3mo ago

Obama breaks silence on Trump’s ‘unimaginable’ presidency

www.thedailybeast.com /obama-breaks-silence-on-trumps-unimaginable-presidency/

Summary

Barack Obama sharply criticized Donald Trump’s presidency during a speech at Hamilton College, condemning attacks on the press, immigration crackdowns, and threats to civil liberties.

He called it “unimaginable” that Trump’s actions—such as barring the AP and threatening law firms—would have been tolerated under past presidents.

Obama warned that Trump’s behavior, though “goofy,” poses real danger, and he labeled Trump a “wannabe dictator.”

He also referenced former Trump aide John Kelly's “fascist” remark and urged Americans not to mistake chaos for leadership.

85 comments

Good, start the campaign now so that if Trump somehow crowbars in a law that allows him to run for a third term Obama can bury him
- I don't see that as a fix. A third term for either would be a higher level constitutional crisis than all the many ones trump has already initiated. Many failed like with his first impeachment for misappropriating federal funds to bribe a foreign official.
  
  Besides the fact that Trump has already telegraphed a possible plan to allow for three terms only if they're non-consecutive.
  
  The only reason we have a 22nd amendment is because the shitheels were mad they didn't get a turn. They could have stopped being shitheels, but that's just out of the question.
  
  Everyone assumes Obama would easily win. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion. It would just make the third term fully legitimized.
- Crowbars in a law? Why not just do it? Who will stop him?
- No thanks.
Nah bruh. It was imaginable. I fucking imagined it. Because it was goddamn obvious.
- it lowkey became inevitable when the democrats didn't make blocking trump from ever being president their #1 focus
  
  Became inevitable when democrats ran Biden the first time… anyone with two brain cells could tell a Biden that doesn’t deliver some absolutely insane legislation was done. He even ran on being a one term president. He needed to stay on that path hard and allow a real primary group to form so there were competing ideas out against Trump. Saying everything is great in the face of massive inflation isn’t really going to cut it.
he labeled Trump a “wannabe dictator.”
Sure wish Democrats would quit downplaying the threat.
- Exactly. I just posted this in another thread...
  He is setting tariffs on his own, a power designated solely to Congress by the Constitution.
  He is having masked police kidnap people off the streets without warrants and shipping them to an overseas gulag without trial or even charges.
  He is illegally refusing to distribute money allocated by Congress to certain states in order to punish them for not doing his bidding.
  And when the courts have ordered him to stop doing the above, he has willfully ignored those court orders with no repercussions.
  Exactly what more needs to happen for this to be a dictatorship?
  
  These are just the things we know about. God knows else gets blocked internally, doesn't hit the news or doesn't pick up media traction.
- I agree. It's absolutely fucking infuriating.
  "Aggressively and rapidly installing himself as a dictator" would still be understating a bit.
- Right? At what point do they feel it's appropriate to remove the "wannabe" part?
Obama allowed the Republicans to viciously kick him around for eight years, yet he never stopped trying to appease them. He should have ruthlessly prosecuted the crimes of the illegitimate Bush administration, and showed the proto-Nazi Republican party that treason would not be tolerated. If he had, there never would have been the environment for MAGA to rise. But he failed us, like all those corporate, Republican-Lite Demopublicans.
Now he's still playing the same old game, like most of them, pretending that its business as usual, and letting HitlerPig get away with being Putin's muscle, as he actively, gleefully destroys America, right in front of our faces, ss he plays golf. Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
How long do we have to tolerate obvious TREASON before we stop it? Do we have to wait until the entire Democratic free world has collapsed, billions of people have died, and Sociopathic Oligarchs are sitting on top of the pile, smoking cigars and drinking expensive scotch, and gloating about their success, before we can finally admit what we already know right now, BEFORE the carnage - that the destruction of Democracy was their plan all along?
It's time for some coalition of respected leaders, including military, to step up and end this madness decisively. There are a lot of potential tipping points (a war against NATO allies, leaving NATO, an alliance with Russia/ China/ N Korea, attacking Canada/Mexico, giving away Alaska and/or Taiwan, a draft, disappearing American citizens without due process, designating citizens as terrorists for exercising free speech, etc), but the one bright red line that can NEVER be crossed, is elections. If HitlerPig suspends elections for ANY reason at all, it will become time to literally execute the entire MAGA leadership. That is precisely why the Founding Fathers created the 2nd Amendment, and we should honor them by applying it as they intended.
- I can't argue with this at all. Obama was huge disappointment.
  I can't say i was surprised. When i saw him at that giant rally after his election, with everyone going wild at how much things were going to get better, I just knew it was going to be more of the same neo-liberal, Republican Lite bullshit we'd had for the Clinton administration. I doubted it would seem much different than the Bush administration. Throughout his campaign, with the slogan of Hope & Change, it seemed like he leaned much harder on the Hope than the Change.
  His constant appeasement with Republicans when he had the majority in Congress really pissed me off. He consistently deferred to them, altering legislation to suit them, hoping it would draw their votes, and they kicked him in the balls every time. You'd think he'd learn after the first couple, but he didn't, but he still gave into them over and over, without anything in return but disdain.
  And he really blew it with Obamacare, which was a perfect example of his appeasement strategy. It was an improvement on a broken system, but just because the tub drains a little quicker doesn't make it fixed. He could have created a new system, but he adopted Romney's system and dropped the public option, all to attract Republican votes, and they all voted No anyway, thanks to McConnell.
  If you are going to create and pass Republican legislation, just become a Republican and be done with it.
I had no problem imagining it for at least a year before Election Day.
Nobody fucking listened.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
- FR it's like nobody remembered anything that happened between 2016 and 2020, or that they thought an actual dictatorship wouldn't be so bad.
- Don't forget all the dipshits constantly gaslighting
  I'm still getting it. My retarded family thinks Trump is going to fix shit. I keep fucking telling them he's the one breaking shit
  At what stage do I say "fuck you family, you helped give me this mess"
  Is it after I get deported? Put onto trains and into ovens?
  So many people have no fucking problem with Nazis.
  I hate people. I hate how stupid they all are.
  They're all just so God damned dumb and my world would be better if they all just died
  
  I stopped speaking with my parents a couple of weeks after January 20, and let them know that the ball's in their court and if they want to have a relationship, all they need to do is acknowledge that they were wrong about Trump.
  It fucking sucks. But I just can't abide that shit anymore. Without getting into details, I might not have a job this time next year (after a decade there) directly because of the actions of this Administration. And even still, they don't seem to care.
  I've started wondering how they'd react if I was disappeared. They'd likely tell people that I probably did something to deserve it, before ever admitting that they support a fascist dictator.
  Shit's a real bummer.
Barrack gave us trump when he let home owners eat shit and the bankers walk free. Even Bush was going to give home owners some reprieve, and asked Obama if he wanted to proceed and Obama told him " there is only one president at a time". When he came in to power, he bailed out the banks.
- He campaigned explicitly on a platform of change and then proceeded to install a cast of deeply entrenched establishment figures to shore up the establishment at the expense of common people. Classic switcheroo.
  
  Obama was also in a position of power to actually do something about the Russian influence on the 2016 election - and he did nothing.
  
  Then helped get Biden elected which led to trump winning again.
  And not getting prosecuted by DOJ thanks to the wonderful AG Garland
“Imagine if I had done any of this,”
Ha... I'm not a big fan of obomber but at least he's legit funny sometimes.
Michelle2028
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/michelle-obama-beat-trump-poll/
- If you thought the country needed you and you thought you could really help our nation, is there even a one percent chance you’d consider running?
  “Just between us, and the readers of this magazine — there’s zero chance,” Mrs. Obama replied.
  Yeah, can't say I am surprised. I mean, she saw what that did to her husband. Not sure how it looks from USA pov, but from outside, the man visually aged two decades during his cadency.
  
  What they did to her too, racist ass anti-trans bullshit.
Just call him for what he is, A russia agent, Krasnov Trump.
And stop calling them Presidents, they are public servant. re-label the term to "Head Public Servant".
So that everyone is reminded everyday who they are supposed to serve.
- Larry Niven's scifi series had a species named Puppeteers where the leader was called the "Hindmost" because nobody wanted the gig. I think the leader's job was to draw off the predators or something like that.
  
  From Wikipedia: The leader of the Puppeteers is known as the Hindmost. Since Pierson's Puppeteers are foremost concerned with their own safety and the survival of their species, the most important Puppeteer is considered to be behind, or protected by, every other member of the species. It is a shortening from the more literal the one who leads from behind.
Oh my god shut the fuck up about it being “unimaginable”. They published the playbook online for anyone to see in 2020. They said they would follow the playbook. They are now following the playbook. They are completing sections of the playbook as written. They will continue to complete sections of the playbook as written, until they are either done executing the playbook, or removed from power somehow. None of this is a surprise. You are not allowed to be surprised by this.
- This is a straw man. Obama was not saying that nobody knew what project 2025 was planning. He's saying that prior presidents could never have gotten away with behaving in ways that Trump behaves, and doing things that Trump does.
If any President in recent history should return for a third term, I’d vote for Obama again in a heartbeat.
- I was rooting for a Jimmy Carter second term but that’ll be tough now.
  
  Do undead presidents act as a third term loophole?
- You might deserve it, I'm pretty confident saying the trans kids and legal immigrants who are being disappeared off the streets probably don't.
  
  Not trying to tigger you, but who would you pick for a third (albeit unconstitutional) term?
  
  We absolutely do, and it's why I just want to fucking leave now. Americans will gleefully flee into the arms of the neoliberal ghouls that got them into this mess, if there are continued elections, only to hand the country back to fascists immediately after once it's clear how feckless the neoliberals are.
https://archive.ph/QbtHO
This is the archived version of the article, no paywall.
You could listen to him. He was the only decent president You had in my memory.
- That's because U.S. Presidents have p much all been warcrime committing bastards who have gleefully pillaged the global south to support their vile hegemony. Obama is a very nice warcrime committing bastard, an excellent orator, but it doesn't really excuse the shit he did.
- Biden was fine.
- More or less shitty than Donald?
  
  I'm pretty sure ACA was a big deal and a big achievement.
  
  More like a shit candidate but decent President. He absolutely should have been a one term and allowed dems to run a proper primary. Of course, then the dems would shut out actual progressive candidates, but that's a whole other thing.
  
  How did ACA fail?
  
  He provided a shit ton of federal student debt forgiveness. It wasn’t blanket, the Supreme Court blocked that, but I know a good number of people who had theirs discharged.
Rally the troops Obama. Do something about it.
Tariffs are basically tax on Americans.
Would love to vote for this Obama guy if he has the chance to run again. Do it, Republicans. No balls.
- That's the funny part: if Trump and the supreme court somehow finagle a new legal loophole for the constitution, then Obama will get elected.
  
  They'll only somehow finagle it by saying Trump didn't serve 2 consecutive terms which wouldn't allow Obama.
Obama, ya basic.
- Obama was "boring", that is exactly what you want in a president. Just sitting there doing his job, not trying to get on TV or the news every damn day.
  Although if you did want to look closer, he was very engaging to listen to. So, not boring in that sense.
  
  Don't forget that Obama was also a war criminal, just like the other US presidents in recent history.
  
  Yes, the boring drone-striker-in-chief who's crowning achievement was the half-measure ACA (notably a Republican plan). Were you folks just checked out during those 8 years or not alive yet?
  This is all cult of personality bullshit.
  
  Well Trump was a TV showman. Americans voted for a showman so they got a showman.
  
  No, that's exactly what I don't want in a President. Sitting there, doing their job and not trying to get onto the TV news every day is perfect for, say, an EPA grant administrator. But the drafters of the Constitution fucked up by making the President both the head of government, and the head of state. The former should be an administrator, and the latter needs to be a leader. It's not the framers' fault, the world just didn't have a lot of experience with huge democracies back then. The trouble is that "huge" is too much for the human mind, and abstract thinking doesn't come naturally to us. A worrying proportion of the population can't do it at all. Instead, we conceptualize our nation through a parasocial relationship with the leader. In that role, the President should be on TV, and in the news every day, influencing the citizens.
  The UK has its own problems, but at least their system splits the job. They have a head of state, King Charles, whom everybody can relate to as the embodiment of the nation, more or less aside from political disagreements. (This role was far more effective when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, to be sure.) They also have a head of government, the Prime Minister, who attends to making things run. Each can focus on their particular role. But we don't have that luxury in the US, and Obama needed to continue the energy of the campaign even after taking office.
  
  Please do not tell me what I want in a president.

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