"We consider figures like Obama to be liberal patriots..."
Obama is certainly not a liberal by the original, classical definition, nor is he a leader. Representatives definitely should reflect the will of the people they represent, but the Commander-in-Chief we elect should be the moral and ideological leader of our nation and not someone who adapts according to which way the wind is blowing. Obama was and is a feckless poser.
Nothing matters materially for the country’s future nearly to the extent that the federal deficit and national debt do. They drive continued deindustrialization and asset inflation simultaneously. Neither party has produced a figure who sees and communicates the urgency of the situation, which gets worse every day. The “social issues” are all secondary, distractions from this mechanism which redistributes to the wealthy from the working classes, and the party since at least Obama and really Dukakis has been complicit. Please use your platform to try to understand what will actually help the working people and young of this country instead of getting bogged down in the weeds. This blog starts from wanting to help the right people, which is better than most, but doesn’t think clearly about what that would take.
The biggest advantage of paying for the deficit and the debt by printing money is that it can be done gradually. The biggest disadvantage is that it rewards some groups at the expense of others, automatically generating social and political tension. Since the group which gets the rewards decides how much money to print, the limit to the money-printing is how willing the out-groups are to riot.
The article isn’t totally wrong, but it’s definitely doing that thing where it picks a few convenient facts, lines them up just right, and then acts like it proved something huge. Yeah, Obama in 2008 held some positions that sound more “moderate” today—he publicly opposed gay marriage at the time (while supporting civil unions), supported the death penalty in certain cases, talked about personal responsibility in Black communities, and gave the usual pro-Israel rhetoric at AIPAC like basically every major politician back then. On abortion, he was always pro-choice, even if he used softer language about reducing it. On immigration, he criticized weak enforcement but also supported reform and a path to citizenship. So sure, some of that list is technically accurate—but it’s very obviously curated to make him sound more conservative than he actually was.
Because what they conveniently leave out is everything that doesn’t fit that narrative. Obama was also pushing for Obamacare, stronger financial regulations, progressive taxes, climate policy, and a bigger federal role in the economy. You know… actual Democratic policy. If you include all of that, suddenly he doesn’t look like some undercover Republican—he looks like exactly what he was: a mainstream Democrat with a slightly more moderate tone on a few cultural issues. Funny how that works.
The claim that Democrats have shifted left since 2008 is mostly true. More Democrats identify as liberal now, and the party has leaned more into college-educated voters. That part’s real. But the leap from “the party moved left” to “moderates can’t win anymore” is where it starts getting shaky. Joe Biden literally just won a primary and the presidency running as a moderate. Gavin Newsom is out here taking some positions that annoy progressives and he’s still near the top of the field. So the idea that you’d get, what, 1% in a primary for not being perfectly aligned is… a little dramatic.
Then there’s the whole “America is a center-right country” line, which gets thrown around like it’s some undeniable truth. It’s not. The country leans right on some things, left on others, and completely contradicts itself half the time. People want lower taxes and also want Social Security untouched. They want less government and also want the government to fix everything. It’s not a clean label—it’s a mess, which is why both parties can win.
The Seth Moulton example is another stretch. Yeah, he got backlash. Welcome to politics. That doesn’t suddenly mean the entire Democratic Party has zero tolerance for disagreement. Parties argue with themselves constantly—that’s not new, and it’s not unique.
So the real question—could Obama win a Democratic primary today? Yeah. Pretty easily. He lines up with the party on the vast majority of issues, he knows how to build a coalition, and like every successful politician, he evolved with the party over time. The idea that he’d show up today and get shut down because of a few 2008-era positions is just not grounded in reality.
At the end of the day, this whole argument boils down to taking a selectively edited version of Obama, freezing him in 2008, ignoring everything else about his platform, and then pretending that version wouldn’t survive today. It’s a nice narrative. It’s just not how politics actually works.
These columns are really quite silly. Essentially clickbait. Looking forward to the column speculating whether Reagan, HW Bush or W Bush could win a Republican nomination.
A TLP-type Democrat would not win 51% of the popular vote in the 2028 presidential election. Given how unpopular the Trumpist GOP will likely be by then, 55% would be the floor with the actual figure several points higher. Nonetheless, the hardcore Left that controls Democratic primaries will do their utmost to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and they have a good chance of succeeding.
All that is needed for Democrats to win a 2028 landslide is for the non-crazy part of their voters to show up in primary elections to match the intensity of the crazies. There is the problem: the non-crazies aren't as intense, so not enough of them are motivated to overcome the crazies.
It's the same with professional sports. The people that riot after their team loses or cuss out their own players, are the people committed enough to show up at the stadium in the first place. People watching on the TV are thinking "a lot of these fans are insane"
Excellent! It depresses me how liberal and progressive the Democrats have become. The Democratic Party was my party -- until now. I no longer identify as a Democrat. The party is just too liberal for me.
Democrats have shown their clear priorities with their purity tests and threats to primary anyone who steps out of line.
They give lip service to “affordability!”, but the hills they are willing to die on are trans women are women, voter ID is Jim Crow, and especially illegal immigration. Working class voters have heard the message, loud and clear.
And in the last few weeks millions of working class voters have directly experienced what Democrats prioritize. People look forward to that annual vacation, where they can finally get a little break. Instead, they were treated to 3 hour security lines at the airport. Why? Because Democrats were willing to make them wait in those lines, as pawns in the battle for illegal aliens.
Obama never believed anything he said publicly. He played the game and stuck to his core ideology, which was politically unpalatable to voters. They rejected his actual agenda in every election after 2008.
But he could easily win leftist support again bc he’s a chameleon.
Having witnessed the evolution of the local Dem Parties from 2000 through the present, it seems the uber-progressivism is driven by those that are 1) older retired liberals who absorb too much MS Now and online discourse and 2) younger progressives who came of age during Obama. That these two groups have an oversized voice at local party functions drives the discourse.
But much like Obama arose as an alternative to Hillary and the pro-Iraq war candidates (people forget, he was also the only plausible candidate NOT to vote for the Iraq War, since he was not yet in the Senate in 2003) I suspect another candidate will arise in 2027/2028 to be an alternative to the standard progressive party line and succeed. All they need to do is be in step on where the bulk of the voters are, and for the Dems, that is criticizing the party for being too soft on Trump and not fighting hard enough, and opposing ICE; after that there's flexibility in what to be for or against.
In Obama's own words, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." People voted for him not because of his principles--he had none--but because he let them imagine he shared theirs.
"He criticizes the incumbent president for being too soft on illegal immigration;"
That's not happening, ever, at all. The one guy running for congress you refer to as being tough on immigration says he supports deporting criminals. I wouldn't think he means deporting people whose only crime is to cross the border illegally. (I do share a reverence for the Remington 700 with Mr. Pulido, best bolt action rifle ever was and ever will be)
Obama would probably be a better bet than anyone else running so far, but let's see how things shake out. Obama in his second term had been corrupted by the people he hung out with to some extent. "The surge" in Afghanistan was stupid, as were his attempts at a trade deal. By 2013 Obama was all for illegal amnesty at the behest of corporate America and the billionaires. Nice guy, I don't trust him.
I don’t take most of these so-called “moderates” at face value anymore.
Take my congresswoman, Angie Craig. She voted for the Laken Riley Act while representing my purple district. Now that she’s running for the U.S. Senate and needs to win over a more liberal primary electorate, that same vote is suddenly a “mistake” she regrets.
Or look at my governor, Tim Walz. When he represented a red district in Congress, he touted his A rating from the NRA and built a reputation as a moderate Democrat—backing things like the Keystone XL pipeline and opposing Obama's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, citing taxpayer oversight concerns.
Once he became governor, that version of him completely disappeared. The positions flipped—and not just slightly, but dramatically. With a one-seat legislative majority, the entire statewide DFL apparatus, "moderates" included, pushed through a slate of policies far to the left of anything they campaigned on.
What used to be called “flip-flopping” now gets rebranded as “evolving" as soon as it's politically convenient. The same crowd that hammered Mitt Romney for changing positions on healthcare seems perfectly comfortable doing the exact same thing, to an even more insane degree, when it suits them.
I think we all knew, even in 2008, that Obama was Spanbergering his opinion on gay marriage and class based affirmative action. But the left’s abandonment of blacks and the working class for illegals is a genuine shift.
And yet, blacks don’t get what the Democrat Party is doing to them. They just aren’t that flexible in their thinking or perception. At least they’re loyal to the Dems who are consistent in taking advantage of their loyalty. So it’s working for both the blacks and Dems - a weird symbiotic relationship.
I learned to sail as a small child. First I was taught the Rules of Right of Way: when two boats are on a collision course, which boat has to hold steady and which has to change course. Then I was taught this ditty:
Here lies the body of Michael O'day.
He died maintaining the Right of Way.
He was right, dead right, as he sailed along
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong.
The Democratic party is just as "dead" and for the same reason. It infuriates me. So many have an righteous "all or nothing" stance, so nothing is exactly what we have.
It is a mistake to presume that what a candidate says is true to their beliefs. Both parties have teams of 'advisors' who coach them on what opinions to express.
That's why you see so much flip-flopping, as with Obama. It was not his convictions that the were flip-flopping, it was only his platform.
The first thing I want to determine in deciding if I'll vote someone is, what is their background and level of experience? What have they succeeded at, if anything? Who do they associate with? These are things that can't be changed from one election cycle to the next.
Obama has always been Obama. It's only what he said that changed, and what he said never came straight from his heart, or even his head. It took me a while to get him. But when I did, all I saw was another stuffed suit.
Here's an interesting post that just came out. quite relevant to this discussion:
The first thing I look at, even before a candidate's policy positions is the following 4 questions.
1) Worthless/Easy Degree?
2) Any private-sector (or private sector-equivalent) work experience? How much?
3) Are they currently in government? If yes, how long have they been in government? If no, are they attempting a political career barely out of adolescence?
4) Do they hail from rich/well to do parents or had a pampered upbringing?
Someone like Kat Abughazaleh would fail every single question.
Mark Kelly would pass with flying colors. I’d count flying space shuttles for NASA as equivalent to private sector work. The spirit of the 3rd question is whether a candidate is trying to avoid real-world work by hiding in non-profits, NGOs, community organizing, some foundation funded by their parents, etc. Someone can work for the government, but still be doing real work like police, firefighters, military, postal service, etc.
An example of a leftist who passes it is Jill Stein. I may disagree with her policies, but she has lived in the real world & is much more likely to be genuinely concerned rather than using political office as a form work avoidance or self-aggrandizement.
If a candidate fails three or four of these questions, I seriously question whether I even want to vote for them, regardless of their policy positions.
"We consider figures like Obama to be liberal patriots..."
Obama is certainly not a liberal by the original, classical definition, nor is he a leader. Representatives definitely should reflect the will of the people they represent, but the Commander-in-Chief we elect should be the moral and ideological leader of our nation and not someone who adapts according to which way the wind is blowing. Obama was and is a feckless poser.
Nothing matters materially for the country’s future nearly to the extent that the federal deficit and national debt do. They drive continued deindustrialization and asset inflation simultaneously. Neither party has produced a figure who sees and communicates the urgency of the situation, which gets worse every day. The “social issues” are all secondary, distractions from this mechanism which redistributes to the wealthy from the working classes, and the party since at least Obama and really Dukakis has been complicit. Please use your platform to try to understand what will actually help the working people and young of this country instead of getting bogged down in the weeds. This blog starts from wanting to help the right people, which is better than most, but doesn’t think clearly about what that would take.
The biggest advantage of paying for the deficit and the debt by printing money is that it can be done gradually. The biggest disadvantage is that it rewards some groups at the expense of others, automatically generating social and political tension. Since the group which gets the rewards decides how much money to print, the limit to the money-printing is how willing the out-groups are to riot.
Worried if the author thinks Obamas positions were anything other than election camouflage.
Disappointed if this guy thinks we were silly enough to take Oshows bait.
Clearly the “policy” is to SAY what it takes and then DO what you’re told to do. This is why a less than optimal Trump makes them gibber.
The article isn’t totally wrong, but it’s definitely doing that thing where it picks a few convenient facts, lines them up just right, and then acts like it proved something huge. Yeah, Obama in 2008 held some positions that sound more “moderate” today—he publicly opposed gay marriage at the time (while supporting civil unions), supported the death penalty in certain cases, talked about personal responsibility in Black communities, and gave the usual pro-Israel rhetoric at AIPAC like basically every major politician back then. On abortion, he was always pro-choice, even if he used softer language about reducing it. On immigration, he criticized weak enforcement but also supported reform and a path to citizenship. So sure, some of that list is technically accurate—but it’s very obviously curated to make him sound more conservative than he actually was.
Because what they conveniently leave out is everything that doesn’t fit that narrative. Obama was also pushing for Obamacare, stronger financial regulations, progressive taxes, climate policy, and a bigger federal role in the economy. You know… actual Democratic policy. If you include all of that, suddenly he doesn’t look like some undercover Republican—he looks like exactly what he was: a mainstream Democrat with a slightly more moderate tone on a few cultural issues. Funny how that works.
The claim that Democrats have shifted left since 2008 is mostly true. More Democrats identify as liberal now, and the party has leaned more into college-educated voters. That part’s real. But the leap from “the party moved left” to “moderates can’t win anymore” is where it starts getting shaky. Joe Biden literally just won a primary and the presidency running as a moderate. Gavin Newsom is out here taking some positions that annoy progressives and he’s still near the top of the field. So the idea that you’d get, what, 1% in a primary for not being perfectly aligned is… a little dramatic.
Then there’s the whole “America is a center-right country” line, which gets thrown around like it’s some undeniable truth. It’s not. The country leans right on some things, left on others, and completely contradicts itself half the time. People want lower taxes and also want Social Security untouched. They want less government and also want the government to fix everything. It’s not a clean label—it’s a mess, which is why both parties can win.
The Seth Moulton example is another stretch. Yeah, he got backlash. Welcome to politics. That doesn’t suddenly mean the entire Democratic Party has zero tolerance for disagreement. Parties argue with themselves constantly—that’s not new, and it’s not unique.
So the real question—could Obama win a Democratic primary today? Yeah. Pretty easily. He lines up with the party on the vast majority of issues, he knows how to build a coalition, and like every successful politician, he evolved with the party over time. The idea that he’d show up today and get shut down because of a few 2008-era positions is just not grounded in reality.
At the end of the day, this whole argument boils down to taking a selectively edited version of Obama, freezing him in 2008, ignoring everything else about his platform, and then pretending that version wouldn’t survive today. It’s a nice narrative. It’s just not how politics actually works.
These columns are really quite silly. Essentially clickbait. Looking forward to the column speculating whether Reagan, HW Bush or W Bush could win a Republican nomination.
Probably over on the Republican Patriot substack.
"...Will his party heed his advice?" No.
A TLP-type Democrat would not win 51% of the popular vote in the 2028 presidential election. Given how unpopular the Trumpist GOP will likely be by then, 55% would be the floor with the actual figure several points higher. Nonetheless, the hardcore Left that controls Democratic primaries will do their utmost to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and they have a good chance of succeeding.
All that is needed for Democrats to win a 2028 landslide is for the non-crazy part of their voters to show up in primary elections to match the intensity of the crazies. There is the problem: the non-crazies aren't as intense, so not enough of them are motivated to overcome the crazies.
It's the same with professional sports. The people that riot after their team loses or cuss out their own players, are the people committed enough to show up at the stadium in the first place. People watching on the TV are thinking "a lot of these fans are insane"
Excellent! It depresses me how liberal and progressive the Democrats have become. The Democratic Party was my party -- until now. I no longer identify as a Democrat. The party is just too liberal for me.
Democrats have shown their clear priorities with their purity tests and threats to primary anyone who steps out of line.
They give lip service to “affordability!”, but the hills they are willing to die on are trans women are women, voter ID is Jim Crow, and especially illegal immigration. Working class voters have heard the message, loud and clear.
And in the last few weeks millions of working class voters have directly experienced what Democrats prioritize. People look forward to that annual vacation, where they can finally get a little break. Instead, they were treated to 3 hour security lines at the airport. Why? Because Democrats were willing to make them wait in those lines, as pawns in the battle for illegal aliens.
Obama never believed anything he said publicly. He played the game and stuck to his core ideology, which was politically unpalatable to voters. They rejected his actual agenda in every election after 2008.
But he could easily win leftist support again bc he’s a chameleon.
Having witnessed the evolution of the local Dem Parties from 2000 through the present, it seems the uber-progressivism is driven by those that are 1) older retired liberals who absorb too much MS Now and online discourse and 2) younger progressives who came of age during Obama. That these two groups have an oversized voice at local party functions drives the discourse.
But much like Obama arose as an alternative to Hillary and the pro-Iraq war candidates (people forget, he was also the only plausible candidate NOT to vote for the Iraq War, since he was not yet in the Senate in 2003) I suspect another candidate will arise in 2027/2028 to be an alternative to the standard progressive party line and succeed. All they need to do is be in step on where the bulk of the voters are, and for the Dems, that is criticizing the party for being too soft on Trump and not fighting hard enough, and opposing ICE; after that there's flexibility in what to be for or against.
In Obama's own words, "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." People voted for him not because of his principles--he had none--but because he let them imagine he shared theirs.
The second bullet point reads,
"He criticizes the incumbent president for being too soft on illegal immigration;"
That's not happening, ever, at all. The one guy running for congress you refer to as being tough on immigration says he supports deporting criminals. I wouldn't think he means deporting people whose only crime is to cross the border illegally. (I do share a reverence for the Remington 700 with Mr. Pulido, best bolt action rifle ever was and ever will be)
Obama would probably be a better bet than anyone else running so far, but let's see how things shake out. Obama in his second term had been corrupted by the people he hung out with to some extent. "The surge" in Afghanistan was stupid, as were his attempts at a trade deal. By 2013 Obama was all for illegal amnesty at the behest of corporate America and the billionaires. Nice guy, I don't trust him.
I don’t take most of these so-called “moderates” at face value anymore.
Take my congresswoman, Angie Craig. She voted for the Laken Riley Act while representing my purple district. Now that she’s running for the U.S. Senate and needs to win over a more liberal primary electorate, that same vote is suddenly a “mistake” she regrets.
Or look at my governor, Tim Walz. When he represented a red district in Congress, he touted his A rating from the NRA and built a reputation as a moderate Democrat—backing things like the Keystone XL pipeline and opposing Obama's Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, citing taxpayer oversight concerns.
Once he became governor, that version of him completely disappeared. The positions flipped—and not just slightly, but dramatically. With a one-seat legislative majority, the entire statewide DFL apparatus, "moderates" included, pushed through a slate of policies far to the left of anything they campaigned on.
What used to be called “flip-flopping” now gets rebranded as “evolving" as soon as it's politically convenient. The same crowd that hammered Mitt Romney for changing positions on healthcare seems perfectly comfortable doing the exact same thing, to an even more insane degree, when it suits them.
I think we all knew, even in 2008, that Obama was Spanbergering his opinion on gay marriage and class based affirmative action. But the left’s abandonment of blacks and the working class for illegals is a genuine shift.
And yet, blacks don’t get what the Democrat Party is doing to them. They just aren’t that flexible in their thinking or perception. At least they’re loyal to the Dems who are consistent in taking advantage of their loyalty. So it’s working for both the blacks and Dems - a weird symbiotic relationship.
I learned to sail as a small child. First I was taught the Rules of Right of Way: when two boats are on a collision course, which boat has to hold steady and which has to change course. Then I was taught this ditty:
Here lies the body of Michael O'day.
He died maintaining the Right of Way.
He was right, dead right, as he sailed along
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong.
The Democratic party is just as "dead" and for the same reason. It infuriates me. So many have an righteous "all or nothing" stance, so nothing is exactly what we have.
I read this in the voice of Quint from Jaws.
Nice.🤣
It is a mistake to presume that what a candidate says is true to their beliefs. Both parties have teams of 'advisors' who coach them on what opinions to express.
That's why you see so much flip-flopping, as with Obama. It was not his convictions that the were flip-flopping, it was only his platform.
The first thing I want to determine in deciding if I'll vote someone is, what is their background and level of experience? What have they succeeded at, if anything? Who do they associate with? These are things that can't be changed from one election cycle to the next.
Obama has always been Obama. It's only what he said that changed, and what he said never came straight from his heart, or even his head. It took me a while to get him. But when I did, all I saw was another stuffed suit.
Here's an interesting post that just came out. quite relevant to this discussion:
https://garyvarvel.substack.com/p/gary-varvel-essay-part-8-edward-bernays?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
The first thing I look at, even before a candidate's policy positions is the following 4 questions.
1) Worthless/Easy Degree?
2) Any private-sector (or private sector-equivalent) work experience? How much?
3) Are they currently in government? If yes, how long have they been in government? If no, are they attempting a political career barely out of adolescence?
4) Do they hail from rich/well to do parents or had a pampered upbringing?
Someone like Kat Abughazaleh would fail every single question.
Mark Kelly would pass with flying colors. I’d count flying space shuttles for NASA as equivalent to private sector work. The spirit of the 3rd question is whether a candidate is trying to avoid real-world work by hiding in non-profits, NGOs, community organizing, some foundation funded by their parents, etc. Someone can work for the government, but still be doing real work like police, firefighters, military, postal service, etc.
An example of a leftist who passes it is Jill Stein. I may disagree with her policies, but she has lived in the real world & is much more likely to be genuinely concerned rather than using political office as a form work avoidance or self-aggrandizement.
If a candidate fails three or four of these questions, I seriously question whether I even want to vote for them, regardless of their policy positions.