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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26209 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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Oh, ok.

To start with, I don't actually know where r-politics gets their "Obama was too eager to work with republicans" idea- when he had a choice not to work with republicans, he didn't. Like he started his time in office with an "elections have consequences, so no, I won't come your way at all" speech to republicans. Him being more moderate than he'd like to have been had more to do with his inability to win and keep large majorities; he had a trifecta for two years, and steadily lost support in both houses of congress during his entire term in office. "Watering down" the ACA was necessary to get it past blue doggers, not republicans, and you'll note that republicans didn't vote for it and there was a significant amount of procedural maneuvering to evade needing republican support at all. And sure, not making concessions to the opposition when you don't have to is fair play, but it's the arrogance and arc-of-history triumphalism(remember, this was the era of the emerging democratic majority) which wasn't confined to either rhetoric or a hardline negotiating tactic which poisoned his relationship with republicans(and the GOP leadership had been there for decades at that point, many of these were literally the same people who maintained a working relationship with Clinton which was, if not entirely cordial, at least not poisonous).

And it wasn't just congressmen; the Obama administration did lots of things aimed at either the republican base of support or republicans themselves(which yes, the Clinton administration did some of these too), but it was the attitude towards republican opposition to these things which was meaningfully different. I can see the Clinton admin suing nuns to try to deny conscience exemptions, but I can't see them declaring it a "war on women" to object to it. To say nothing of the IRS targeting conservatives, "if I had a son he would have looked a lot like Trayvon", etc, etc. Go hang around red tribers and they're still griping about fast and furious and life of Julia.

I think the Mitt Romney 2012 campaign has been gone over at length here, but I also think it's a minor factor. The red tribe polarization against the democrats has a fair amount of catastrophism and tradmoaning to it, but Obama and his administration's own actions are the bulk of the reasoning. Clinton at least was smart enough to not say things like 'clinging to their guns and religion', 'you didn't build that', or 'choose science over ethics', and a lot of normie red tribers took it as a series of mask off moments for the broader democratic party, which even today can't admit Obama made any mistakes except maybe not being progressive enough.

I think the Mitt Romney 2012 campaign has been gone over at length here, but I also think it's a minor factor.

I disagree with the latter claim, perhaps I'm biased but I feel like a lot of blue-tribers seriously underestimate the significance of Romney's and more specifically how he was treated by establishment Democrats and the media.

Romney was a popular Republican governor of an otherwise blue/democratic state, and prior to his nomination was pretty much the poster child for "compromise candidate". However, the moment he actually started to gain traction/look like he might actually win the GOP nomination the rhetoric shifted from "why wont the Republicans nominate a 'reasonable candidate' like Romney (in place of psychos like Bush or McCain)" to Romney hates women and wants to put the niggers back in chains, and I feel like that was a critical inflection point because it laid bare the lie that "compromise" was an available option.

I think it was a smaller factor compared to the IRS targeting scandal or fast and furious(for the secular conservatives) or little sisters of the poor(for the religious types). Not a non-factor, but not in a top ten list I’d make either.

Thanks for writing that out. The ACA part particularly is what I see most often.

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