• quarkquasar@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    You’re giving Obama credit for a looooot of power that he didn’t have.

    You act as if the republicans were just weak, underfunded pushovers. That clearly isn’t the case.

    • Hegar@fedia.io
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      7 hours ago

      Dems had a supermajority. They enjoyed widespread public support. Sarah palin made the loony right look pathetic. Obama was never afraid to overuse executive orders either - dems had a lot of levers to pull and a lot of leverage to pull them.

      If they’d investigated the rampant illegality, that would’ve been very hard for a post-loss republican party engaged in in-fighting to defend against. A new generation of republican hopefuls would’ve been tempted to get air time by twisting the knife in the old losers.

      Remember the hype around the special master under biden? Imagine that, aided by obama’s charisma, with a super majority and before republicans completely corrupted the supreme court. They had a mandate and a lot of power.

      • quarkquasar@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        They had a supermajority for four months. They just barely managed to get the ACA passed, which was a monumental effort in and of itself. They were more interested in helping American citizens than trying to damage their political opponents, which is a republican ideal, and I understand. We actually had hope back then that things were going to get better, but we were very naive. The racists got immeasurably pissed off and worse, scared. So they accelerated their long-laid plans.

        Democrats can certainly be blamed for their actions, and I’d be the first to do so if I thought it prudent. But when the republicans are literally actively tearing down the country, I think there are better things to focus on than the very brief period 16 years ago when Democrats last had a modicum of power.