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Thread: Fúck off Obama, you race-baiting, Islamist apologising, war-mongering ****

  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
    Yes. In the heat of a 'common sense' election campaign they are great ideas. In the real world they are more complicated which is why he hasn't actually done any of them. He made promises he couldn't keep but at least he was too ignorant to know he couldn't keep them. Its an honesty of sorts.

    THe others know they
    Only political promises though; nobody cares about those. Except people who are interested in politics, I suppose. No, Trump won because he was prepared to demonstrate that America is a country worth standing up for, rather than constantly apologising for.
    "Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.

    "But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
    Oh, I do appreciate that. You can't run a country that for its first 190-odd years enslaves, disenfranchises and legally discriminates against a large proportion of its citizens on the basis of their race without it being an absolutely epic political fault line.

    Our racial (N.B. not religious) situation is vastly better and we have the legacy of having run the biggest empire the world's ever seen, ffs!

    However, the mistake lies in thinking that a weight of historical wrongs is enough to convince white people whose lives are shítty now to just put up with it because black folks have had it worse. People just don't work like that and calling them 'racist' because they vote for a guy who says he's going to make it better is a remarkably silly response.

    I'm not saying he had nothing but race on his side. I said it was his sole USP. Think about it: would a white senator with Obama's experience, charm, speaking ability, etc have got anywhere near the media traction he did? Of course not. He had the race card and he played it rather skilfully. I don't blame him, I just don't think you can do that and then complain about race being an issue.

    As a side note, of course, what's pretty funny is that an awful lot of black Americans don't actually see Obama as properly black. Rich, half-white, born in Hawaii (supposedly ) and with an African father rather than being the descendant of slaves. They would argue that he never really lived the black experience. That's how fücked up questions of race are in the US.
    In fairness, President Clinton was fairly popular with the media too.
    "Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.

    "But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
    I think the point is that race is always an issue. Without question there were millions of americans who were terrified of having a black guy in the White House. For the first black President, race is always going to be the issue that overshadows everything else.

    The colour of his skin divides the country. Trump's campaign was incredibly divisive but there is an odd quality here isn't there- isn't all partisan politics divisive? Isn't that the entire point of it?
    Of course there were. The fact seemed to drive Chief over the edge, in fact. On that level, I accept that there is an endemic racism in the states that is unconsciously predicated on the superior status of white people over black people. A black man in the White House basically blows that paradigm apart and with it - it would seem - an awful lot of people's minds.

    However, it is also worth remembering that an awful lot of white people voted for Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. Lumping them in with the racists in order to 'shame' them is reductive and counter-productive.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by redgunamo View Post
    In fairness, President Clinton was fairly popular with the media too.

    Yes, but Clinton - like Blair - got a relatively easy media ride because both ascended after more than a decade of conservative hegemony. The largely left/Democratic-leaning media were always going to lap that up. Although, of course, the backlash to that slavish devotion came in the form of the establishment of Fox News to provide a counterpoint.

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
    I think the point is that race is always an issue. Without question there were millions of americans who were terrified of having a black guy in the White House. For the first black President, race is always going to be the issue that overshadows everything else.

    The colour of his skin divides the country. Trump's campaign was incredibly divisive but there is an odd quality here isn't there- isn't all partisan politics divisive? Isn't that the entire point of it?
    I think we hugely overstate the importance of the issue simply because it suits our view of Americans as a whole. They are our rivals and we don't really like them.
    "Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.

    "But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
    It is a little unfair to say he had nothing but race on his side. National politics is performance and he was more than capable of that, particularly when you look at who he ran against.
    I must admit to not paying much attention to the details of his campaigns but the fact that he beat the twin evil warmongers of both John McCain and Hilary Clinton in 2008 is something I will always give him credit for.

    Then he got a nobel peace prize and went on to become the first POTUS in history to spend every day of his eight year term at war, bombing more countries than George Bush in the process.

    Still, could have been worse. It could have been Clinton or McCain.
    Last edited by Ash; 10-20-2017 at 09:42 AM.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
    Yes, but Clinton - like Blair - got a relatively easy media ride because both ascended after more than a decade of conservative hegemony. The largely left/Democratic-leaning media were always going to lap that up. Although, of course, the backlash to that slavish devotion came in the form of the establishment of Fox News to provide a counterpoint.
    That hegemony is not overwhelming though, is it. Here, it merely amounts to one extra term in the White House. Both major parties usually get two terms each.
    "Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.

    "But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by redgunamo View Post
    That hegemony is not overwhelming though, is it. Here, it merely amounts to one extra term in the White House. Both major parties usually get two terms each.
    No, but there is an inevitable effect on the public mood brought about by long periods of one party in office - especially if that party is right-leaning. Media tend to strain under the perceived yoke and then treat whoever comes along afterwards as though they're Jesus and Geoffrey Boycott rolled up into one for quite a long time.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
    Of course there were. The fact seemed to drive Chief over the edge, in fact. On that level, I accept that there is an endemic racism in the states that is unconsciously predicated on the superior status of white people over black people. A black man in the White House basically blows that paradigm apart and with it - it would seem - an awful lot of people's minds.

    However, it is also worth remembering that an awful lot of white people voted for Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. Lumping them in with the racists in order to 'shame' them is reductive and counter-productive.
    Its similar to our own issue with immigration. One can be opposed to immigration without being racist but if one is racist one is bound to oppose immigration. Politics tends to lump people together with the other people voting the same way.

    I dont think Trump ran a racist campaign but he ran one that deliberately targeted the premise of political correctness and challenged it. At times, this involved perpetuating racial stereotypes in the more subtle forms and then refusing to apologise for it. Millions of people loved him for that. His sentence on Mexicans was almost genius- he didnt they say they were rapists but he phrased the sentence to make it sound as though he was saying it.

    His real genius was in making the White House sound far more important than it actually is, endowing it with the power to change anything it wanted. Powerful President= powerful USA.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
    Its similar to our own issue with immigration. One can be opposed to immigration without being racist but if one is racist one is bound to oppose immigration. Politics tends to lump people together with the other people voting the same way.

    I dont think Trump ran a racist campaign but he ran one that deliberately targeted the premise of political correctness and challenged it. At times, this involved perpetuating racial stereotypes in the more subtle forms and then refusing to apologise for it. Millions of people loved him for that. His sentence on Mexicans was almost genius- he didnt they say they were rapists but he phrased the sentence to make it sound as though he was saying it.

    His real genius was in making the White House sound far more important than it actually is, endowing it with the power to change anything it wanted. Powerful President= powerful USA.
    Oh, yes. There are vast hordes of votes to be won by challenging political correctness, though, for the simple reason that all right-thinking people absolutely fùcking hate it.

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