How Trump's Election Shook Obama: 'What if We Were Wrong?'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON — Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election, President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump’s victory.

“What if we were wrong?” he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential limousine.

He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind. “Maybe we pushed too far,” Mr. Obama said. “Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.”

His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama, the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he said.

In the weeks after Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Obama went through multiple emotional stages, according to a new book by his longtime adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes. At times, the departing president took the long view, at other points, he flashed anger. He called Mr. Trump a “cartoon” figure who cared more about his crowd sizes than any particular policy. And he expressed rare self-doubt, wondering whether he had misjudged his own influence on American history.

Set to be published next week by Random House, Mr. Rhodes’s memoir, “The World as It Is,” offers a peek into Mr. Obama’s tightly sealed inner sanctum from the perspective of one of the few people who saw him up close through all eight years of his presidency. Few moments shook Mr. Obama more than the decision by voters to replace him with a candidate who had questioned his very birth.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-trumps-election-shook-obama-what-if-we-were-wrong/ar-AAy2e8N?ocid=spartanntp

[guillaumeb]

1. The President should remind himself

that in spite of Russian interference,
GOP gerrymandering,
GOP voter suppression, and the media's blatant bias toward Trump,

Hillary Clinton still won the popular vote.

[RKP5637]

2. K&R!!! n/t

[hurple]

22. Absolutely!

There's more of us than there is of them.

I honestly think the absolute biggest problem was that HRC was seen as such a sure thing that some people stayed home who otherwise wouldn't have done so.

Don't discount the Russian interference playing a big part in that too.

And, I will go to my grave convinced that hackers adjusted vote totals. Four of the 6 firewall states were statistically impossible for tRump to win by election day, based on early voting totals... yet, still he won them... by less than 1%. Those states should have been audited.

[LenaBaby61]

27. "And, I will go to my grave convinced that hackers adjusted vote totals."

Same here

[guillaumeb]

47. Agreed on all points.

Gore gave up when he should have fought. And that emboldened the GOP to steal even more.

[sprinkleeninow]

52. I'm with you, mon ami. A reason for him not to?

One doesn't know.

This train wreck has been a long time coming. Now that I have become aware thx to devoted political science connosieurs and history buffs on DU.

[mythology]

49. Baseless conspiracy theory nonsense

There is literally no way you can support the claim that early voting made it statistically impossible for Trump to win.

[hurple]

59. Sure there is

It's called math.

[SFnomad]

24. In the last 7 elections, Democrats have won the popular vote 6 times n/t

[SergeStorms]

32. Little consolation....

considering the horror show we're now dealing with. But, yeah....Hillary will always be the rightfully elected president.

[sprinkleeninow]

40. Yay-yesss! Truth.

Barack always came off as unruffled and cucumber cool mostly. I guess it dint dawn on me that he had these contemplative thoughts.

I love Barack and I love Hillary.

This entire fiasco is making my soul sick and troubled daily.

But in spite of that, "'Allo, Mon Cher! Comment ça va?" 😍

💙🇺🇸🌊

[guillaumeb]

48. Ca va comme toujours.

Every day is a good day to be alive.

[sprinkleeninow]

50. You right. I'm still in my skin and get weary, but 'haven't fainted yet'

according to the encouragement from the Holy Writ. Get thee weary but do not even think of fainting! 😊

💓 you!

💙🇺🇸🌊

[guillaumeb]

51. Getting weary means that you are alive.

A gift to enjoy every day.

We took our morning walk earlier, and the warm weather and rain have caused everything to explode out of the ground, and in our garden. All a part of the creation.

[sprinkleeninow]

53. We got 'splosions too! Icky slugs on our fence when it gets dark. Yick!

But our vegetation is thriving after the dumb winter we had.

Thx for the 'word'. 😘

💙🇺🇸🌊

[treestar]

60. And that he himself

Is more popular and loved to this day than the Orange fuhrer will ever be

[guillaumeb]

62. Very true. eom

[Alethia Merritt]

61. And came might damn close in three swing states that were influenced by Russian bots and fools.

[guillaumeb]

63. Exactly. eom

[Girard442]

3. We all have to live the consequences of Trump in the White House.

Obama has to also live with the knowlege that he likely could have done something to prevent it and didn't.

[fallout87]

30. What could he have done?

Serious question. Because i've been hearing this a lot lately, but not any real solutions.

[njhoneybadger]

33. True but hind sight is 20/20 coulda,shoulda,woulda

[madaboutharry]

4. It just makes my heart sink.

There are moments when I actually can not breathe. Every day that President Obama was in office, I woke up knowing that whatever happened things would be ok. Not so now.

[GusBob]

5. It has been said PBO's operating mantra in simple terms

It was said his simple operating guide to policies was "don't make things worse"

Always cauitious and never over reacting is a good thing.

But when it came to a brash bull in a tea shop firebrand like Trump too much caution was a bad thing.

I have been critical of how he handled the Russian thing. But 2 things:

1. Everybody thought HRC had it sewed up
2. The Grab em by the P tape overshadowed the news about Russian colllusion

Ironically we are seeing the same sort of media splash distraction right now:

4,000 Americans died in a hurricane, and what do we get? Roseanne Barr and Kim Kardashian in the headlines

[Blue_true]

8. Did I miss something?

4000 Americans died in what hurricane? I know Katrina took a lot of lives, but not close to 4000.

[msongs]

11. 4000+ puerto ricans, who are american citizens, died last year in Maria. at least 4K but

probably way more

[Blue_true]

17. Ok, thanks.

I have to admit that other than being dismayed by the situation in Puerto Rico and helping with money, I had not followed the death count due to the hurricane and was ignorant of the death toll.

[deurbano]

23. You didn't miss earlier reporting on the death toll. The administration SEVERELY undercounted

the number of victims (surprise, surprise), and the more accurate estimate was just released by Harvard researchers:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-maria-death-toll-in-puerto-rico-family-members-support-harvard-research-showing-higher-total/

<<CBS NEWS May 30, 2018, 6:39 PM
Family members react to study showing shocking death toll from Hurricane Maria

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- A study by Harvard University found that the death toll in Puerto Rico stemming from Hurricane Maria is likely 70 times higher than official estimates. ...>>

[blogslut]

12. The estimated deaths of the citizens of Puerto Rice

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico 5,000.

[fallout87]

31. Excellent point

the media's focus on all of the trump BS is doing us a grave disservice. Meanwhile the dismantling of the EPA and other government norms.... but no, they are all focused on the BS tweets. Journalism is dead. That goes for those that are supposedly on our side.

[applegrove]

6. They got tribal because of economic anxiety. Obama was stopped at every turn from

deficit spending to end the recession fast. The long recession, the sub prime meltdown, the crippling of unions and increasing inequality are all GOP policies. It was predictable that when feeling left out of the economy midwest americans would turn on some 'other'. I don't doubt that this was in GOP minds all along. Obama just put it off with his hope policies.

[Blue_true]

14. Looking for the "Other" was part of the reason why Hitler rose to power.

The other reason was resentment among Germans toward Jewish people and other minority groups, Jewish people because the average Getman felt them too successful as a group, other minorities because Germans saw them as subhuman. Hitler took advantage of economic stress and added in an element of "purifying" the German race to satisfy racism in Germany at that time.

Trump has taken advantage of economic stress felt by many Americans and has toyed with the element of race. Where I see a difference between Trump and Hitler is that Hitler was a true believer in racial and ethnic inferiority, whereas Trump is an opportunist in those areas, the outcomes of their behavior can be the same, but one key difference is that if Trump saw that POC could defeat him, he would change to satisfy them, Hitler would not have.

[applegrove]

16. I agree Trump was an opportunist but he was just taking advantage of what the GOP

had set up. All so that rich people don't have to pay taxes.

[emulatorloo]

55. People who were most concerned about jobs and economy voted Hillary

That’s what the exit polls say.

Trump voters were most concerned about Terrorism and Immigration. That’s what the exit polls say.


The “economic anxiety” hot-take isn’t true.

[applegrove]

56. The economic anxiety results in scapegoating. Thus the anti immigration

vote. No matter where you go in the work the very poor and recently poor will turn on people who are an 'other'. 40 years of GOP inequality policy has resulted in an increase in tribalism and racism. It is so common as to be predictable it would happen.

[BeyondGeography]

7. First, I'd like to thank him for caring

The average politician, and that includes Presidents, wouldn’t give a shit. They’d quickly move to what it meant for them and their personal prospects. Obama was never the average politician.

My only qualm with him is he never seemed to fully grasp the depths to which Republicans and the people who sustain them would sink, not just to undermine him, but to inflict pain on his voters. All of them.

[MariaCSR]

10. Agreed.

[Tarheel_Dem]

9. Don't worry about it Mr. President. Russia had more to do with Trump's election than you did.

Never forget that nearly 4 million more of us chose the winner of the popular vote. That should give you some solace.

[uponit7771]

19. THIS !!!!

[Ilsa]

28. Yep. And if it wasn't just the social media interventions,

it could have been as simple as flipping about four votes from D to R or D to Green in each voting precinct to shift enough votes to win PA, WI, and MI. The combined margin was about 80,000, IIRC.

[Dawson Leery]

13. We needed Hillary in 08', then Obama.

Hillary is no dreamer. She lived through the putrid disaster that is the right.
Nixon made the deplorables acceptable to society at a time when we were trying to move past them. We have been stuck with a virulent and militarized right flank since then. She would have played hardball with these shitbags.
Obama believed that the GOP could be dealt with. The Clinton's knew you could not play nice with them.

Obama is more Ike than FDR/Truman.

In spite of the obstruction of the Fascist Party, Obama won two terms with an outright majority of the vote (first time since Eisenhower)
and Hillary was the popular vote 48.1%-45.9%

[Awsi Dooger]

25. Exactly...and that was my argument during spring '08

If you're going to run Obama and Hillary back to back, then Hillary has to go first.

The other order is pure masochism, an unnecessary gamble. The less likable candidate desperately needs the boost of the more favorable situational environment. Any Democrat was going to prevail in '08, with Bush stuck in 33-40% approval since Katrina in summer '05. Hillary would have cruised and been a forceful presence in the White House. For one thing, I doubt we would have steadily sacrificed the white working class vote under Hillary, the way we lost it during Obama's second term. There were ominous online articles all over the place following the 2014 midterm. Obama would never be on the ballot again but he jeopardized future Democratic candidates by shifting a vital demographic against us to absurd level.

If you run Obama first and force Hillary to deal with the toss-up but slightly negative situational scenario after your party has held the White House for 8 consecutive years, then the day to day variables basically mean nothing. It is going to be razor tight and the fact that the polarizing figure with low upside is in the negative scenario means it is very likely she will lose.

On the other hand, a charismatic Obama waiting in the wings for 8 years and boosting his stature nationally would have handled Donald Trump or anyone else.

It was a ridiculous unforced error, but not unexpected since our party is always so inept at grasping situational influence.

I have no idea how Obama could have been surprised at Trump's victory. Apparently his White House was in total denial the past few years of his term. As I mentioned earlier, after the 2014 midterm there were devastating online articles everywhere regarding the white working class problem. Here is one of them:

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/2014-american-voter-elections-113883

"After a series of discussions with political experts, pollsters and strategists, here are the five things we learned about American voters this year.

1. The Democrats’ working-class-whites problem is serious.

After two years of warnings about Republicans’ woeful performance among nonwhite voters in 2012, the midterms showed that Democrats have their own significant demographic vulnerability: working-class white voters. Republicans won white voters without a college degree by 30 points, 64 percent to 34 percent, according to exit polls, equal to their margin in the wave election of 2010. Polling data show that support for President Barack Obama among working-class whites has dropped 8 points since 2010."

***

I don't like Rachel Maddow partially because she never picks up on fundamental basics like that. Everything is backward looking. If we had a cable news host who was truly enlightened and helped maximize the party's output, that person would have been all over the white working class problem beginning in December 2014, making sure to help shape the party's message to salvage that vital extra 1 or 2 percent in 2016. Then in 2017 that person would have understood that light years the most important focus needed to be registration drives on college campuses. Instead it required Tom Steyer to eventually figure that out.

[Dawson Leery]

26. The 2008 primary was terrible.

The left flank was after we Hillary supporters.
The Young Jerks couldn't hide their hatred for her.
One could not tell the difference between Cenk and Hannity.

[rocktivity]

18. Fake news -- He couldn't have been wrong if he wanted to be

because Trump was elected by the electoral college, not the majority of the voters.


rocktivity

[cynatnite]

20. Hindsight is 20/20. n/t

[PatrickforO]

21. The sickening racism this fine man had to endure is sickening to me, even

to this day.

Now we have shitbag in the white house, and all the nazi creepy-crawlies are slithering from under their rocks.

Obama must have been devastated. I sure was, have been and am.

Shit.

[ellie]

29. I know how he feels

I underestimated the amount of racists in this country and I am sick that I live here.

[Hamlette]

34. I felt the same way when Trump was elected but I didn't take it personally.

I'd never thought of how he must have felt. My heart was broken for Hillary. But I'd never thought that in some ways it was indictment of his 9 years. Harder for him than for any of us. Damn it.

[Uncle Joe]

35. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

[benld74]

36. #44 always be a better POTUS than #45

[mountain grammy]

37. He worked so hard for 8 years..

there were times I disagreed with him or thought he should be more forceful, but his work ethic and honesty were amazing. I left the country twice during his presidency and held my head high. Barrack Obama is our president. We elected this elegant, brilliant extraordinary man to be our president.

He made me proud to be an American. I wrote to tell him that at least twice a year, every year he was president.

[KPN]

45. Good words and deeds.

[TlalocW]

38. No matter when Obama became president

Whether he really was 10 or 20 years too early, there would have been racial backlash against him - that's all the republican party has going for it anymore: Fear of the "Other." They just happened to find the perfect encapsulation of their racism and hatred this time around, and he was still rejected by the American people.

TlalocW

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

39. Guess I gotta give Maher credit for this one. He just called it too early.

[Caliman73]

41. Where President Obama went wrong.

President Obama underestimated the power of racism and White Privilege. He maybe naively believed that Americans had become more aware than they actually are.

He also underestimated the depths to which Republicans would go to achieve and maintain power so they could serve their paymasters.

There should have been a reckoning regarding Bush/Cheney and the corruption that lead to our Afghanistan and Iraq Quagmires.

We need to hold Republicans to account for the damage they have done to this country.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

42. Cor-rect

shouldve been war crimes trial.

[JI7]

43. Obama (rather we) got Lucky with his Opponents being McCain and Romney

whatever you think of them on a personal level they aren't the disgusting level of people like trump, gingrich, santorum etc who all appeal to bigotry.

mccain didn't know what palin was when he picked her but even in her case the media actually gave her the treatment she deserved . trump deserved the same treatment but they treated him more seriously .

[KPN]

44. One sign of a very intelligent, well-balanced and emotionally mature person is

the ability to question his or her self. We were very fortunate to have someone like that as our last real President.

[montana_hazeleyes]

46. I don't think President Obama should feel bad about a damn thing!

Looks like another chance for more "Obama Blaming". No one else was in his shoes for every minute of all those years.

So because this country is so damn racist he should have waited? Let the white person go first? How many more decades or maybe centuries until it would have been the "right time" for a black president?!?

[sprinkleeninow]

54. Thanx, Yo, for this contribution. It gave me insight. 👍

[janx]

57. No, President Obama, you were not 10 or 20 years too early.

You were right on time.

History will portray you accordingly.

[Raine]

58. Interesting

Thanks for the link...