Obama tells Black men it’s ‘not acceptable’ to sit out election | CNN Politics
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Former President Barack Obama on Thursday admonished Black men who he believes have not adequately supported Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, telling them it’s “not acceptable” to sit out this election and suggesting they might be reluctant to vote for Harris because she’s a woman.

He then ends up suggesting the reason they don’t like Harris is because she’s a woman -

“Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

  • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
    3529·
    19 hours ago

    Black celebrities have been poisoning the community against Obama for over a decade now. Parading him around as the “token black guy” of the liberal movement isn’t the move. Making policies that help the community, and actually getting them passed, is what will make the difference. Until the Democrats start actually giving a shit about black people, instead of virtue signalling, then the black voter doesn’t have any reason to vote. No one is on their side. Will Kamala change that? Honestly, probably not. Tim Walz has a better chance of that.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      399·
      19 hours ago

      Making policies that help the community, and actually getting them passed, is what will make the difference.

      We can’t pass any policy anywhere in the country without bipartisan support and the blessing of the courts. Since the Republicans are in opposition and the courts are stacked with cranks, that means the best we can promise is that one day we’ll have a Democrat Supermajority capable of passing compromise legislation with its more right-wing members.

      Sorry, but these are just the rules, which are immutable and which we must abide by no matter how much pain they cause to our constituents.

      Also, please note that conservatives are fully unbound by these rules. They can and will inflict incalculable harm on you if any single branch is in their control. There is, unfortunately, nothing liberals can do about this because interrupting the harm caused by the rules-breakers would be against the rules.

      So the message we need to bring to black voters is that they only have themselves to blame if things get worse. It’s cake or death and we’re all out of cake.

      No one is on their side. Will Kamala change that? Honestly, probably not. Tim Walz has a better chance of that.

      Glances at Walz’s record during the Minnesota BLM protests

      Oof. I would not bank on it.

      • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        3 hours ago

        Isn’t the problem when the Democrats controlled the house and senate with Obama he did nothing with it.

        • havocpants@lemm.ee
          3·
          2 hours ago

          I’m not an American, but didn’t Obama’s administration make an enormous positive change to healthcare in the US via the ACA?

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          2 hours ago

          Obama explicitly stated that his goal for immigration and climate reform was 70-80 “Yes” votes in the Senate. He spent months attempting to negotiate with Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Susan Collins, who just ran him in a big circle to burn out the clock until mid-terms.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        143·
        19 hours ago

        The answer when facing opposition isn’t to throw up your hands and declare it too difficult. Keep pushing, keep fighting, keep trying to improve the lives of marginalized groups. The fact that the Democrats aren’t willing to put in the effort is all you need to know for the lackluster support.

        Side note, don’t fucking blame marginalized people when things go sideways.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          64·
          19 hours ago

          The answer when facing opposition isn’t to throw up your hands and declare it too difficult. Keep pushing

          That is, unfortunately, not the message that modern liberals seem to adhere to.

          Side note, don’t fucking blame marginalized people when things go sideways.

          But it’s the American Way.

          • kandoh@reddthat.com
            101·
            18 hours ago

            Liberals know voters want to hear the message ‘vote for me and I will fix the problems’.

            They know voters would be turned off by the more accurate message: vote for me and we can turn the steering wheel of this massive machine slightly left for 4 years, and if we keep that up for a few cycles we can eventually solve the problems.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
              115·
              17 hours ago

              They know voters would be turned off by the more accurate message: vote for me and we can turn the steering wheel of this massive machine slightly left for 4 years

              That’s exactly the message they’ve been running on since 2008.

              Obama’s “the long arc of history bends towards progress” speech was this practically verbatium. And it was popular precisely because it was seen as modest and achievable. The problem is that Obama didn’t achieve it. He spent eight years treading water from the Bush Era, during which he normalized a bunch of the illegal, unconscionable, and ultimately detrimental practices of the Bush Administration before handing the reins over to… Donald Trump.

              History didn’t bend towards progress. It whipped directly back in the face of those enthusiastic moderates. But the only lesson it appears to have taught them is that even Obama was too ambitious and too extreme, despite bending over backwards to appease moderate Republicans. So Biden stepped in as an even more conservative version of Obama. Two years into office, he too gets hit with a backlash, which the party took to conclude they were too radical under Biden.

              Now we’ve got Harris, a candidate who has fallen fully in line with the Cheney family on litany of domestic and foreign policy issues. Will this turn voters off? Will it prove that the Cheneys are too left-wing for the American voter? Only time will tell.

      • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
        135·
        19 hours ago

        No one to blame but themselves? That’s a great message.

        “Hey, you’ve been marginalized your entire life by a system that has hated every generation of your family because of the color of your skin. I’ve got news for you, bucko, fix my problems, or I’ll just keep blaming you.”

      • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialOPEnglish
        84·
        18 hours ago

        So the message we need to bring to black voters is that they only have themselves to blame if things get worse. It’s cake or death and we’re all out of cake.

        Is that sarcasm…? Honestly, I can’t tell.

        If it’s earnest, then i would have to guess that what you’re after isn’t electoral victory but radicalization. I’m not sure how you expect to tell a marginalized minority ‘you have only yourself to blame’ and have them turn out for you, that’s just… Hopeless?

        It’s an excellent message to turn progressives into anarchists and revolutionaries, though, and I’m actually kind of here for it.