[RD] 1,000,000 Obamas

[Zkribbler]

If you thought the 2008 election was wondrous, you ain't seen nothing yet. Obama is training the next generation of leaders.

"After I left office, what I realized is the Obama Foundation could eventually create a platform for young up-and-coming leaders, both in the United States and around the world," Obama said at a conference in Tokyo in March. "If I could do that effectively, then, you know, I would create a hundred or a thousand or a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas, or, you know, the next group of people who could take that baton in that relay race that is human progress and continue to build on the work that we have done. So that's really going to be my focus."

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/06/politics/a-million-obamas/index.html

60+ neo-Obomites now running

This year, more than 60 former members of the administration are running for elected office, according to the Obama Alumni Association. There are former interns and campaign staffers, an ex-ambassador to Denmark, and the former director for Iraq in Obama's National Security Council. More than two dozen alumni are running for Congress, and others are running for state offices in 13 states.
"We learned a lot working for him," Forde said. "And the most good we can do is go back home, taking what you learned, and applying it to help people locally."
Forde and the other alumni candidates are the first wave of neo-Obamas. They're doing what their old boss asked them to. Action is a hallmark of Obamaism, true to its community-organizing roots. Don't boo, vote, he'd say campaigning. Today, the message is don't resist, run. "If you're disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself," he said in his farewell address in Chicago in January 2017.

 

[Lexicus]

Hard pass on this, we don't need more Obamas except in the sense of his charisma and presentation

 

[Gori the Grey]

that relay race that is human progress and continue to build on the work that we have done

I like the guy perfectly well, and I'd be happy to see a million Obamas, but can Obama be said to have contributed something to human progress?

If the answer is no, I'm not faulting him for not. That's an awfully high standard!

Don't mean to hijack the thread. If this is thought impertinent, just ignore.

 

[Lexicus]

Obama, seen here contributing to human progress:
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-wealth-inequality

 

[Zkribbler]

Obama, seen here contributing to human progress:
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-wealth-inequality

If you're arguing that Obama didn't fight hard enough, I agree.

But seeing that you're blaming him for the downturn in 2007--two years before he took office--this is a little unfair. Also, there's no mention of how GOP Senators filibustered every bill he presented, including during the 2010 election year, a veterans' job bill. The GOP did everything possible to make America fail...so they could blame it on Obama.

 

[rah]

Considering he was just another Chicago politician, there are already too many of them around. We really don't need a million more.

 

[metalhead]

The next logical step toward installing Sharia law.

 

[Lexicus]

If you're arguing that Obama didn't fight hard enough, I agree.

But seeing that you're blaming him for the downturn in 2007--two years before he took office--this is a little unfair. Also, there's no mention of how GOP Senators filibustered every bill he presented, including during the 2010 election year, a veterans' job bill. The GOP did everything possible to make America fail...so they could blame it on Obama.

I'm hardly blaming him for the downturn. I'm blaming him for his pathetic non-response to the downturn. Which involved allowing criminals to prey on the American people with impunity.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I'm hardly blaming him for the downturn. I'm blaming him for his pathetic non-response to the downturn. Which involved allowing criminals to prey on the American people with impunity.

Had he actually gone against the criminals, pretty much all of the Democrats and Republicans would have probably united against him.

 

[Lexicus]

Had he actually gone against the criminals, pretty much all of the Democrats and Republicans would have probably united against him.

And the American people would have sided with Obama, the most charismatic politician in years, and thrown them out.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Unfortunately, Obama's spine was made of a substance stronger than pudding but weaker than jello.

 

[Synobun]

And the American people would have sided with Obama, the most charismatic politician in years, and thrown them out.

Your humour game is on point today.

 

[Lexicus]

Your humour game is on point today.

I'm not trying to be humorous. I don't think there's the slightest bit of doubt. In 2009 people were incredibly angry about the financial crisis. There's no way that Congress could have survived when it would have been accurately seen as sabotaging the pursuit of justice on behalf of the bankers who had just come within a hairsbreadth of destroying the world economy. Obama had this unique opportunity and pissed it away. Whether this was out of his own conviction or because he got fooled by Geithner and Summers is less clear.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I blame Geithner. I blame Obama too, for listening to him.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The satisfaction of skewering the bankers for causing the near fatal crisis has to be balanced against the possibility that such action would have made the crisis fatal. Yes, the American people would have supported it. Vengeance without regard to suffering consequences themselves always appeals to the American people...until the consequences happen.

 

[Lexicus]

The satisfaction of skewering the bankers for causing the near fatal crisis has to be balanced against the possibility that such action would have made the crisis fatal.

This simply isn't true, and doesn't even make any sense.

 

[Kozmos]

A million neoliberal technocrats. Thanks Obama. /without sarcasm

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This simply isn't true, and doesn't even make any sense.

Oh? You know for a fact what the outcome of doing things differently would have been? That's interesting. How?

You may think that the banks played no part in the recovery. I think that is unrealistic. You may think that the banks would have done their part even if the SEC was rolling up bankers for trial. I think that is even more unrealistic.

Bottom line, we know how the recovery turned out the way it was done. Anyone who claims to know what the outcome would have been had things been done differently is lying, probably to themselves.

 

[Synobun]

I'm not trying to be humorous. I don't think there's the slightest bit of doubt. In 2009 people were incredibly angry about the financial crisis. There's no way that Congress could have survived when it would have been accurately seen as sabotaging the pursuit of justice on behalf of the bankers who had just come within a hairsbreadth of destroying the world economy. Obama had this unique opportunity and pissed it away. Whether this was out of his own conviction or because he got fooled by Geithner and Summers is less clear.

Granted, my worldview at ~14 wasn't so hot, but I don't recall any real indication that America was not only ready but on the verge of eating the rich through Obama-fueled fervor.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I was an optimist when he got elected, i actually thought things would change. Now i'm just another Cynic. And rich people are yummy.