It's pretty easy to figure out what they were thinking. There is a populist set of positions that intersect the rhetoric of Obama and Trump. Both were complete sellout liars who did the opposite once he got into office, but if you happen to be naive enough to believe these guys (like I was in '08) then if these populist issues are important to you then it makes sense to vote for them. Both Obama and Trump had a certain outsider appeal as well. Obama was a senator but he hadn't been in the Senate long at all and he was able to position himself as an outsider relative to Hillary and tout an anti-corruption agenda. Recall Trump was going to "drain the swamp" and protect medicare (before he hired everyone from Goldman to staff the treasury and tied to kill everyone through healthcare denial). Obama was going to close down the torture camp in Guantanamo Bay and institute radical measures to get new people into government (forgotten promptly with one swish of election victory champagne). They were both represented as anti-establishment and anti-deep state, Obama with his Saul Alinsky association and Trump with his paranoia.

According to experts in this thread the typical political outsider goes to Harvard law, becomes president of the Harvard law review, enters politics at 36 in the state senate, after 8 years enters the federal senate, then becomes president of the USA.

Such an unprecedented lack of a corsus honorum, such a twisted and unpredictable path in life that basically no one outside of a small circle of people who knew him very well might have expected both any political ambition, and that he had any chance of actually winning elections.

Given his very unusual route, this allowed people of all courses of life to identify with him very well, because who better than someone who went to Harvard law and then taught at Harvard, then was a politician for 12 years can represent the working class American?

The ways that Obama was cultivated for to be an establishment tool escaped a lot of people at the time. And his campaign was one of the best marketing efforts maybe ever according to those who are supposed to know about that stuff. It was kinda like the Harvard pedigree served to relieve people that he was smart even though he was black, even though he had these Leftist views. The marketing of the campaign is famous for supposedly allowing people to project what they wanted into Obama. He was black but not totally. He was establishment but also a "community organizer". He was a civil rights scholar, but he always made the whites feel special too. He was American but from Hawaii and grew up in other countries so he was like the freedom striving, feel-good inspirational part of being black but without an axe to grind. It's easy to see what a complete slave to power Obama is now, but at the time he was quite picant.

But again, it's not totally that he was a political outsider. It was that he professed a popular agenda, as did Trump. Those focused on the material conditions afforded through government could easily be attracted to both Trump and Obama.

Or, Obama was just like an exceptionally charismatic person who, even if black (in a country where some percentage of people still considered that a malus back then) managed to convince primary voters, then national voters, of his qualities.

Twice.

And if some fishes believed he was "anti establishment" that's on them, his curriculum was in the open and discussed ad nauseam, his whole life dissected into the tiniest details.

Every media covered that 24/7 for months.

Obama biggest populist policy was Obamacare (as if the government had a duty to help you get healthcare, wtf? Not a socialist country yet, your health is your ****ing business deal with it or die).

Trump tried his best (not much I know) to dismantle it.

Your narrative makes no sense sorry

maybe Obama portrayed himself, and was portrayed by the media, as something he wasnt. propaganda is very effective.

your associate mentioned closing Guantanamo, as an example of a promise he didn't keep.

I thought the same tbh so I remember the details.

he moved a little late, true, using the 2 trifecta years to try to pass his signature legislation (which he did after extreme compromise, ACA).

but after that congress (which was either republican controlled, or split) made it impossible for him to close Guantanamo, even if he tried hard.

that's because some expenditure to do so was necessary and they never passed the proper appropriation for it.

so he did what his powers allowed him to, but was defied by Congress.

So 15 years ago you were a Nazi collaborater with no moral standards who supported genocide?

bruv, you need to look up how verb conjugations work jfc.

No I was a total sucker who believed Obama was the realization of the potential of the Democratic party to subvert corporate control. I had just started reading Chomsky and didn't know enough to let his warnings about Obama phase me. Chomsky was pessimistic and said given who is funding Obama there was no way he was going to carry out the agenda he was touting. But I'd met Obama when he was running for congress, when he lost. I met him minutes after voting for him. He was standing like a block away from the polling station completely by himself. Honestly he looked lonely and pathetic and the polls were saying it's a lost cause. As I walked by he reached out his hand and said "Hi I'm Barack Obama!". I was basically a kid voting in my first election. I said "I voted for you" and he said "So did I!". I think I said good luck. If I did I take it back. Yes I'm kinda shoehorning that anecdote in here but the point is I'm from Chicago, was already primed to like the guy, and so I voted for someone who was super pro Israel before I was very informed on the topic.

But with over 30k people killed, people now starving, children undergoing amputations with no anesthesia, etc. etc. if you vote for someone who supports that then I would say you have no actually existing moral standards, although I understand that you think or feel like you do. I mean, if you are a Biden supporter let me ask you this. If part of Biden's and Trump's platform was to kill all of a group of which you were, through no choice of you own, a member, would you still vote for him if you thought overall it would be better for the world in some indirect way? I doubt you would.

Not sure what this question has to do with reality

Please feel free to let me know of my mistake.

It's "collaborator," which has absolutely nothing to do with verb conjugation (hint, Vic: it's a noun), so another solid own goal for young Victor. Not really a very apt name you have there, is it Vic?

If I thought my vote mattered, yes of course I would. Unfortunately my vote doesn't matter due to the messed up electoral college system, so I won't be voting.

However, I don't see how your theoretical is relevant, as neither party platform calls for killing any group of US citizens, and I don't see any way in which they even act like they are trying to do that.

Btw, if Chomsky supported anyone, that would be a major point against them in my book. Everything I've read by him about politics was completely ridiculous (granted I didn't read much before realizing that it was a waste of time). I have no idea why anyone thinks someone specializing in linguistics would have any expertise in politics. What I learned of his linguistics theories in college even seemed pretty silly and useless.

I did think that might have been a misspelling when reading back my post, but as you say, it has nothing to do with verb conjugation, so I really don't know what he meant.

Just trying to sound smart again. The fact that Victor thinks he is in a position to correct anyone else's spelling or grammar is pretty hilarious alone; even more so when he inevitably gets the '"correction" wrong himself every single time.

no thats not it

its got nothing to do with spelling or grammar but rather comprehension. something you could work on yourself.

D2's more into grammer and spelling than comprehension. It's part of what makes him such fun

Makes sense that the smartest man in the world sounds dumb to you

are you familiar with the fact that Chomsky scientifical contributions have been thoroughly debunked as utter crap that doesn't withstand actual measurement in real life yes?

there is no universal grammar, no formal language structure and so on

Chomsky defined the entire field and the vast majority of linguistic departments in the US are dominated by Chomskyeans.

Just because they haven't proven that there is UG certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But formal language structure is obvious, so not sure what you mean there.

So, what were you talking about? What verb did he conjugate incorrectly?

As it relates to you, that's because your spelling and "grammer" is so atrocious as to make your posts incomprehensible half the time.

That's very kind but you dont really think its caused by the speeliong and grammer' do you?

read the chillrob and deuces posts and see if you can understand why deuces did not say what chillrob repeatedly claims