Obama Breaks Silence on Trump’s ‘Unimaginable’ Presidency - “Imagine if I had done any of this,” the former two-term president said.

[u/Quirkie]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obama-breaks-silence-on-trumps-unimaginable-presidency/

[u/SchroedingersSphere]

Probably going to get downvoted for saying this, I understand wanting to step down from politics, but a lot of people looked to Obama for words of encouragement and it's a little disappointing how long it took him to stand up and say something. Especially since Obama is the only person that really terrifies Trump. He could have made a bigger impact by speaking up sooner. Either way, thanks Obama.

[u/Qwirk → u/SchroedingersSphere]

I kind of get it, he can't just jump into the fray as that will give Republicans ammunition.

No matter how you slice it, it's a shit sandwich.

[u/Ferelar → u/Qwirk]

They don't need ammunition, they just make stuff up. The issue is that we keep treating Republicans as adults that will play by the rules. They aren't. They're children that just want to win and everything else is predicated on that. When presented with incontrovertible proof that they were wrong, an adult will change their viewpoint and potentially even apologize. Children scream that it's fake and refuse to budge. When assessing the viability of a plan or proposal, an adult will perform a cost-benefit analysis and attempt to suss out if the juice is worth the squeeze, and attempt to approach things in an unbiased matter. A child will approach it from a position of extreme bias, choosing what they feel like doing in that moment and working backwards to justify why it was totally the right choice ("painting the bullseye around the arrow"). An adult will attempt to view two candidates even-handedly and avoid hypocrisy when assessing pros and cons. Children are made of hypocrisy.

If you start viewing Republicans through the lens of being literal Children, their actions make far more sense. And as a result, when debating them, you need to use the same tactics that work on Children. Flashy "owns" are much more useful than actual data, and expecting them to require or use actual evidence is a losing game. You also can't expect them to change their viewpoint, they're stubborn like toddlers.

[u/Qwirk → u/Ferelar]

My point was that they will use him to dominate the news cycle while they continue to rob us blind. Anything and everything to hide their footsteps.

[u/Ferelar → u/Qwirk]

Yeah, I hear ya. I'm just saying, they'll do that either way, so it's time to stop taking tools out of our toolbox out of fear that it'll give them more ammo. They use non-existent ammo so we gotta fight with tooth and nail and stop trying to game out their strategy- it's always just to lie.

Also holy shit I just realized how long and rambling my prior comment is, damn, my bad

[u/Qwirk → u/Ferelar]

It's all good, we are all frustrated.