(no title)
riggins | 5 years ago
your argument is that Obama should be more like Trump? Declaring a fake national emergency and raiding the military budget is dubious action. Obama was never going to do ish like that and we should all be happy about that.
Also as Obama pointed out in his medium posts, policy positions get converted into action through electoral wins.
I'm old enough to remember that Trump was elected in part due to Obama backlash.
I'm also old enough to remember the backlash when Obama said Cambridge police acted stupidly (the police arrested a Harvard professor in his own house when he had to go through a window bc he lost his keys)
I know people are disappointed Obama didn't accomplish more. Obama is such an impressive person you just assume he can work magic. But Obama was constrained by the system of democracy and that limits what is possible.
cwhiz|5 years ago
No. I even pointed out that if you were to consider that type of move to be unlawful there were still PLENTY of other legitimate actions he could have taken.
Again, the President is in charge of the entire federal executive branch. That means the FBI, DEA, DoJ, Homeland Security, ICE, and others. There are numerous changes and reforms he could have enacted at the federal level.
>Also as Obama pointed out in his medium posts, policy positions get converted into action through electoral wins.
Obama was elected President twice. What more of a mandate did he think he needed to feel confident enough to take action?
riggins|5 years ago
> Obama was elected President twice. What more of a mandate did he think he needed to feel confident enough to take action?
Obama lost control of Congress in 2010. And here's a good summary of the losses at the state level.
https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ...
anyway ... my point is pretty uncontroversial ... which is that there were limits on what Obama could do.