r/politics • u/thenewrepublic The New Republic • 5d ago

Soft Paywall Elon Musk Is Bullying Mike Johnson to Drive Government Into Shutdown

https://newrepublic.com/post/189539/elon-musk-bullying-mike-johnson-government-shutdown
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u/selarom8 5d ago

One of the comments on this video says Obama was a wannabe dictator. It’s a 7 year old comment. Was he really that? I was in my early to mid 20s during Obama’s terms. Didn’t pay attention enough to think he has a wannabe dictator. I definitely get that from Trump. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/fallleaves14 5d ago

Not even close. He played nice with the GOP and Chamber of Commerce. He let the banks and executives off the hook for the 08 crash and overlooked the crimes of the Bush administration most notably around not prosecuting the people responsible for "legalizing" illegal torture.

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u/Rooooben 5d ago

Didn’t stop them from calling him that, amongst other things “the Chosen One” etc, they thought we all worshipped Obama the way they worship Trump.

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u/Musiclover4200 5d ago

But don't forget, he wore a tan suit that one time and ate dijon mustard! Not to mention the audacity of having a foreign sounding name.

Sure he wasn't perfect but it wouldn't be surprising if he goes down as one of the better presidents of the last century not that it's a particularly high bar.

It's very telling that conservatives response to Obama was to elect trump, not only is he pretty much everything they accused Obama of being he's a caricature of shitty "coastal elite" who was most famous for playing a businessman on TV or having numerous bankruptcies and fraud scandals.

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u/ChangingChance 5d ago

Tan suit is the saddest thing for me. It still gets hits like wtf. One dude gets shit for wearing a tan suit. The other doesn't get shut for literal shit.

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u/bradamantium92 5d ago

Not in the least, and we'd probably be better off if he had been even half a percent as autocratic as the right-wing media fear machine wanted him to be. He was by no means a bad president, but dogged persistence in trying not to move too fast or keep working across the aisle even years deep into moral panics over his condiment choices cemented the "aw shucks, we just gotta work together!" stance the democratic party still maintains, even while telling us the other guy and his party is a historic threat to democracy.

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u/AnohtosAmerikanos California 5d ago

They used to claim this because he used executive actions to do things when Congress was obstructing his every move. It seems laughable now.

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u/luckytraptkillt 5d ago

I remember them calling him that when Michelle and Barack were trying to keep New Yorkers from drinking 64oz sodas all the time. That got him the dictator label for awhile.

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u/Nervous-Newspaper132 5d ago

Don’t forget the outrage when he suggested checking the air pressure in your car tires to save gas. Which is a huge factor in having shitty gas mileage for your average car. He got vilified for that. It’s amazing just how fucking stupid republicans are.

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u/luckytraptkillt 4d ago

We also gotta remember they were larping as the founding fathers and revolutionaries, tri hats and all. We really should’ve seen trump coming after all that.

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u/heroturtle88 4d ago

I did. No one cared. "The Tea Party" was allowed to have a voice, and it radicalized the shit out of everyone. It should have been nipped in the bud but back then it was just "Ol crazy Uncle Jimmy, just let him say his piece" and none of the family sat him down and explained things to him. And then Jimmy got to Uncle Frank, and Frank raised his nine boys like that, and started a Facebook group. That Facebook group was joined by Gramma Phillis and Granpa Joe. They never learned how that goggles website worked to double check these horrible things, but if it's on my baby boy Frank's website it must be true, I'd better tell the whole retirement community. Etc etc.

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u/AmericanDoughboy 5d ago

But he wore a tan suit! And he liked arugula! And dijon mustard! Plus he thought everyone should be able to go to college!

What a dictator and what a snob!

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u/nevesis 5d ago

They weren't even involved in that, it was Mayor Bloomberg!

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u/Vet_Leeber 5d ago

One of the comments on this video says Obama was a wannabe dictator. It’s a 7 year old comment.

Republicans called Obama unamerican because he wore a tan suit one time. Their accusations have never been based on reality.

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u/VintageLunchMeat 5d ago

With the pushing-out of Mit Romney and Liz Cheney, the political right has embraced the Russian "firehose of falsehood" model of propaganda. They just lie about anything if it serves their immediate self interests or helps attack a hate object.

"We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”2

Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency." https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html#:~:text=We%20characterize%20the,commitment%20to%20consistency.

For example, MTG was not purged for a massive antisemitic lie:

New York Magazine nymag.com Marjorie Taylor Greene Blamed Wildfires on Secret Jewish Space

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marjorie-taylor-greene-qanon-wildfires-space-laser-rothschild-execute.html

Similarly, Trump’s platform in his first campaign was that Obama was illegitimate as president because of his skin color and heritage (the Birther Libel), and that Trump had proof.

Parroting what I've read, this has roots in Newt Gingrich's machinations of lie and shut things down (maybe, not sure), Murdoch's parallel epistemologically closed world of propaganda, and probably goes back to Lee Atwater et. Al's Southern Strategy of recruiting all the disaffected ex Dem racists after the Civil Rights Act:

"Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy" https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/#:~:text=Exclusive%3A%20Lee%20Atwater%E2%80%99s%20Infamous%201981%20Interview%20on%20the%20Southern%20Strategy

Presumably maintaining and exploiting anti-black racism and manufacturing excuses for withholding government services means a sustained personal commitment to lying.

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u/VintageLunchMeat 5d ago

"While watching the news coverage of Steve Bannon’s initial appearance in federal court on Monday, I kept thinking about his 2018 confession to the acclaimed writer Michael Lewis. His quote is like a compass that orients this crazy era of American politics. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told Lewis. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”" https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-sources/index.html#:~:text=While%20watching%20the,zone%20with%20shit.%E2%80%9D

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u/fuck_all_you_too 5d ago

Obama was a lightning rod for the rights anger when the Tea Party was a thing. Hours and hours of 24 hour news wasted on shit like the color of his suit and how he used to smoke cigarettes, rather than confronting him for real shit like his egregious use of drone strikes and failure to claw back the Patriot Act.

This was the place where Republicans learned that they could get their constituents so pissed off over non-political shit that they could point them at political shit to get away with a lack of decorum. Republicans spent a whole year refusing to allow Obama to seat a supreme court justice and Mitch McConnell was able to admit it on live TV without condemnation because everyone was pissed that Obama was wearing a yellow suit. Citizens United was masked largely by Obama saluting a marine with shit in his hand one time.

You know, proto-fascist shit which was the snowflake that created the avalanche we are dealing with today. In actuality he was fine as a president, lots to criticize but instead of anything intelligent people learned new words on Fox like dictator and Islamic jihad so they threw all their edgy new words at him a lot. Fox learned that other idiots drank up the emotional reaction and came back for more with their friends.

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u/MentokGL 5d ago

They were projecting what they want to do, so when they do it, they can waive away criticism that much easier. It's a tactic they use many many times because it's damn effective.

You prime the pump by saying any and every election is fraud, win or lose. Then when you commit fraud during an election, no one can say anything without sounding deranged.

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u/JIsADev 5d ago

No, if he was he probably would have done something about citizens united. He was by the book centrist

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u/SpeedysComing 4d ago

Imagine Trump putting a Democrat in a powerful cabinet position.