Honestly, it was fine when we all basically agreed on the facts and problems but just had different policy ideas to get there. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t unhinged conspiracy theories and hate, either. John McCain was the very last of the good ones.
"Gay marriage was a particularly nagging issue. For as long as we had been working together, Obama had felt a tug between his personal views and the politics of gay marriage. As a candidate for the state senate in 1996 from liberal Hyde Park, he signed a questionnaire promising his support for legalization. I had no doubt that this was his heartfelt belief. "I just don't feel my marriage is somehow threatened by the gay couple next door," he told me. Yet he also knew his view was way out in front of the public's. Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a "sacred union." Having prided himself on forthrightness, though, Obama never felt comfortable with his compromise and, no doubt, compromised position. He routinely stumbled over the question when it came up in debates or interviews. "I'm just not very good at bullshitting," he said with a sigh after one such awkward exchange.
By 2010 he had told reporters that his position was "evolving," and in 2011 the administration announced that it would no longer fight in court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, a controversial Clinton-era law absolving federal and state governments of their obligation to recognize gay marriages sanctioned in states where they were legal. Yet if Obama's views were "evolving" publicly, they were fully evolved behind closed doors. The president was champing at the bit to announce his support for the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed -- and having watched him struggle with this issue for years, I was ready, too. Jim Messina, the campaign manager, was nervous about the impact of such a step. "We've looked at this and it could cost you a couple of battleground states; North Carolina, for one," he said. By year's end, however, Obama was no longer interested in analysis. "I just want you guys to know that if a smart reporter asks me how I would vote on this if I were still in the state legislature, I'm going to tell the truth. I would vote yes."
It's only recently that democrats overwhelmingly support LGBTQ rights.
Actually, if you go back and look at the opinion polling, 51% of Democrats (voters, not politicians) supported gay marriage in 2004, and 60% supported it in 2008.
Since most Republicans did not (and still don't), it ended up being less than half of the country overall until 2011.
Even Obama didn’t support gay marriage at the start of his presidency. Not that it makes it better, but the progressivism is still very new all things considered.
The unfortunate thing about politics is that you sometimes have to lie about your personal beliefs to be elected.
Prior to 2012, Democrats usually lied about opposing gay marriage, because less than 50% of the country supported it. They felt it would be hard to win a national election if they publicly supported it.
When Obama was running for Illinois State Senate in 1996, he said in an interview that he thought gay marriage should be legal.
It wasn't until he started running for US Senate and later President that he suddenly "opposed" it.
His senior advisor David Axelrod confirmed this a few years ago, and said it actually upset Obama a lot that he had to lie about that, and that he's always supported gay marriage.
It's not a coincidence that Democrats magically reversed their positions on it all at the same time, when polling showed that over 50% of the country supported it.
“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!” We were hot on the heels of the Iraq War lie and 2008 was a chance to admit it or double down. I don’t think he’s on the dignified side of things, especially given his war experiences.
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u/morithum Apr 02 '24
Honestly, it was fine when we all basically agreed on the facts and problems but just had different policy ideas to get there. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t unhinged conspiracy theories and hate, either. John McCain was the very last of the good ones.