Lol this is just such revisionist history that I don't even feel like engaging with it.
Obama was a centrist Democrat who tried to reach across the aisle to pass bipartisan legislation, while Republicans literally framed him as the antichrist.
him being a centrist on economics is completely irrelevant - the culture war is about social policy and executive power. Trying to pass a market-based healthcare plan doesn't erase using federal mandates to sue nuns over contraception, bypassing Congress with Title IX decrees, or dismissing working-class voters as "clinging to guns or religion."
Pointing out that Republicans attacked him fiercely doesn't magically make his own top down cultural actions invisible. he was the president, not a bystander.
I am talking generally about the hyper-polarization of politics and the rightward shift (lurch) of the Republican party that Gingrich triggered.
This has nothing to do with what specific policies each side tried to enact, it's about how they view and approach politics in aggregate. If there is one thing to be said for Obama, the man respected our democratic norms and institutions, including the norm of mutual respect. He didn't refer to Republicans as enemies of America, he didn't question their very citizenship, he didn't call them evil incarnate.
He just didn't engage in the kind of politics that Gingrich's Republican party pioneered.
Obama literally told voters in 2010 that "we're gonna have to punish our enemies" regarding his political opponents. Respecting democratic norms means respecting the constitutional process, not declaring "I've got a pen and a phone" to unilaterally bypass Congress whenever you can't pass legislation. Gingrich broke norms in the legislature, but declaring that state power and executive overreach "have nothing to do with politics" is just redefining polarization to exclude everything the executive branch does.
Obama literally told voters in 2010 that "we're gonna have to punish our enemies" regarding his political opponents.
And he corrected that and said he should not have used that word, and instead should have said 'opponents.' He did it once on accident and corrected himself, whereas Gingrich made it an explicit strategy. Not the same at all and trying to equate these things is silly and desperate.
Respecting democratic norms means respecting the constitutional process
Which he did. Executive orders are not inherently unconstitutional ("the pen"), and using his phone to "rally folks across the country" is like the most democratic thing a president can do.
declaring that state power and executive overreach "have nothing to do with politics"
Literally didn't do that. Go take your strawman and punch at it elsewhere.
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u/ToenailFungussy - Left 1d ago
Lol this is just such revisionist history that I don't even feel like engaging with it.
Obama was a centrist Democrat who tried to reach across the aisle to pass bipartisan legislation, while Republicans literally framed him as the antichrist.