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/Qwirk]

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/Ferelar → u/[deleted]]

I think the big difference was the Republican electorate. I have many issues with the policy stances of Republicans circa 2000, but I could still talk to them. We had very different values in terms of what would be best for the country and what was moral and right to do. But by 2016, the reaction to Obama and the whole tea party and Sara Palin etc had all primed the electorate to accept absurdity. Further, they were angry and anti-establishment due to the 2008 crisis (which they blamed on Obama of course).

I think they went a bit crazy in between those two runs. In 2016 I remember a lot of establishment GOP folks saying absolutely scathing things about Trump, but then they saw the Republican electorate cheering like crazy at his childish clown antics, and poof, suddenly they're in lockstep behind the cretin.

The media constantly highlighting his "zany antics" and thus giving him a huge free platform definitely didn't help. He was a novelty that suddenly was given a bunch of completely and utterly unearned amount of legitimacy.

And so, we run into a situation in which things were slowly degenerating for quite a while, but by 2016 they were already fully into "I just have to paint the bullseye around the arrow and ignore all the complaints and logic.... and I get to win every time?! YOOOO SIGN ME UP!!" stage.

It really is so frustrating to even engage with. At first I told myself that if I had a better angle of debate, or if I could just get a little bit more proof/better sources, or if I spoke more eloquently, or WHATEVER, that I could get them to see reason and say "Ah shucks, you're right, threatening allies isn't good". But no, they aren't operating on the same axis. They're full in blue and orange morality territory, only it's for "my guy wins, your guy loses, fuck off" purposes.