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sheshe2

(83,746 posts)
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 09:47 PM Jun 2016

It's All Been Done: How Barack Obama Already Achieved Bernie Sanders' Revolution HCGroup

I hope it is okay with hosts that I put this here. BOG is not as widely read now. I refuse to post in Primaries. This is a repost with updates.

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It's All Been Done: How Barack Obama Already Achieved Bernie Sanders' Revolution

snip//


But that's how America works: we have no sense of history. We don't understand just how bad it was right before the 2008 election. In actuality, we were losing 700,000 jobs per month. Unemployment was twice what it was now. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was below 8,000. The financial industry had crashed the global economy and was seemingly continuing those very same actions as if nothing they had done was even wrong. Retirees were losing their life savings. Millennials were unable to find their first jobs and were being crushed by student debt. Our country was bogged down in two costly wars that were contributing to the deteriorating conditions and instability of the Middle East. While all this was going on, the rich in this country, seemingly unaffected by everything going on around them, continued to profit at record levels.


When it came time for him to run for president starting in 2007, Barack Obama did not run on a promise of revolution.

What he did run on was convincing millions of Americans that were was a better way to govern. That we were all in this together and that if enough Americans stood up and voiced their concerns then Washington, D.C. would be forced to listen. His soaring rhetoric was based upon the idea that through hope and change we could advance the mission of our founding fathers and get ever so closer to our perfect union. That was his pitch: not simply that he would go in and overturn nearly 220 years of constitutional governance but that he would advocate for a way to govern more effectively. By voicing their support for his candidacy, Barack Obama's supporters were confirming that they too, agreed that we needed a candidate whose policies and whose views on government would best provide a way to make our system run as it was intended to run.

And so in 2008, America made history with its resounding election of Barack Hussein Obama. It was such a decisive victory that even Fox News had trouble describing it: nearly 69.5 million popular votes, a 365-173 victory in the Electoral College, and the winning of nearly all swing states including Florida, Ohio, and even North Carolina. Even better was the fact that Democratic senators rode Obama's coattails and with the defection of Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and the delayed seating of Democrat Al Franken of Minnesota, Barack Obama found himself in April of 2009 of having a filibuster-proof Senate and a Democratically-controlled House. Here was his chance to enact a progressive wish-list with things like universal healthcare, a way to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, an increased minimum wage, and free colleges and universities.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It should. Because it is the very same platform that now Senator Bernie Sanders is echoing for president.
Yet despite this huge "wave" of enthusiasm that brought Barack Obama into the White House, he faced stiff opposition from not only Republicans, who vowed to make him a one-term president but also Blue Dog Democrats who felt Obama's "radical agenda" wasn't in the best interest of the American people. During a bitter and fought-out battle for the Affordable Care Act, not only did the landmark legislation not receive a single Republican vote from either the House or the Senate but Obama had to compromise on the legislation and even the idea of a public option was too much for certain Blue Dogs to swallow. The ACA that we now have in place passed after a nearly eight-month battle on Christmas Eve of 2009 with Obama needing all 60 votes in the Senate as well as having to fend off 34 Democrats who voted against the legislation in the House.


snip//

The American people are living through a revolution. It is not a revolution from a seventy-four-year-old democratic socialist from Vermont. It is the revolution from a fifty-four-year-old biracial man from the south side of Chicago. A skinny man with large ears and a funny middle name who has put our country on the path to prosperity for decades to come. A man staked his presidency on providing affordable healthcare to tens of millions of people. A man whose actions staved off a second Great Depression despite the fact that these actions gave his opponents the ability to misinform the public and to retake Congress. A man who slowly and methodically worked with Congress to improve our crumbling infrastructure. A man whose very first bill was a bill to help protect women in the workplace. A man who has used the bully pulpit to advocate for higher wages and more affordable college. A man who has done all this despite having two of history's least productive Congresses since 2010.





Read More: http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/2/24/its-all-been-done-how-barack-obama-already-achieved-bernie-sanders-revolution



We had a Revolution. Where were you? Where were you?


13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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It's All Been Done: How Barack Obama Already Achieved Bernie Sanders' Revolution HCGroup (Original Post) sheshe2 Jun 2016 OP
Politics: the art of the possible. teamster633 Jun 2016 #1
Yes~ sheshe2 Jun 2016 #2
That's right.. BS was late to the revolution.. and he never acknowledged the real Cha Jun 2016 #3
Lol! sheshe2 Jun 2016 #4
K&R! DemonGoddess Jun 2016 #5
He is white splaing to minorities. sheshe2 Jun 2016 #6
+1000 Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Jun 2016 #7
Hahahaha sheshe2 Jun 2016 #8
I would argue that it started a little earlier BootinUp Jun 2016 #9
And Obama did it WAY better. nt eastwestdem Jun 2016 #10
...and with grace. n/t Skidmore Jun 2016 #11
And humor. greatauntoftriplets Jun 2016 #12
Exactly. ismnotwasm Jun 2016 #13

Cha

(297,154 posts)
3. That's right.. BS was late to the revolution.. and he never acknowledged the real
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 11:03 PM
Jun 2016

revolution that Obama started.. and Hillary will continue.. in fact he dissed it. Thought his ego was bigger than our Revolution.

Thank you, she!

DemonGoddess

(4,640 posts)
5. K&R!
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 11:11 PM
Jun 2016

You know, it makes me angry that he doesn't acknowledge TWO revolutionary candidates. First, a biracial man, and then a woman. BOTH candidates being historic.

BootinUp

(47,141 posts)
9. I would argue that it started a little earlier
Thu Jun 16, 2016, 11:49 PM
Jun 2016

I think in 2004 we saw the beginnings it just fell a little short. Obama picked up the ball and ran it to the end zone.

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