Obamacare was pretty good for black people. The overtime rule would have been pretty good. Obama was a bit cautious when it came to directly confronting police racism and racism in general because of his title of being the first black president he thought he'd get way more backlash. If we've learned anything it's that the backlash will come regardless and Obama should have been far less cautious.

No one in my family has status anxiety. Nor do they have any reason to want to upset the status quo. By all rights if acting purely in self-interest they should have voted Clinton. All except my religious aunt have severe reservations about Trump and found him personally abhorrent.

Yet most of them still voted Trump because abortion, or 2nd amendment, or private email server, or Benghazi - basically stuff drilled into them by right-wing media for 2 decades+. It's like a gravitational pull towards voting (R). No matter what horrible thing Trump said or did, they were going to find some excuse to vote Trump because that's their emotional core can't bring itself to vote (D).

Obamacare was practically indistinguishable from Romneycare. The US needs a system of healthcare funded by the taxpayer as virtually every civilized country already has. It is just horrendous that the uninsured can simply rot to death without treatement in a civilized country.

Have you forgotten the energy behind Obama at his inauguration-the sense of limitless possibility? The massive army of support he had? Obama really had a mandate for radical change.

What happened? Years of fiddling, compromise, with no fundamental or structural reform. Many on the left like Chomsky believe he was worse than Bush.

As for the police-they look significantly more militarized than they did under Bush. I don't recall a single practical action that Obama took to eliminate police brutality. Sure, loads of hand-wringing but he might as well have been a Republican for all the impact he actually had.

democrats became less racist

Such people are of no interest in electoral terms, because, as you, say they are totally predictable. Elections are decided by floating voters and, increasinly, those who simply no longer bother to vote.

The latter category get very little media attention. In this election those that do not normally vote chose to come out for Trump and many Democrats did not vote for Hilary.

Did anyone LOL at the idea that the military benefits from a republican presidency yet?

I mean, as far as ludicrous notions go, that's one of them.

Sure, military contractors benefit monetarily, but the GOP seems to get off on screwing over vets who risked their lives and limbs to serve our country.

To be honest I find that amusing. The military always pretends to be above such things but in practice it always been the b*tch of the Republicans.

If you vote Republican you can't expect a carve-up on welfare. Either you care about people or you don't. Get your limbs blown off fighting an illegal war for a volunteer army, tough, that's how everyone else gets treated.

Except re-alignments do happen. They're rare but they happen. Southern whites could reliably be counted on to vote (D) for 100 years. The hope is that the non-insane part of the (R) base wakes up at some point and realizes Democrats are probably their best hope for not losing stuff like Medicare, Social Security, etc.

Well if they helped the homeless vets, then they might have to think about letting in refugees. Because we all know you shouldn't let in refugees while you still have homeless vets (share if you agree, like for Merry Christmas, type 'Amen' for Baby Jesus).

Ergo - keep the homeless vets around, no refugees, problem solved.

Back this up?

Also, in case you missed it, Obamacare has helped a lot of people. I get that a significant percentage of people out there who don't need it have problems with how it's implemented, but giving healthcare to millions of people who didn't have it before is very relevant.

So are the jobs he's created.

And he's put two excellent SCOTUS justices on the Court who will be there for 30 years.

Reading this makes my head hurt, but since you asked:

https://thinkprogress.org/this-is-ho...a88#.ybp8yfc3f

The prior system was so bad not just because people were literally rotting to death but also because it lost a **** ton of money. Had Romney won, he would have instituted much the same system with some Republican colouring.

But both are ****ing horrible evil systems that are fundamentally flawed in that they rely on the private sector for support. Responsible nations just do not do this. You need a nationalized healthcare system free at the point of access. End of story.

Envisage the outcry if the current number of people who can't get coverage and died from disease were killed by ISIS. We would never hear the end of it. Trillions of dollars would be spent eradicting the culprits.

I give Obama very little credit for jobs. When the storm is over the weather improves: in my country the conservatives presided over a similiar pattern of job creation they had nothing to do with and claimed credit for. They didn't even have an oil boom to help them do that.

As to the SCOTUS appointments: it is great if you are liberal and care about abortion and gay rights. But if you are a straight, white steelworker those things aren't high priority. The white working class feels, with some justification, that neither party represents their interests.

Now, I share your disgust of Trump and despite the above I still think the electorate made a horrible, horrible choice. That doesn't excuse the DNC's arrogance.

Hi microbet, yeah I guess you aren't aware of all the awesome things Obama actually delivered for the lgbt community , it was ****ing wayy more than just appointing justices. I am actually involved in that stuff and you're just way not informed on this issue which I find surprising like seriously. Love ya byee

I say actually delivered mainly because Clinton didnt

Sorry Spaceman.

I was just being snarky I guess because Obama was kinda gutless about marriage equality.

well, he seemed to have done the opposite of Bill Clinton, he didn't initially propose doing a lot for gays but once he got into office he did a lot. Bill Clinton gave a lot of great speeches in california about the gay community but basically did nothing. Some would say the opposite of nothing because dadt was in essence discriminatory. Some things big old nit didnt mention is for example he created a new position as an ambassodar for gasy rightsto other countries in the offices of white house as an official position, he basically single handedly saved ashley diamond, he went to africaand toldth e presidnet of kenya they need to treat gays with respect in africa or bad things will happen. and i remember all those things. those are some offhand examples i just got home froma bar but basically he completed my personalwish list. he's probably in effect maybe by accident been a better president for the lgbt community than the african american community. i just got back from the bar. imm gonna mail you a secret massage about this tommorrow.

Dems have dragged their feet on gay rights, but this isn't the fight we need to be having right now. Like, it sucks Obama wasn't more aggressive on this in 2008, but Ohio just ****ing outlawed abortions. Stopping the Trump/Pence agenda should be job #1 for anyone on the left.

Yeah, we found out in 2004 and again in 2016 that the public doesn't give **** number one about the rights of other human beings. Drop the up-front social justice and campaign on jobs. Do all the good stuff when you're in office, but shut up about it until you are. It's clearly a loser in this country the last decade or so.

No. Wrong. Fail. Dems supported gay marriage, the repeal of DOMA and DADT and crushed it in 2012. This is a winning issue for the left.

People don't care about issues that much. Just say what you mean and mean what you say. If you're actually for gay marriage, then say it. Most people aren't all about one issue and will vote for you if they like you, trust and believe in you even if you don't line up on every single issue. Quit campaigning in the primary one way, the GE another way and trying to govern a third way. It doesn't work. Everyone sees through it every time.

I agree with you on both issues, but how does gay rights have anything to do with abortions?

EDIT: actually I think I see your point, we need to lobby for more pro-choice right now than anything, as that is the biggest risk under attack right now?

What interests are these?

Liberal justices aren't just concerned with protecting abortion and gay rights. They are also concerned with protecting the rights of workers, making sure unions have a chance to exist and participate in disputes, protecting your fourth amendment rights against the state, protecting your right to not have your wages stolen, work in a safe environment, get paid for overtime work, and more.

If you're a straight, white steelworker you ought to care about your own rights. Which means you would support more liberal judges and justices. Also included: the right to have clean air and drinking water, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a fair and speedy trial, the list goes on and on and on. If you vote against the liberal party you are putting all of these things in jeopardy.

Einbert --- honestly. You do realize the rich breathe the same air and drink the same water as us, right?

Do you really think the Republicans want to poison the water?