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Maybe for a short while but left-wing opinion turned cool on Obama surprisingly quickly, and the 'anti-imperialist' Chomskyite left never liked him. As early as 2009 not-exactly-radical-lefist Bill Maher said that:
More importantly, I think the election denial/J6 clearly puts MAGA a class apart from any other modern American political movement in terms of cultishness.
No, it endured his entire Presidency, and even beyond it. While there's a slice of the left that dislikes Obama, it's not at all mainstream opinion.
Definitely not. Challenging elections is simply what one does in such a competitive system -- there are entire Reddit communities devoted to conspiracies about 2024, you know. And J6 wasn't even the worst mostly peaceful protest at the Capital, let alone remarkable at all compared to the Burn, Loot, & Murder riots. Indeed, J6 was actually uniquely acceptable compared to other protests, given it actually directed itself against the ruling elites rather than terrorize innocent, unrelated people in cities across the country.
Being very critical of Obama wasn't mainstream among Democrats, but obviously being critical of your own sitting President is generally unheard of these days. How many mainstream Republicans criticised GWB? Left and right factions of the Democrats criticised Obama to what I would consider a normal degree for a sitting President - there were Blue dogs who attacked him semi-regularly and some progressives who did the same.
That most obvious bellwether of mainstream liberal opinion, the New York Times wrote an endorsement for re-election in 2012 that was very enthusiastic, yes, but very conventional and offered such qualifications as
Elsewhere, the NYT editorial board was sharply critical of Obama on all sorts of issues all the time. There are too many to list here but here are a few from various points in his Presidency:
Deepwater Horizon:
Libya:
NSA:
2011 Budget:
Privacy Bill:
I can't quite tell if you're joking. On the one hand, we have the sitting President of the United States alleging that millions of votes were cast fraudulently. On the other, we have "Reddit communities". I wonder, might there be a slight asymmetry between these two things?
This is such a strange rendering of the riot in abstract terms. Indeed it was directed against ruling elites, but unfortunately in this case those elites were democratically elected representatives of the people certifying a fair election, and the rioters were targeting them because the process had failed their cult leader. Good job for those J6ers that the same election riggers who had the power to magically turn the result against Trump didn't show up for 2024 (or 2016), I suppose. Perhaps they overslept.
Not a one of those criticisms of Obama is more severe than criticism I see of Trump.
No, though feel free to look back on Russiagate if you want similar elite conspiracies. There are plenty of Democrats decrying the election, just like with Gore, just like with the next election they'll lose, too. The only reason no Democrat President is pushing this is that there's no Democrat President, period.
And Trump is the democratically elected representative of the country, yet people still rioted against him -- only the left destroyed innocent people's property, lashing out in blind rage at the fact their cult lost. The government is not more sacred than the people it rules. We are citizens, not subjects, and not lessers.
The ability to rig an election does not mean a guarantee of success; elections have many moving parts. This is why it took 2020, and sweeping, unprecedented changes to the voting process, to properly fortify the election.
And of course, once that context couldn't be repeated, Trump won again. Fortifying an election, and loudly bragging about it, makes it easier to counter the second time around. The Trump campaign was much more aggressive this time around, to their success.
From a like source? The NYT is literally the archetypal Obama-ite left-liberal internationalist publication. If anyone should show him unquestioning support, it would be them. The equivalent would be equal criticism coming from, say, Newsmax or Breitbart.
These are completely different. With Russigate, no-one of any significance was suggesting that there was anything compromised about the voting process itself, which obviously crosses into very new and dangerous territory. Same with Gore - there was no suggestion of fraudulent malfeasance, the dispute being about recount boundaries and timings etc. Plus, luckily, we have a like-for-like way of comparing these different instances. How did the losing party react in the days and weeks after it became clear they would not win?
Hillary:
Gore:
Trump (in a speech longer after the election than Gore):
There is just no comparison and it's blindingly obvious.
No mainstream Democrat (as in a sitting Senator o/e) ever cast any doubt on the integrity of the voting counting process in 2024. Next.
Obviously I don't disagree. But the J6 riots were different because they attacked the very legitimacy of the democratic process - their aim was to, by force, overturn the result of a democratic election and install a new leader. That was and is unique, as was the extent to which they were indulged and encouraged by Trump.
Cult mindset. Luckily I'm well adjusted and can believe that sometimes Trump wins fair elections and sometimes he loses them. Your mindset literally cannot comprehend the world in which a majority of voters simply voted against Trump in one election. It's also completely unfalsifiable, another cult warning sign. When he loses, it was rigged. When he wins, he fought back against the rigging.
So Hillary Clinton in 2019 claiming the election was not on the level and was tampered with is ... ? I don't buy your quibbling. People have been doubting the legitimacy of electoral victories for multiple elections now. I don't find your splitting hairs over the specific wording of these doubts, as if they weren't all simply expressions of distrust in an enemy's victory, persuasive. That you find Trump's rhetoric perhaps more crass or vulgar is noted, but I genuinely don't care. The substance is not different.
No, the cult is the ones that look at multiple bellweather-defying special exceptions pulled out in a crisis, that multiple influential agents later boast about fortifying, and go "nah bro, it's totally fine".
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I definitely know a few hard leftists/socialists who were quick to go cold on him as well. But in general Dem normie-sphere, he was a gold standard POTUS who reigned without controversy, and his photos were posted wistfully in the Age of Trump.
I sense that too has been fading, though. Although I think that's more due to aging out of relevancy than a reappraisal of the man and his admin.
You could say they're not the real Left, but they're the one that matters.
And as a big Obama supporter for both his terms... yeah, there was a 'culty' (generously described as enamored) vibe going on. Even the Daily Show poked fun at this, with John Oliver even going to the DNC in 08 and getting little more than 'Obama will fix everything' from the crowd attendees.
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