WI: Liberal/Progressive Electorate More Critical of Obama

What would have happened if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama and more willing to hold him to account on his promises? There's this saying on both the hard progressive and the far left and the libertarian right on how all the electorate was up in arms when Bush did something hawkish or pro-corporate, but everyone was asleep when Obama did it. But what if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama? How would that have impacted American politics?
 

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What would have happened if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama and more willing to hold him to account on his promises? There's this saying on both the hard progressive and the far left and the libertarian right on how all the electorate was up in arms when Bush did something hawkish or pro-corporate, but everyone was asleep when Obama did it. But what if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama? How would that have impacted American politics?

When? Before 2012? I suppose it is possible that Obama could be challenged in the primary for that election and win, but his authority is undermined and Romney wins the general election. The progressive faction would thus be blamed as it would deserve.
 
Some of you here may have heard of Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Liberal PM who supposedly epitomizes the values embraced by progressives the world over.

One thing you might not know, though, is that he is also a supporter of various pipeline projects, including the Keystone line that Hollywood environmentalists opposed and Obama vetoed.

Yes, that's right. When it comes to pipelines, Justin is on the same page as Trump.

And do you think this has led to any widespread denunciation of Justin among Canadians who consider themselves progressive? Hardly. About the only people who regard him that way are diehards New Democrats(the Socialist International Party in Canada), who never liked him to begin with. A little less than 20% of the voters last time around. And even a lot of them could probably be convinced to vote Liberal, without any major leftward shift in policy.

Oh, and the Greens probably disagree with him on pipelines too. That's about 3%.

Mutatis mutandis, as long as the US, like Canada(in fact, even moreso) has a de facto two-party system, progressives are not likely to become overly critical of the centre-left party, even just on individual issues. The centre-left party will always be able to point to the right-wing party and say "Yeah, but do you want THOSE guys in power?" If they even have to do THAT much. Often, just the mere presence of the right-wing party makes the liberal party shine, without having to scaremonger the public with the consequences of vote-splitting.

TL/DR: In a two-party system, it's pretty hard to get progressives fired up against the centre-left, since the only perceived alternative is the right.
 
Some of you here may have heard of Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Liberal PM who supposedly epitomizes the values embraced by progressives the world over.

One thing you might not know, though, is that he is also a supporter of various pipeline projects, including the Keystone line that Hollywood environmentalists opposed and Obama vetoed.

Yes, that's right. When it comes to pipelines, Justin is on the same page as Trump.

And do you think this has led to any widespread denunciation of Justin among Canadians who consider themselves progressive? Hardly.
Or they simply don't see pipelines as a deal breaker in voting for him?
Mutatis mutandis, as long as the US, like Canada(in fact, even moreso) has a de facto two-party system, progressives are not likely to become overly critical of the centre-left party, even just on individual issues. The centre-left party will always be able to point to the right-wing party and say "Yeah, but do you want THOSE guys in power?" If they even have to do THAT much. Often, just the mere presence of the right-wing party makes the liberal party shine, without having to scaremonger the public with the consequences of vote-splitting.

TL/DR: In a two-party system, it's pretty hard to get progressives fired up against the centre-left, since the only perceived alternative is the right.

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Or they simply don't see pipelines as a deal breaker in voting for him?

Well, that's kinda my point. I'd predict that there is a lot that Canadian progressives wouldn't see as a deal-breaker, as long as Trudeau could still position himself to the left of the Conservatives.

As for Blair, that possibly might prove my point as well. He managed to get re-elected, with what I would assume was a big chunk of his previous Labour vote, AFTER taking the UK into the Iraq debacle. Which debacle left-wingers in Britian were all outraged about.
 
Well, that's kinda my point. I'd predict that there is a lot that Canadian progressives wouldn't see as a deal-breaker, as long as Trudeau could still position himself to the left of the Conservatives.

As for Blair, that possibly might prove my point as well. He managed to get re-elected, with what I would assume was a big chunk of his previous Labour vote, AFTER taking the UK into the Iraq debacle. Which debacle left-wingers in Britian were all outraged about.
Against an opposition leader who not only backed the war, but was once compared to a vampire by one of his party's own MPs. I would say it is likely that plenty of people who would call themselves progressive opted for the Lib Dems (who had a historically strong result) having gone for Blair the last couple of times. It was the less politically engaged voter who didn't really think in terms of ideological labels that Blair was a master of winning.
 
Against an opposition leader who not only backed the war, but was once compared to a vampire by one of his party's own MPs. I would say it is likely that plenty of people who would call themselves progressive opted for the Lib Dems (who had a historically strong result) having gone for Blair the last couple of times. It was the less politically engaged voter who didn't really think in terms of ideological labels that Blair was a master of winning.
Against an opposition leader who not only backed the war, but was once compared to a vampire by one of his party's own MPs. I would say it is likely that plenty of people who would call themselves progressive opted for the Lib Dems (who had a historically strong result) having gone for Blair the last couple of times. It was the less politically engaged voter who didn't really think in terms of ideological labels that Blair was a master of winning.

That could be. I'd be interested in seeing some stats about who voted which way in that election.

In the unlikely event of Chretien having taken Canada into the Iraq War, I wonder if that would have been enough to make left-wing Liberals abandon their party and go to the NDP. Unlike pipelines, that war was, not without good reason, burned onto peoples' consciousness as a major clufterstuck.
 
What would have happened if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama and more willing to hold him to account on his promises? There's this saying on both the hard progressive and the far left and the libertarian right on how all the electorate was up in arms when Bush did something hawkish or pro-corporate, but everyone was asleep when Obama did it. But what if the Liberal and Progressive electorate was more critical of Obama? How would that have impacted American politics?

People overlooked what Obama did because most people are loyal to the end to there party's. I have no idea what kind of POD it would take to fix that.

But if it happened then I bet people would work together better and frankly the 2015 primary's would have had better people in the lead polling wise.

As for Justin Trudeau I saw a video claiming he was the anti-Christ because he was born on Dec 25th, his statements on Christians and his huge popularity numbers looking like the rise of Hitler. Don't know much about him other than he is a hardliner Left person on the social issues. I am guessing that is why the left forgive him on the pipeline issue. P.S I am not into calling anyone the anti-Christ, just happened to come across it and I looked into him a bit after wards because I thought the guy was making stuff up about him.
 
Retroactive wrote:

Don't know much about him other than he is a hardliner Left person on the social issues. I am guessing that is why the left forgive him on the pipeline issue.

Well, he's pro-choice on abortion, which in the Canadian context, means NO RESTRICTIONS AT ALL. Though this has at least a bit to do with the rather convoluted manner in which total laissez-faire became the status quo on abortion(no, the government did not simply remove all restrictions because Canadians demanded it; a bill restricting abortion was killed by pro-choicers and pro-lifers in the 80s, and no one ever revived it). He's also pro-gay marriage(like most Democrats in the US, I'd wager), and pro-marijuana legalization(I'm personally taking bets that he'll find a way to backtrack on that one).

I guess you could argue this makes him about as "hardline left" as, say, Jerry Brown. Which, as you say, is probably enough for most progressives to overlook his heresies on pipelines, weapons sales to right-wing regimes, etc.
 
As for Justin Trudeau I saw a video claiming he was the anti-Christ because he was born on Dec 25th, his statements on Christians and his huge popularity numbers looking like the rise of Hitler.

One of the funny things about fundamentalist Christians playing Guess The Antichrist is that the candidates never come anywhere near achieving the level of popularity required to fit the biblical criteria. Despite all the hype, Justin Trudeau is actually supported by less than 40% of the Canadian population(going by the last election), and while probably a few New Democrats grudgingly accept him as a suitable bulwark against the Right, Conservatives tend to really dislike the guy.

Though I suppose if the Rapture were to occur, most of those taken up would be Conservatives, so that might increase by a bit the percentage of people who are either in love with, or benignly tolerant of, Justin Trudeau.
 
One of the funny things about fundamentalist Christians playing Guess The Antichrist is that the candidates never come anywhere near achieving the level of popularity required to fit the biblical criteria. Despite all the hype, Justin Trudeau is actually supported by less than 40% of the Canadian population(going by the last election), and while probably a few New Democrats grudgingly accept him as a suitable bulwark against the Right, Conservatives tend to really dislike the guy.

Though I suppose if the Rapture were to occur, most of those taken up would be Conservatives, so that might increase by a bit the percentage of people who are either in love with, or benignly tolerant of, Justin Trudeau.

Though the Bible doesn't give out a number it sounds like it would have to be better than %75 of the people supporting the antichrist. Obama never came close to achieving that level of popularity and I always thought it was stupid when people claimed he was this figure based on the popularity factor alone.

I saw an %80 number but realized that for something else, the Canadian system is a bit odd to me so I can't be sure I knew what I was looking at there.
 
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