Comment on xkcd #2875: 2024
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 months agoAs someone that’s been alive since Ford… Yeah, I’d love to have Obama back. I didn’t agree with him all the time–or even a lot of the time–but he was reasonable and largely measured, and managed to work fairly effectively with a divided congress. Would I rather have someone like Jimmy Carter again? Sure. Would I much, much rather have another Obama than another Bush, Reagan, or–may the dark lord protect us–Trump? Absolutely.
(Am I pretending that Clinton didn’t happen? Yes.)
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They were administrative repeats, minus the sex scandal.
Trade deals and bailouts and immigrant witch hunts and government shut downs and echoes of a prior war that they never managed to clean up. Both presidents focused themselves on the project of further privatization, with Clinton giving us HMOs and Obama delivering the ACA. Both presided over tech booms, which were promised as a panacea to poor wage growth. Both squandered their majorities and frittered away their executive authority, while the market economy swelled and the labor economy sagged. Both ushered in fascist televangelists because they couldn’t improve the material conditions of their constituents.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 months ago
One big difference was that Clinton enacted Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, while Obama was much friendlier in general to LGBTQ people and their rights. In my opinion, Obama was a better communicator, but that might be because he was speaking at a generally higher level and communicating policy and law rather than empathy. They had different approached to law, and I definitely preferred Obama’s.
Unfortunately, under a fundamentally capitalist system, there’s not a lot that can be done to make sure real wages grow for the workers, aside from a strong NLRB and having solid pro-union policies.
Here’s an area I very, very strongly disagree on. I oppose a strong executive branch that can enact edict without oversight. I believe the gov’t branches should largely be equal, and Obama went too far in uses of presidential power, which Trump then expanded on. That’s an awful precedent. We revolted against Britain for a good reason, and I would prefer to not see a need for American Revolution Pt II.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Clinton enacted DADT with the blessing of the liberal movement while Obama dragged his feet on gay marriage until long after the SCOTUS had ruled on Obergefell v Hodges. The Respect for Marriage Act wasn’t even Obama’s legislation. It was signed in 2022 under Biden.
Sure there is. The US Federal Government is the largest employer in the country. If the President wants to raise wages, one of the most straightforward decisions he can make is to simply raise starting salaries for government workers. This instantly puts upward pressure on the national wage rate, makes federal jobs more desirable, and improves the economic conditions of millions of federal workers.
In fact, this is one of Obama’s few direct actions. He signed an EO raising base pay for federal workers to $10.10 back in 2014. A meager improvement, particularly when national cost-of-living had long since exceeded what amounts to a $20k/year salary. But hey? Notably better than $7.25.
That’s cool. Your opinion doesn’t matter. You have no control over the extent to which Presidents exercise their authority.
You might applaud Obama for spending eight years sitting on his hands and boo Trump for taking a direct and aggressive role in shaping national policy. But Obama’s fecklessness put no constraint on his successor. No more than Clinton’s limited Bush. No more than Hoover’s limited FDR.
Its a precedent that’s been in effect under dozens of prior administrations. You govern the country with the tools you’re given. Or you don’t. But there’s no reward for pulling a Calvin Coolidge or a Rutherford B. Hayes and sitting on the sidelines while your country circles the drain.
The only precedent you’ll have set is one in which your party gets booted from office when the people you’re selected to represent continue to suffer under conditions you failed to alleviate.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 months ago
It’s a precedent because presidents take power–not use the power they were given–and then the courts eventually say, yeah, okay, we guess that the constitution doesn’t really apply here after all. Then it’s precedent for the next president to take even more power, and repeat. I give it the thumbs down because even though it means that a good president can use that power to accomplish good things, it means that a shitty president can use it to do enormous amounts of damage in a very, very short period of time. Supporting that kind of trash means that you’re handing the tools of your own demise to the people that want to tear down democracy. You can support that if you want; I won’t.
In point of fact, Obama’s restraint did put constraints on Trump. It meant that he had to go to court multiple times over things, and he lost on a lot. Like his Muslim ban; remember that? If Obama had greatly expanded executive power in the same way that Trump did, then Trump would have had far, far fewer court challenges to act as speed bumps.