2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAndrew Sullivan: President Obama: The Democrats' Ronald Reagan
I know, but read it. He is such a great writer even if you don't agree with a thing he says.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/23/andrew-sullivan-on-the-promise-of-obama-s-second-term.html
President Obama: The Democrats' Ronald Reagan
Sep 24, 2012 1:00 AM EDT
With his first term behind him, Obama is poised to be as significant a president as Reagantackling the deficit, spearheading immigration reform, and jolting the GOP back to sanity.
snip//
I could be dreaming, I know. No doubt, my hope will be mocked as another dewy-eyed, liberal big-media fantasy. But I wore a Reagan 80 button in high school for the same reason I wore an Obama T-shirt in 08not because their politics were the same, but because they were both right about the different challenges each faced, and both dreamed bigger than their rivals in times of real crisis.
The hope many Obama supporters felt four years ago was not a phony hope. We didnt expect miracles, but a long, brutal grind against the forces and interests that brought the U.S. to its 2009 economic and moral nadir. Ive watched this president face those forces and interests with cunning and pragmatism, but also platinum-strength persistence. Obama never promised a mistake-free presidency, or a left-liberal presidency, or an easy path ahead. He always insisted that he could not do for Americans what Americans needed to do for themselves. In his dark and sober Inaugural Address he warned that the challenges we face are real, they are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time.
But in a first term, he ended the Iraq War on schedule, headed off a second Great Depression, presided over much more robust private-sector job growth in his recovery than George W. Bush did in his, saved the American automobile industry, ended torture, and saw his own party embrace full marriage equality and integrate gays into the military. If those liberals who voted for him in 2008 think this is somehow a failure or a betrayal, in the context of the massive crisis he inherited, then they could not have been serious about real change in the first place. But some of us wereand still are. We understood that real change meets real resistance. In fact, you only know its real when the resistance is so strong. And the proper response to that resistance is not to fire the president who made this Reagan-like first-term progress in a far worse economic and fiscal climate, but to redouble on the Obama promise, to insist that Americas profound problems can only be addressed by a compromising president making bipartisan deals. And which ticket is likelier to compromise with the other party: ObamaBiden or RomneyRyan? The question answers itself.
Just as Reagan became an icon only in his second term, Obama needs four more years to entrench and build upon the large, unfinished strides in his first term. Thats why, if you backed Obama in 2008, as a liberal wanting change, as an independent wanting pragmatic solution-seeking, or as a conservative hoping to drag the GOP back from Palin-style insanity, it makes no sense to bail on him now. Because this is when the payoff of the long game really kicks in, when stronger economic growth will put a wind at the presidents back, when a bipartisan deal on debt could lift business confidence and accelerate recovery, when universal health-care reform becomes irreversible and health-care spending is slowed, when the last soldier leaves Afghanistan, when millions of illegal immigrants can come out of the shadows and help build the next economy, and when the spiraling emotions of religious warfare can be calmed, managed, and handled, rather than intensified, polarized, and spread more widely.
This was always Obamas promise. He has not betrayed it. And weyes, we-deserve a chance to fulfill it.
Rider3
(919 posts)No way. No how. Obama has more empathy than Reagan could have ever imagined.
TeamPooka
(24,228 posts)DCKit
(18,541 posts)If there were a direct, honest comparison, I'd be turning on the gas the second I finished typing this reply.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,501 posts)Avalux
(35,015 posts)On an equal plane, no, there is no comparison. But Reagan is like GOD to the GOP and just putting it out there will drive them off the rails.
TeamPooka
(24,228 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)"I'm from a corporation and I'm here to help!"
-or-
"I'm from the one percent and I create jobs!"
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)1 part problem + 1 part accountant = FUBAR
WCGreen
(45,558 posts)situation that gets rid of all the little known "exemptions" rich people can use to escape paying their fair share.
I believe in a progressive tax rate and I certainly would welcome a complete overhaul of the estate tax situation.
Response to babylonsister (Original post)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)he used to be a rethug, but we applaud converted people here all the time. Why not applaud him for seeing the light?
Response to babylonsister (Reply #10)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)since Obama took office, and before. This is an article of praise and hope. But carry on.
Response to babylonsister (Reply #20)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)So is David Frum and he thinks his party currently is pretty much batshit crazy. So does Sullivan. So am I supposed to hate them for using their intelligence to discern who might be the better candidate, or should I disparage them? I don't think so.
And no one really bothers me; if they use their brain and the tools at their fingertips to figure out the differences between candidates and make an informed (if only to them) decision, who am I to tell them otherwise? It's the willfully ignorant I have a problem with.
Response to babylonsister (Reply #23)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
DippyDem
(659 posts)he may go down in history as one of the greatest presidents. He got some form of healthcare passed, regained the respect of a great many foreign nations, and got a lot done in spite of the efforts of the Republicans to make him a one term president. In spite of a record breaking number of filibusters, he seems well on the way to a second term. I'm cheering him on and hope he does more in the way of tax fairness and narrowing of the wealth chasm between the rich versus the middle class during the second term.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Obama is nothing like Reagan--that's why we like him.
Sullivan used to be a Republican before he wasn't. He's a little weathervane, swinging in the wind. Always seeking attention and notice, and this is just his latest iteration ....
I just don't care what he has to say. It's always more about HIM than it is about anyone else.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)And as I said upthread, why is it we applaud people who have seen the light, but can't give props to Sullivan for the same thing?
So don't read it. Your loss.
timber84
(2,876 posts)I especially enjoy when he live blogs the debates. I think he's a good guy. I don't agree with everything he says but that is the way it should be.
MADem
(135,425 posts)(which was his newly found ability to seek US citizenship under the more liberal Obama administration, that didn't bar him due to his HIV status; and his ability to make a buck by appealing to the left instead of the right, the left being somewhat more literate). He's unserious. At least he's talking less about why the Catholic Church won't see their way clear to acting like humans; that rant went on for years and was tiresome in the extreme. It's like he expected a dog to sing opera...well. He also is an advocate of "The Bell Curve" (a racist diatribe that insists that some races are genetically/intellectually inferior to others). He loves himself some US military action, way too often, too.
I do not like the guy. I don't think he reflects big or small D - democratic - values.
Read all about him--he's not on "our" team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan
Response to MADem (Reply #28)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to MADem (Reply #12)
AnotherMcIntosh This message was self-deleted by its author.
MADem
(135,425 posts)He used to self - identify as a "conservative" before he lost faith in George W. Bush. Now he calls himself something else...I don't keep track. He's just a bloviator.
CitizenPatriot
(3,783 posts)you can't deny that Sullivan is a great writer.
NYC Liberal
(20,136 posts)we should be careful about putting him on a pedastal down the road as the Repugs did with Reagan.
See how every Republican primary turns into "What would Reagan think?" and "Who is most like Reagan?" That's BAD and we should avoid it.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)NYC Liberal
(20,136 posts)like Reagan is for the GOP (and like FDR and JFK are already for us). But yeah, that's about it in the similarities.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)a Republican after all.
Reagan was a terrible president. Not sure why you think Andrew Sullivan is a great writer. I think he's a terrible writer. He's been wrong about so much for so long it's hard to keep track.
Not a compliment to any Democrat to be compared by Andrew Sullivan to one of the worst presidents ever. Reagan began the destruction of this country.
And we see people slamming Dennis Kucinich and even Bernie Sanders on this board. Now we're praising REAGAN??? Unbelievable.