Obama avoids "bitter . . cling" comment, popularity increasingly grows with rural and small town vot

He is an anomaly.

Trump in the White House is like a bumble bee in flight no one can properly explain how it happened (unless you factor in "external assistance") ! :)
1. We can explain how bees fly.
2. We can also explain how Trump won. Namely, Hillary Clinton being a terrible campaigner, the latent racism and sexism that runs under American society, and a few thousand people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
 
2. We can also explain how Trump won. Namely, Hillary Clinton being a terrible campaigner, the latent racism and sexism that runs under American society, and a few thousand people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
I don't get that last bit. Could you explain?
 
But please understand that you or I preaching at a person that they ought not be so religious is singularly ineffective! :p

I don't think Obama was preaching that people shouldn't be religious, but I think his comment inadvertently demonstrated a cultural disconnect between liberals and conservatives in America that was around for decades by the time he ran for President.

Some American citizens, maybe 30%, maybe less, believe that having a gun is an end-game defense against tyranny.

And only a minority of Americans own guns, despite there being more guns than people in America.
 
I don't get that last bit. Could you explain?
Trump lost the popular vote, but won because those states, valuable in the electoral college, happened to go for him.
And, a significant part of the underlying rational of the 2nd Amendment...
Which, granted, was written by a bunch of dudes who lived in a time when the most advanced weapon was a musket, and could never have foreseen a world where the government has access to predator drones and suitcase nukes.
 
I live in Indiana (Trump Country). Trump brings to the Republican party many people who you wouldn't think would be traditional republicans (working class). Trump also kept the usual republicans (who else were they going to vote for, they couldn't let Hillary Clinton pick supreme court Justices). So it was a coalition which is how you win at politics. Trump can be crazy but everyone knows in the USA, it has become the courts that decide everything important, People vote for Trump because of the supreme court.

Obama won in 2008 and 2012 because he generated a huge African American turnout, but wasn't threatening to white people, and Health care is something people need and is expensive. He was just a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. The bitter, cling was a mistake but he wasn't getting many of those people who would be offended by that.

Both Obama and Trump are likeable.
 

BEEG

Banned
I think that Trump showed what to do if you put your foot in your mouth in such manner - Obama should've doubled down hard on the phrase and mobilized the urban voters.
 
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...obama/tax-cut-95-percent-stimulus-made-it-so/

' . . . The key word in his statement is "working." Obama's claim is based on a tax cut intended to offset payroll taxes. Under the stimulus bill, single workers got $400, and working couples got $800. The Internal Revenue Service issued new guidelines to reduce withholdings for income tax, so many workers saw a small increase in their checks in April 2009. . . '
And Pres. Obama did cut taxes, which I think is an excellent way to help an economy get back fully functioning during a recession.
 
I don't think Obama was preaching that people shouldn't be religious, but I think his comment inadvertently demonstrated a cultural disconnect between liberals and conservatives in America . . .
But plenty of liberals are highly religious, too.

* in general, most people are not all that highly or devoutly religious
 
He [Trump] promised to save jobs in the Rust Belt.
Trump also promised infrastructure projects, and to bring back manufacturing jobs. Now, I do support more infrastructure spending in measured ways so that we might receive solid B grades from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

But as far as manufacturing jobs, I don't see how even a well-functioning Congress or a highly competent presidency can reverse big macro-economic trends.
 
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. . . Trump can be crazy but everyone knows in the USA, it has become the courts that decide everything important, . . .
I don't think it's quite that bad, at least not yet, but in my universe it's plenty bad enough that we should start thinking about ways of limiting the power of the supreme court.

For example, I'm open going even further and thinking about a parliamentary form of democracy, one big advantage of which is that the central court would just have less power.

Citizens United (2010) was a clumsy and stupid decision, and there's been plenty of others in our American history.
 
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