If a Republican Were President

[Playinghardball]

Source: The Smirking Chimp
by Robert Scheer

If a Republican were president, there would be millions of properly coiffed middle-class Democrats and independents at those Occupy Wall Street marches, and no questions asked as to what they really want. With 25 million Americans unable to find full-time work, 50 million whose homeownership dream has turned into the nightmare of foreclosure, and an all-time high of 46.2 million, including 22 percent of our children, living in poverty, the call to throw the bums out would be compelling.

But the protest signs in a nation headed by a Republican, though surely gussied up a bit with ad agency savvy, would be the same as they are now: Stop catering to the top 1 percent who get ever wealthier and focus on helping the 99 percent who are hurting. To accomplish that, we need a moratorium on bank-ordered evictions, along with a government-funded program to aid the underemployed that is as robust as the trillions spent to save the Wall Street swindlers who caused all of this trouble.

Instead we are left with a Democratic president who sooths our rage with promises of decent-paying jobs that in actuality are being vigorously exported from our shores by the president’s top corporate backers. That absurdity was marked by Barack Obama’s choice of Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric—a company that has shifted to foreign countries two-thirds of its workforce and 82 percent of its profits—to head the president’s job creation council.

Obama has failed not because he is a progressive in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but because he is not. He has blindly followed the lead of George W. Bush in bankrupting the nation by throwing money at Wall Street while continuing to fund wildly expensive and unneeded wars.

More at: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/38919/if-a-republican-were-president

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. K&R

:thumbsup:

[Sherman A1]

2. But

A republican is President in my opinion and the opinion of those with whom I speak.

[Crazy Dave]

5. He would make Reagan jealous if he were still alive n/t

[tnlefty]

3. rec

:kick:

[Vanje]

4. Bears repeating....Obama...

"blindly followed the lead of George W. Bush in bankrupting the nation by throwing money at Wall Street while continuing to fund wildly expensive and unneeded wars."

[DenverDad]

8. Agree completely!

The right doesn't like him because of the promises he made, and the left is upset with him because of the promises he broke.

[MADem]

6. Sotomayor and Kagan wouldn't be on the Supreme Court bench.

I don't think that's a small thing, but that is just me.

[Wait Wut]

14. But, DADT would still have been repealed...

...so they could just outlaw being gay altogether.

[MADem]

15. Technically, given the right case, they COULD.

And that is why who is in the WH matters.

[Wait Wut]

17. And, that's just one example.

The "lesser of two evils" meme is bullshit. If people don't support our Democratic President, they shouldn't call themselves Democrats.

For the record, I'm voting for Pres. Obama, not "just" the Democratic President. I did that with Clinton.




(InB4: "But, Pres. Obama ISN'T a Democratic President!!1!" :eyes: )

[kath]

7. But a Republican IS President.

he just calls himself a Democrat.

[Vanje]

11. +1 !

[Proud Liberal Dem]

19. Oh brother

:eyes:

Do you still believe that Gore=Bush too?

[Itchinjim]

9. 236...

[SidDithers]

13. ...

:thumbsup:

Sid

[abelenkpe]

10. Wanted a new FDR, got Hoover instead

That said though it would be a huge mistake to not vote democratic in the next election unless of course you want things to get much worse. Why? Supreme court justices will be appointed in the next term. It makes a huge difference if they are liberal vs more corporate loving republicans. I honestly don't think in this economy there is enough time or money to primary Obama. But hey, you get someone like say Bernie Sanders to run I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. But democrats should be focused on electing more liberal and progressive dems to congress and in local elections. Because no matter who is elected president (Obama or some other "liberal") if they don't have support for their policies in congress we're still all toast. It's pretty disappointing that the left isn't more focused on this.

[leftstreet]

12. K&R

[Jack Rabbit]

16. A few inconvenient truths . . .

It's time to face them like adults.

1. Barack Obama is a better president than George W. Bush was, than John McCain would have been or than any of nine ninnies in the present GOP field would be.
2. Barack Obama's record as president has been weighed and found wanting. As a president, he is inadequate.
• He attempts to bring this country together by compromising with Republicans, which in itself is laudable coming as it does after the shrill rhetoric of the Bush Junta; however, the Republicans are not serious or even honest negotiating partners.
• He is overeager to go more than halfway to placate the Republicans and reach a deal; while he may in his mind think the result is a reasonable compromise, it is really a capitulation to a party of penthouse prostitutes who service high class criminals.
3. While the President chortles about his failures and calls them accomplishments, his ability to extend a mandate for reform at the ballot box is in danger, and not just because of his lackluster performance as president.
• The Republicans collect campaign donations from the very corporations responsible for the market meltdown in 2008. The Supreme Court has freed corporations to use their vast financial resources to influence the outcome of elections.
• Democrats, especially those in small states with a smaller donation base from traditionally Democratic voters, are also for sale. Large corporate contributions influence their actions, too. Notice that the public option, the teeth in the health care bill in 2009, was torpedoed by Senate Democrats from states like Montana, Nebraska, Connecticut and Arkansas. They, too, are penthouse prostitutes.
• In several states, anti-voter legislation aimed at Democratic demographic groups has been enacted. The 2012 election is already being rigged.
4. The summation of the above: we're screwed.
• American democracy and the middle class are in danger if President Obama wins re-election.
• American democracy and the middle class are in danger if President Obama loses re-election.

I cast my lot with the protesters on Wall Street. The political system is broken. The ballot is being locked by the corporate mafia. Our elected representatives no more represent us than the Russian Tsar represented Russian peasants. We must demand reform in the streets and escalate to more direct, concrete action if it is not forthcoming.

I'll vote on election day in 2012. I'll vote for President Obama, even if I hold my nose while doing so. I'll turn sixty in three weeks; for the first time in my life, I don't think it will really make any significant difference for whom I vote or who wins. This country is in danger of going the way of the Soviet Union.

[libinnyandia]

18. election 2012

Don't worry, there's a chance that the GOP will be back in power in 2012 and you will miss the Obama administration.