Summary
Barack Obama sharply criticized Donald Trump’s presidency during a speech at Hamilton College, condemning attacks on the press, immigration crackdowns, and threats to civil liberties.
He called it “unimaginable” that Trump’s actions—such as barring the AP and threatening law firms—would have been tolerated under past presidents.
Obama warned that Trump’s behavior, though “goofy,” poses real danger, and he labeled Trump a “wannabe dictator.”
He also referenced former Trump aide John Kelly’s “fascist” remark and urged Americans not to mistake chaos for leadership.
Obama was “boring”, that is exactly what you want in a president. Just sitting there doing his job, not trying to get on TV or the news every damn day.
Although if you did want to look closer, he was very engaging to listen to. So, not boring in that sense.
Please do not tell me what I want in a president.
I certainly didn’t specifically mean you as an individual. But I have a hard time believing you actually thought I did…
Yes, the boring drone-striker-in-chief who’s crowning achievement was the half-measure ACA (notably a Republican plan). Were you folks just checked out during those 8 years or not alive yet?
This is all cult of personality bullshit.
It sounds like you were the one checked-out, I guess if news isn’t fed to you, you have no idea how to find out what happened.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/03/obamas-top-50-accomplishments-revisited/
His presidency did largely coincide with the timing of when drone strikes were starting to be possible to do.
https://www.businessinsider.com/president-obamas-super-aggressive-drone-war-in-one-graphic-2013-12
Would it be better to have used soldiers or missiles for those attacks instead? If you had the choice between sending people to do that job and some of them dying, or sending expensive missiles and killing a bunch of extra people, what’s the downside of drones comparatively?
Really, the main downside of his presidency is that he did such a good job, it pissed off racist people.
You sure typed a lot to not refute one thing I said. Your only argument is, “Well, we HAD to kill those people somehow!” Very telling.
Don’t forget that Obama was also a war criminal, just like the other US presidents in recent history.
Yes, USA has kind of sucked for a long time, it’s starting to very suck now.
No, that’s exactly what I don’t want in a President. Sitting there, doing their job and not trying to get onto the TV news every day is perfect for, say, an EPA grant administrator. But the drafters of the Constitution fucked up by making the President both the head of government, and the head of state. The former should be an administrator, and the latter needs to be a leader. It’s not the framers’ fault, the world just didn’t have a lot of experience with huge democracies back then. The trouble is that “huge” is too much for the human mind, and abstract thinking doesn’t come naturally to us. A worrying proportion of the population can’t do it at all. Instead, we conceptualize our nation through a parasocial relationship with the leader. In that role, the President should be on TV, and in the news every day, influencing the citizens.
The UK has its own problems, but at least their system splits the job. They have a head of state, King Charles, whom everybody can relate to as the embodiment of the nation, more or less aside from political disagreements. (This role was far more effective when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, to be sure.) They also have a head of government, the Prime Minister, who attends to making things run. Each can focus on their particular role. But we don’t have that luxury in the US, and Obama needed to continue the energy of the campaign even after taking office.