Demonized Phenomenon

[amazingadrian]

I did not vote for Barak Obama.

But he's now the 44th President of the United States, and I'm hoping he can deliver on his message of hope and positive change. He was sworn into office last week.

So I don't know why so many usually intelligent people insist on comparing him to Hitler. Yes, the man's a socialist; but that doesn't automatically make

Comments

[drone_dragon]

Meh, a president is a president is a president is a president.
I usually judge my reactions to presidents based on their personal decisions and acts aside from what their congress tells them what to do and say to the American people.

[amazingadrian]

And that's how it should be, you know? I've seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions from the kind of people who used to dress me down for complaining about the policies of the Bush administration.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I wish they would wait for the man to be in office for more than a week before they start saying things like this. It's a tad early for performance reviews, y'know?

[banshea]

http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/7013194.html

[amazingadrian]

I'm going to do that. Make a villain character who turns into a commie under the full moon. The next morning, he wakes up in a pile of socialist reform with no memory of how it happened.

Actually, I'm picturing a Solomon Grundy-esque type imbued with the spirit of Stalin.

[roycalbeck]

That would be a bag of hilarity. -:D

[anonymous]

It is far, far too early to judge barrak. 6 months from now perhaps, you could begin to formulate an oppinion on the man (a very crude one at that), but before the end of the month he was sworn in? Ridiculous.

About the only logic i can find behind the "conservatives" (Honestly, It's only the neo-conservatives who are realy venting on him. sadly they're the loudest brand of conservative :() decision to trash him is a combination of sour grapes at him defeating there candidate and how he looks to be eager to reverse bush's decisions that have brought the US to it's current state.

~ashla

[amazingadrian]

It has been said that John McCain was the most worthy candidate never to win the presidency, and even though I did not vote for the man, I agree with it. I'm sure he would have made a good president, though I'm not entirely sure if his policies would have helped or hindered. I think in some areas we would have improved, though not in others.

That aside, it's like people forget the way America worked before Bush. September 11th only "changed everything" because they let it. Bush made a lot of decisions that may have been well-intended but hurt us more than it helped, and he's done a few things that baffle me still. It's going to be hard getting back to normal because people are still so entrenched in that way of thinking. I hope eventually Obama can get people to realize that they don't need Bush's more harmful policies to feel safe or keep the country going.

[rhanlav]

Awww. But irrational fear and hatred is so.... 'in'. Rush and Sean were fearmongering in the first hours of the presidency of Barack. Expecting some folks to not go crazy with their accusations is about as likely to happen as me telling the tide to turn back. Then I'd ride a winged marshmellow to the sherbert kingdom.

Some things, sadly, never change. But there's still hope.

--Salen

[amazingadrian]

One of my friends pointed out that the real change between the Obama and Bush administrations has been the stance the media takes on them. Obama is obviously a media darling, while Bush was ground under their collective heel.

This may be true to some extent, but people who make this argument don't seem to get that the US is actually worse off since Bush got re-elected; they don't consider that there might be a reason why the media lambasted Bush the way they did. And it sure does not help the other side of the argument when guys like Rush and Sean behave like total moonbats and scream "The sky is falling!" before the new guy has even sat in the Oval Office.

I predict that the Obama presidency will actually be pretty mild. I don't expect those guys to ever apologize for their mindless rants, but I'd bet money they'll be totally red-faced when shown old clips of themselves in the future.

[rhanlav]

Right now, The expectations of Obama are so ludicrously high that theres no way that he can meet the expectations that people have of him right now, least of all inside of 4 years.

No, Obama's time is going to be spent trying to re-establish america's public image as a paragon of virtue as opposed to a tempermental thug, and Trying to get the economy moving again.

As to mcain... I liked the man in the early 2000's but as time went on it became clear that mcain was perfectly willing to cuddle up with an incompetent (some might argue morally bankrupt) president in order to shore up his chances in 2008. These are not qualities I would want in the leader of my nation (But then again, canadian politics is a gumbo of incomptenece and Self righteous claptrap from EVERY ELECTED PARTY. Seriously, it makes canadian politics is 3X the clusterfuck that america's is.)

~Ashla

[amazingadrian]

Yeah, I know. I'm willing to bet that toward the end of his term, the other side is going to try stirring up resentment toward him by saying that he wasn't able to fix [x thing]. Nobody can set the entire country straight in just 4 years time, but I'm holding on to hope that Obama can at least steer us in the right direction, and that whoever takes office after him isn't a complete butthead.

I did not like a lot of McCain's policies for the same reason you cited; I just was never able to put it into those words. I always felt that a McCain presidency would closely mimic a Bush presidency, even though the guy is obviously a lot smarter. It's mostly because the party has gone way off base from its core values, and they're all too complacent with holding power to do anything about it. Of course, there was also the fact that his choice of running mate felt like a token move rather than a serious consideration. His whole campaign was a farce. He might have won if the Republican camp had let him do things his way.

[roycalbeck]

Who's been comparing him to Hitler? That's a completely new one on me.

The only comparisons I've seen made to Hitler have been by various of Bush's anti-war opponents, over the last five years. This was particularly true of outfits like Air America and ANSWER, the latter of which was the main organizer of most of the anti-war protests.

And while I can't imagine any rationale by which Obama could be called similar in any way to Hitler, I've actually met quite a lot of people who ardently defend such comparisons when they involve Bush. Frankly, the only member of the right-wing media I can imagine making such a claim about Obama is Mike Savage, and he's so off in kookland these days, odds are he's said the same thing about Bush for one reason or another.

As far as Rush et al go, I hear them comparing Obama to FDR. FDR = Hitler then?

[roycalbeck]

Indeed. Hitler comparisons are far too common these days, to the point where the gravity of the mans actions has become horribly undermined.

This is not to say that criticism directed at bush is not neccesarily warranted. The man was at best incompetent for most of his 8 year tenure, and at worst disgustingly amoral.

It is my hope that when history judges him that whatever good he has done will be made plain, along with all of his mistakes and failures, so that future generations can learn from the man how to lead a country in troubled times.

[amazingadrian]

I'm mostly talking to people outside of the mainstream in private blogs. You run into them every now and then, and it's quite baffling when you do.

Mostly, they say that because Obama is a socialist, he must obviously be on the way to be becoming a dictator. They compare the current situation in America with the situation in pre-WW2 Germany, and they speak of the dangers of letting Obama carry his message of Hope and Change too far (a valid concern, but one that I don't think will realistically become a problem). I've heard people insinuate that there have never been any socialists in power who didn't become commies/dictators/nazis, ect; and that Obama must be one too.

As for Bush...I dunno. I wouldn't compare him to Hitler. He did have a bit of an imperialistic streak, as well as an antagonistic foreign policy; but he couldn't "speechify" his way out of a paper bag, and militaristicly, he was pretty much a dolt.

[roycalbeck]

I never considered Bush a worthy candidate for office, it being my position that he got elected primarily because he was up against two candidates who were even LESS worthy. Gore had the same uphill battle amongst conservatives that McCain had amongst liberals, for largely the same reasons...blind hatred of an incumbent who wasn't even on the ballot. I expect both candidates effectively lost about 40% or more of the vote before they even began their campaigns.

I didn't vote Bush in 2000 as a result, but I did in 2004 strictly on basis of the pure vitriol coming out of his opposition. The Swift Boat controversy was a drop in the bucket that I paid little heed to, compared to the mobs of ANSWER protestors carrying "Bush = Hitler" placards and the like.