for 27 days under Clinton (2 separate shutdowns), 16 under Obama, and 38 days under Trump (also 2 shutdowns). Clinton was impeached, Bush was not (in spite of many calls to "Chimpeach the Chimperor"), Trump was impeached, Obama was not. I'm not sure that things did get more heated under Obama - it's not like Bush Derangement Syndrome wasn't a thing prior to that.

Isn’t government shutdown just normal politics? I don’t see how that’s anything like what’s going on now. It was a thing voted on in congress and ended up with a negotiated political deal. A lot like the Supreme Court striking down roe. We politicked to win a branch of government so now we use that power. It’s not like Capitol riots or arresting the other sides like Presidential nominee to stop him from running.

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