That's because you see what you want to see. I laid out clearly examples of the hateful, divisive things Obama said as well as Biden. The dot you cannot connect is you think Trump is "divisive" because the extremists are butthurt about him. Obama and Biden are divisive because the divisive things they say, do, and weaponizing the government against political enemies.Frank Galvin said:Every president other than Washington was "divisive." I can and have denied that Obama was unusually divisive. nYou are free to have your. own incorrect oopinion about that.Whiskey Pete said:Never said he wasn't insulting, but he never went on stage, made a speech and called Americans who didn't vote for him a threat to democracy or a danger to America.Frank Galvin said:You have got to be kidding. Trump has built his entire politicsl career on insulting people. It is about the only hting he does well. Thankfully people keep track of these sort of things:Whiskey Pete said:I'll add, regarding Biden, Obama's VP - The Bitler speech with the red background, he attacked Trump supporters by calling them a threat to democracy. That they have extreme ideology that threatens America. It's not surprising though, he did come from the Obama administration's school of "White Christian males are the biggest threat to our country".Harrison Bergeron said:I thought the twice-mentioned Bully Pulpit was reasonably clear.Frank Galvin said:The data pretty clearly showed that race relations began to decline in Obama's second term. When it happened, it happened dramatically. Sayijng the decline reflected teh Michael Brown riots rather than some Obama executive action that no one ever heard of isn't a left talking point. It is the obvious truth.Harrison Bergeron said:You're just posting far left talking points. The data is obvious. Race relations began to decline during Obama's term and never recovered. Part of that is the racist policies and actions that Obama launch and the division was exacerbated by the radical left's embrace of Burn Loot Murder. Obama tacitly supported divisive, local information despite what the far left talking points want to tell you. Rather than the usual far left talking points of BUT TRUMP look at post-Rodney King? It is called a bully pulpit for a reason.Frank Galvin said:Overall your take suffers from a huge doses of faulty assumptions and recency bias.Harrison Bergeron said:Frank Galvin said:You are a weird cat. And apparently an insecure one.KaiBear said:Frank Galvin said:Discussions where people just trade opinions with no basis aren't very interesting.KaiBear said:Frank Galvin said:KaiBear said:LOLFrank Galvin said:KaiBear said:Frank Galvin said:
Examples?
Your previous comment .
Typical entitlement.
As I thought. You got nothing.
Always amusing when mediocrities like you anoint themselves as the 'winner' of an Internet discussion.
Guess it's easier than going on a treadmill for an hour.
I won because you refused to play.
Again specific examples of words, acts, or policies that were unusually divisive. Do you have any or is it just unsupported opinion?
Hilarious how you feels entitled to make the rules on a free message board .
As if any amount of time spent or links provided would alter your attitude in the slightest.
So you get to determine what constitutes a 'basis' ?
Would be 'interesting' to learn the basics of such an ego.
Suspect it's underwhelming.
Asking what factual basis you have for supporting the idea that Obama was an unusually divisive president. What did he do that made people like him or dislike him more than the normal president? Divisive to me has an element of intentionality-you want to set up an us against them narrative. That never seemed like Obama to me.
If you disagree great. But usually discussion boards involve saying why you disagree.
Obama's entire election strategy was built
on Identity Politics and building a coalition of grievance.
- Obamacare was divisive
- He authoritarian fiat of Title IX was divisive
- He laid the foundational of radical DEI in the bureaucracy
- His droning of American citizens was divisive
Mostly his tendency to insert the bully pulpit into local issues by playing the race card from fake news around the beer summit, michael brown, and trayvon
All extremely divisive.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/Race-Relations.aspx
Obama's 2008 campaign was built on an economy that had just evaporated. That was by far and away the number one issue. His biggest hurdle was overcoming race concerns and he spent considerable time assuring America he was no radical. His 2012 campaign was all about class, not race. He painted Romney as the personification of corporate America and ran against that. But the thing about Obama is that both times he ran on optimism. "Yes we can" was his theme overall. So your first point about identity politics and grievance is just faulty memory.
Obamacare was a hard fought legislative battle that passed with 60 votes in the Senate. It was "divisive" in the same way the minimum wage act, allowing unions, trustbusting, the forty-hour workweek, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, establishing the income tax, reconstruction, civil rights legislation, and don't ask, don't tell were "divisive." That is just domestic policy. The decisions to enter WWI, to support the allies before Japan's attack, to support Korea and to fire MacArthur, to integrate the service, to bomb Cambodia, and to surge troops in Iraq after "misision accomplished' were all just as "divisive." In that context, I have a hard time seeing how Obama is more divisive that the Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Clinton or Bush (leaving aside Trump who is unique in his abiltiy to inspire passions of all types).
Particularly considering he scored two comfortable election victories. Add to that the fact that Obamacare, his signature achievement, is not nearly as divisive anymore. (https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/poll-finding/5-charts-about-public-opinion-on-the-affordable-care-act/)
Your next three are just far right talking points. The average American has zero view on the dear colleague letter (Baylor is uniquely attuned to it becuase of our football scandal) or droning. They have heard about DEI but almost no one attributes that to Obama.
Your last point is the most interesting and probably the most accurate. Its tough to hear opposing points of view and its even tougher to hear them from someone who holds power that you do not think should. So yes, Obama's lectures on race relations were not always well received. Sometimes the truth hurts to hear.
But your chart actually proves something different than you think.The main thing is that just like the stock market average is not an accurate indicator of the president's economic policies, what is measured here is not an accurate indicator of people's view of whether the president is causing or is appropriately handling race problems the respondent perceives.
Even if you don't accept that, the figures still do not support you. When Obama first campaigned in 2008, 29% of whites, and 37% of blacks and hispanics had a negative view of race relations in America. After Obama's second inaugaration in 2013, that number improved to 27% for whites, 33% for blacks and 36% for hispanics. That time period included the beer summit incident and the Trayvon Martin killing. Meaning that for four+ years America had no problem with Obama on race, it felt things were getting better under his watch.
Things went way off track in 2015 when 54% of whites, 48% of blacks and 52% of hispanics reported negative views of race relations. The answer is obvious. Following the MIchael Brown death we were watching race riots on tv-pretty easy to understand why people thought race relations were poor.
Two things though. First, Obama did not cause the race riots. Second, following the riots, the view of race relations by whites and hispanics improved again. By the time of the Trump-Clinton campaign 44% of whites and 45 % of hispanics had negative views. Still high but a material improvement following the riots. Thing were again improving
The same thing happened to Trump/. Following the George Floyd killing and riots 54% of whites (the same amount as after the Michael Brown killing and riots) and 63% of blacks (no separate hispanic measurment given) had a negative view of race relations. So by your own metric, Trump was at least as if not more divisive than Obama.
And that is not really fair. Sometimes it is events that divide people as opposed to the leadership that has to respond to those events. That applies to Obama and Trump. Their presidencies may have done more to reveal divides than to cause them. Obama at least demonstrated an ability to preside over improvement, We never saw that from Trump.
The Democrats even bragged about using Identity Politics to elect Obama. I'm surprised you find this surprising:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/demography-is-not-destiny
Before Biden, Obama was the most divisive president in a long time and reversed a steady trend of improved race relations. No many episodes of The View will change reality.
Or do you have some other explanation for why perceptions of race relations improved over Obama's first term, fell off a cliff at the time of the Michael Brown riots and then improved some afterwards? Because that is what the chart shows.
Obama's first public act in office was given credibility to the Juicy Smollet story of the idiotic Harvard professor. He just continued to double down on disinformation by playing into the Burn Loot Murder disinformation and the Trayvon Martin case. He easily could have de-escalated the situations but chose to pour gasoline on the fake fires because he always has been a himbo tool of the radical left. So just like the Obama III administration, his radical left activists in the DOJ launched "civil rights" violations and put a record number of police departments under federal review despite knowing the Burn Loot Murder narrative is based on a complete lie (the data is clear unarmed blacks are not killed at higher rates than unarmed whites).
Are you really so tribal not to remember some of the most divisive messaging by Obama:
- Calling opponents of same-sex marriage "bigots"
- Calling Pro Lifers launching a "War on Women"
- Calling those opposed to illegal immigration "racsits"
- Calling the GOP the "enemy"
Have you forgotton:
- "And it's not surprising then they get bitter,they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain thei frustrations."
- "You did not build that"
I would challenge you to find anything as hateful and divisive ushered by any U.S. President before him. This kind of tribalistic, hateful language set the stage for Obama III's weird Triumph of the Will speech, where China Joe called anyone that disagreed with him ultrafascists.
Lets you forgot Obama's policies:
- Weaponizing the IRS to target political opponents
- Weaponizing the DOJ to target journalists
Turn off The View and open your eyes. Until Obama III, Obama I and II was the most divisive administration since Lincoln. It is just the usual extremist leftist lack of self-awareness thinking that divisive means "disagreeing with me."
I could be wrong, but I can't recall if/when Trump ever verbally attacked ordinary voting Americans who supported an opposing candidate. He most certainly didn't call them racists or bigots or deplorables.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-complete-insult-list.html
Calling out individuals or companies or organizations or other politicians is vastly different than labeling white conservative males as the main threat to America, concerned parents as terrorists, etc...
You can't deny that Obama was divisive, Biden's been extra divisive and Trump's been divisive in his own right.
Democrats and liberals have taken divisiveness to a whole new level.
I don't think Biden is unusually divisive because no one listens to him.
The last thing is the most important becuase it reveals the most fundamental problem with America today. You say Trump did not insult "ordinary Americans" for voting for the other party. Who do you think "Democrats" are? They are not just Democratic elected officials or party poobahs. They are millions of "ordinary Americans." And he spends 90% of his time insulting them.
Why? This runs both ways-no one considers memebers of the other party to be ordinary Americans anymore.
The data is in front of your face - racial attitudes tanked after Obama.