The Audacity of Hopelessness

[BobStackFan4Life]

What does polling tell us about Nancy vs. Michelle. Michelle in April 2009 had an approval rating of 79%. Only 8% held an unfavorable view of her. Among Republicans at that time she polled 65% approval and just 17% disapproval. Nancy Reagan in December of 1981 polled at 57% approval and well well over 20% disapproval. In August of this year Michelle Obama polled at 64% approval and 32% disapproval. Nancy Reagan a month before her husband left office was sitting at 53% approval and 31% disapproval. To be clear, Michelle Obama has been held in much better esteem than Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Rosalyn Carter.

You make a reasonable post like this with facts to back up your position and then rj makes an asinine post like above. They are immune to reason. I can remember talking to people who genuinely thought there was going to be a nuclear war if Reagan was elected. This movie, The Day After, was a very big deal and captured the zeitgeist of the early 80s.

The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. More than 100 million people watched the program during its initial broadcast.[1] It is currently the highest-rated television film in history.[2]

The film postulates a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

 

[jhmd2000]

Yeah, so I am just going to put this out there....this thread sucks. I mean it is a really miserable read. Perhaps if everyone bickered a little more and completely disagreed upon the premise of multiple arguments then we could really get the discussion going.


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Reasonable Wrangor Meme.gif

 

[DeacMan]

The reality is DeacMan's position is his alone at this point. Being called a "warmonger" is nothing in comparison with millions of people saying you aren't even an American and that you aren't a member of a despised religion. Add to that all the racial epithets and insults.

but there's point in discussing this nothing will get through to him. No matter how many reasoned posts challenge your position, it won't matter.

Really? Nothing in comparison?

If I were the President I'd much rather deal with people tossing racist names my way than being labeled as someone hell bent on destroying the world. The former is easily deflected for what it is - a bigoted attack that says more about the character of the attacker than it does the President. The other is a direct assault on your character as a person.

 

[PhDeac]

People were saying both about Obama.

 

[DeacMan]

Yeah it's pretty simple. Folks may have disagreed with Reagan's politics, but people viscerally hate Obama beyond what he stands for politically.

So Reagan's politics stood for ending human civilization? Did they also stand for being stupid? Those were common lines of vitriol pumped his way. Incapable of dealing with complex situations, a loose cannon, a war monger willing to end the world.

 

[DeacMan]

People were saying both about Obama.

You are either wanting to playing cute with words or you seriously think people portrayed Obama as a war monger.

 

[PhDeac]

You are either wanting to playing cute with words or you seriously think people portrayed Obama as a war monger.

They portrayed him as a terrorist who wanted to destroy America from within. Trump himself claimed Obama founded ISIS.

 

[RJKarl]

Really? Nothing in comparison?

If I were the President I'd much rather deal with people tossing racist names my way than being labeled as someone hell bent on destroying the world. The former is easily deflected for what it is - a bigoted attack that says more about the character of the attacker than it does the President. The other is a direct assault on your character as a person.

Then you have never been called those things.

Considering Reagan had never started a war and Obama had always been black and his wife and kids attacked similarly, you also offbase in that, too. Obama was told he wasn't the POTUS and shouldn't be the POTUS due to his race. lies about his religion and even his education.

I'm staggered that you can't understand this.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

Wait, no way that America just elected a president who claimed repeatedly that Obama founded ISIS! Obama has such a high approval rating, how could so many people believe that he founded ISIS? This makes no sense...

 

[DeacMan]

Then you have never been called those things.

Considering Reagan had never started a war and Obama had always been black and his wife and kids attacked similarly, you also offbase in that, too. Obama was told he wasn't the POTUS and shouldn't be the POTUS due to his race. lies about his religion and even his education.

I'm staggered that you can't understand this.

You are aware I live in a multi-racial home, right? I wouldn't make any presumptions about what I've heard.

What is it I can't understand? That we have idiots who call people crappy names and prove they are, in fact, idiots? I get that point. Attacking Obama as incapable because he was black or a radical Islamist solely because he lived in Indonesia as a kid was offensive. It was also ridiculously ineffective and churlish.

So, again "If I were the President I'd much rather deal with people tossing racist names my way than being labeled as someone hell bent on starting WWIII. The former is easily deflected for what it is - a bigoted attack that says more about the character of the attacker than it does the President. The other is a direct assault on your character as a person."

I'll note I have no idea what this statement you wrote means: "Reagan had never started a war and Obama had always been black and his wife and kids attacked similarly, you also offbase in that too." Not only is this not even a sentence, it makes no point. Obviously Reagan had never started a war before he was President. Are you trying to argue that since he never had started a war the attacks were baseless? Uh, ok.

 

[DeacMan]

Wait, no way that America just elected a president who claimed repeatedly that Obama founded ISIS! Obama has such a high approval rating, how could so many people believe that he founded ISIS? This makes no sense...

Nice non sequitor.

Q - How does what Trump says on the campaign trail to play the media and get a shit load of attention relate to Obama's approval rating? A - Most likely absolutely nothing. Obama's approval rating is what it is - it's a fact. It actually dwarfs Trump's approval rating. Obama having a high approval rating is not correlated to Trump beating Hillary Clinton in the election.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

Trump has egregiously insulted Obama and his administration for years. In what ridiculous world would someone support Obama and also support the guy who started the birther movement and said Obama is responsible for ISIS. That's not a non-sequiter, it's fucking logic. It doesn't make any damn sense for someone to support both of them, with the exception of the random ignorant contrarian.

 

[DeacMan]

They portrayed him as a terrorist who wanted to destroy America from within. Trump himself claimed Obama founded ISIS.

Obama, as you know full well, ran on a platform that he'd end the war in Iraq, close Guantanamo, restore our standing in the world through dialogue not war, etc. It was very much a cornerstone of his campaign in 2008. No one was portraying him as a war monger a la Reagan. To argue otherwise is to buy into some ridiculous fringe who may have said he was a terrorist - akin to the "they" who tried to claim 9/11 was an inside job by Bush. I.e. - no one mainstream who was getting any real traction.

As for Trump, this should really come as no surprise to you. His schtick is so patently obvious. Over and over and over we saw this type of thing in the campaign. A - Make bombastic outrageous statement that is begging for obvious context. B - Media goes nuts about statement. C - Double down hard on statement when asked for context. D - In your very next breadth offer the context. D - Triple down on statement. E - Provide the obvious context for your argument again. F - Then repeat the statement as if it is a logical conclusion. G - Perhaps provide context yet again. Lap up media attention the entire time. I'm sure you'll be able to find something similar to the exact pattern I provide above. Because it was done over and over and over by Trump during the campaign on any number of issues. In this instance he no doubt offered up, eventually, that when Obama pulled us out of Iraq a power vacuum was left behind that allowed for the rise of ISIS. And he no doubt did so without backing away from the initial statement. It's a large part of how the a-hole managed to run a campaign on a relative shoe string.

 

[DeacMan]

Trump has egregiously insulted Obama and his administration for years. In what ridiculous world would someone support Obama and also support the guy who started the birther movement and said Obama is responsible for ISIS. That's not a non-sequiter, it's fucking logic. It doesn't make any damn sense for someone to support both of them, with the exception of the random ignorant contrarian.

Well, given the indisputable facts, your logic obviously is flawed.

1 - Obama does, in fact, have a 56% approval rating.

2 - Trump did, in fact, win votes from millions of people who voted for Obama (many of them twice).

The election was between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, not Obama and Trump. And Trump won despite having an approval rating of 40%. That says a lot about Clinton and her campaign.

You may find this worth watching from the Young Turks.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

The fact that a very small percentage of voters flipped from Obama to Trump doesn't change a single thing we are debating. That overlap is so small and insignificant as to not be worth mentioning.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

Since you feel it's relevant though, I'd like to hear about the parallels between Obama's 2012 campaign and Trump's 2016 campaign. In what specific way was Trump's message more similar than Hillary's to Obama's 2012 message? Exactly what did Trump know about Obama voters that Hillary didn't know?

 

[simosfrostyone]

The fact that a very small percentage of voters flipped from Obama to Trump doesn't change a single thing we are debating. That overlap is so small and insignificant as to not be worth mentioning.

Yeah, all it did was change who got elected.

 

[DeacMan]

The fact that a very small percentage of voters flipped from Obama to Trump doesn't change a single thing we are debating. That overlap is so small and insignificant as to not be worth mentioning.

From the Washington Post. And these are just counties that Obama won once or twice that were won by Trump. It does not address the counties where her percent of the vote relative to Obama's were significantly lower - regardless of who ultimately won.

In order for us to discuss this phenomena you are first going to have to get your head around the fact it happened.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/obama-trump-counties/

 

[DeacMan]

Since you feel it's relevant though, I'd like to hear about the parallels between Obama's 2012 campaign and Trump's 2016 campaign. In what specific way was Trump's message more similar than Hillary's to Obama's 2012 message? Exactly what did Trump know about Obama voters that Hillary didn't know?

His message does not have to be the same or similar to Obama's to reach the same voters. He's not running the same campaign. He's not running against the same opponent. He's not remotely the same person as Obama. So I'm not sure I understand the logic you are trying to bring here.

In terms of what Trump offered voters that Hillary did not offer them - all of these have been reviewed in depth:

1 - He actually bothered to campaign in places Hillary didn't campaign - for instance he actually set foot in the State of Wisconsin.

2 - The populist economic message he provided has been reviewed widely and broadly

3 - He painted her as an out of touch elitist and avoided this label somehow (I guess you could argue this same type of charge was labeled against Romney by Obama)


4 - He painted her as a career politician beholden by money to other interests

5 - He was helped when she called "half" of his supporters deplorable and half of those deplorables as irredeemable

And none of the above makes Trump a good candidate, a good person, necessarily truthful in any particular regard or someone who will ultimately be successful. So you can spare trying to double back over about how awful Trump is. I get it. He's an a-hole. But you are asking how it is possible he would win votes from people who voted for Obama. I'm just telling you it happened. Relative to Obama:

Clinton won a smaller percentage of the African American vote

She won a smaller percentage of the Hispanic vote

She won a smaller percentage of the youth vote.

She won a smaller percentage of women voters (56% for Obama to 54% for Clinton) - although her margin of victory with women over Trump was the same as Obama over Romney

And we have reviewed over and over and over what happened relative to rural and ex-urban counties where Clinton was vastly outperformed by Obama (as well as by Gore and Kerry). She was brutal in these places.

Hillary Clinton was the second least popular Presidential candidate in history. And she lost, oddly, to the LEAST popular Presidential candidate in history.

My own opinion in light of the data. Trump won in spite of himself. That's how bad Clinton was as a candidate. People do not like her. And she was further hampered by the fact she was viewed as an elite, career politician. And you can spare explaining why people should have preferred her, how dumb voters were, etc. It was HER job to win their votes. She didn't do it.

 

[knowell]

DeacMan coming on hard with logic. Doing the hard work. Must applaud.