I keep talking to my republican friends and they keep on believing the strangest things. I am not sure what it is that turns otherwise reasonably smart and sane people into gullible obedient little GOP defenders but it is an amazing thing to watch.
I do present the facts to them, such as how we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs every month for almost a year before Obama took over, and now we have had over three years straight of job increases, doesn't matter.
Even though I point out that in order to make Obama's statistics look worse, the GOP counts everything in the 1st Quarter of 2009, even though Obama hadn't put any policies in place in 1st 6-7 weeks in office. In fact, Obama wasn't even sworn into office until January 20th, they count January's job losses as something Obama could have done something about!
You wouldn't accept being held responsible at work for something the guy who had your job last year did, Obama can't be blamed for jobs lost before he took office! Try blaming your current wife or husband for something that happened in your previous marriage, see how that works out for you.
Yet that's what you have to be willing to do to accept the phony picture the GOP / Tea Party has been painting since the day Obama took office.
Obama has actually lowered the number of government employees drastically. Not only does the GOP still cry 'socialist', they don't come to the same, sane conclusion a normal person would, that if we have been adding overall jobs every month, yet government jobs have gone down, we must be doing much better in the private sector that the overall unemployment rate reflects.
Of course, the GOP uses the January 2009 rate of about 7.6% to argue Obama has 'raised the unemployment rate', but in fact as of the day Obama took office the rate is now lower. Romney uses the claim "Obama 'promised' he would lower the rate to under 4%", which is true, but since it happened in 2008 when the Bush rate was still around 4-5%, to knowingly use that as a political attack is deceitful.
And If you look at the fast-rising line in a chart since the Bush recession started in 2008, you can see how it took a few months for the rate to stop climbing, but once it did we have had a fairly successful jobs rate since then, a large improvement over what Obama was handed. (Bush took the unemployment rate from around 4% to over 8% in his eight years in office). By the end of his first year, Obama had stopped that catastrophic trend and has us headed in the right direction.
And regarding the charge of 'Obama the socialist', is it possible that well educated, normal people can so misunderstand that word they think it's true about Obama? or is it that they haven't bothered to see if it's true?
I'm guessing it's being ignorant of facts, rather than being under-educated or simply in denial. At least I hope that's what it is, I hate to think some of my friends and family are willingly being deceitful, or that they don't really care what happens to the country.
Time and again, though, presenting them with facts never elicits a surprising 'wow, didn't know that' or some other type of acknowledgement that the reason they just gave for hating Obama is wrong on the facts. They just ignore that, change the topic to some other (equally vacuous) charge, and of course continue to use the same, discredited argument in the next conversation.
I understand this kind of stubborn intentional ignorance and strongly held belief system when it regards religion, everyone wants their God to be The God. But that's personal, and their holding those beliefs are their right, and don't really impact others too much ( I know that's arguable, I am trying to be generous here).
But in politics, an ignorant belief in political lies has a huge impact on the rest of us, it happened when we 'elected' Bush, and if enough people hold this irrational position and hatred of President Obama, it will harm the country again.
There is evidence out there, much of it is presented in these essays. All you need to do is pay attention and be willing to discuss and seek the truth. Good luck.
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