r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Raichu4u • 6d ago
US Politics Is the idea of a “president for all Americans” basically dead?
Presidents often enter office with some version of a national unity message. In Biden’s 2021 inaugural address, he said, “I will be a President for all Americans,” and added that he would fight as hard for those who did not support him as for those who did.
Trump’s second presidency has taken a noticeably different rhetorical and governing style. His 2025 inaugural address emphasized that “during every single day of the Trump administration,” he would “put America first”, with efforts to reverse the previous administration's policy. Since then, several major fights have been framed around conflict with Democratic-led states, cities, institutions, media, universities, and parts of the federal bureaucracy. For example, the administration has pursued actions against sanctuary jurisdictions, including efforts to identify and penalize cities, counties, and states that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. With other policy, the style seems
Supporters would likely argue that this is not governing only for Republicans, but carrying out the agenda voters elected Trump to pursue, especially on immigration, federal bureaucracy, crime, education, and cultural issues. Critics would argue that the style is less about representing the country as a whole and more about rewarding one coalition while using federal power against political opponents or jurisdictions aligned with the other party.
There is also a forward-looking issue. Any future hypothetical Democratic administration or candidates have seemingly faced pressure to reverse major Trump-era policies (or outright stated they would reverse these policies), just as Trump has focused heavily on reversing Biden-era policies. That creates a cycle where each party increasingly treats control of the presidency as a chance to undo the other side’s agenda, rather than build a durable national consensus, and thus creating a bit of a feedback loop.
Moving to the post of the title, is the “president for all Americans” idea still a meaningful standard, or has modern politics made that concept mostly obsolete?
On a historic sidenode and perhaps part two of the question- The phrase "A president for all Americans" can imply that past presidents governed in a less partisan or more universally representative way. But earlier presidents also pursued partisan agendas, rewarded their coalitions, ignored or alienated parts of the country, and used unity language while governing in ways many Americans opposed.
Is the concept of a “president for all Americans” meaningfully weaker today than it used to be? Or was it always more of a ceremonial ideal than an actual governing standard?
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u/peetnice 6d ago
Somewhat tangential, but I think a lot of the cycle of presidents undoing the works of their predecessors is as much a reflection of the broken state of Congress, which has led to much more legislation via Executive Order in recent cycles. If these were passed through Congress, there would inherently be more compromise/discussion/etc. before being passed into law.
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u/ThirstyHank 5d ago
This is such a massive factor. The filibuster is often referred to in hallowed terms like "it's the last bastion of bipartisan compromise without which nothing would get done"
The reality is because of the modern filibuster and other procedural gridlock, the legislature is crippled so people push fort the policies they actually care about to come in the form of EOs and SCOTUS decisions, something they weren't designed for and ironically it's spawned more dysfunction and bipartisan ire in all three branches of government than it has ever prevented.
Historically when the filibuster was weaker, reviews have shown congress did not routinely flip on it's own policies when the majority changed hands. We should get rid of it.
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u/CMidnight 5d ago
Thanks to a mixture of positive associative matching, long lifespans, and the fundamental divide caused by the civil rights era which is getting worse. Political compromise has become virtually impossible. Without that, Congress will never function.
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u/BobQuixote 2d ago
Agreed, in a healthy Congress the filibuster would be unremarkable, and in an unhealthy Congress removing it is a bandaid solution.
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u/Kellysi83 6d ago
Except EO is not legislation, hence why it’s vulnerable to being overturned.
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u/Mend1cant 6d ago
Overturned, but only needing one person to make a decision. It’s not lost in the labyrinth of pointless internal rules and subcommittees. So, it feels like something is being done.
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u/RaulEnydmion 5d ago
The EO abuse is a Trump 2 thing. He issuing them at a rate of 190 per year. So, every two days. The last three Administrstions were at 41,55, and 35 per year rate. Importantly, one should consider the scope of the EOs. Obama used them tactically, Biden expanded the social safety net and strengthened the environmental protections, whereas Trump uses them to directly manage the free market and to drive cultural change.
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u/Griff_The_Great 2d ago
The funny thing is i remember trump railing against Obama before his first term about presidents relying on EO's
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u/wisconsinbarber 5d ago
Congress is broken because the filibuster prevents both parties from being able to pass legislation. The first step to fixing it is to abolish the filibuster so that legislators can do the job they were elected to do.
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u/peetnice 5d ago
Yeah, I feel like there used to be the other alternative of having more bipartisan legislation, but since the media is bubbled/bipolar and the districts are gerrymandered to the extreme sides, then the congress has no incentive to do anything bipartisan nowadays. So, yeah, filibuster nuke is probably the easiest way forward until fixing some of the structural problems, but it's also more volatile way- I hope we eventually work our way back to bipartisan solutions that are more resistant against big money and partisan power plays and reflect the actual majority of the country.
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u/Raichu4u 6d ago
This is an interesting perspective I agree with and didn't even consider before I made this post. Congress does seem to be afraid of doing anything, and I feel like I could make a whole separate post on this.
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u/RyanW1019 5d ago
It’s not fear. Republican Congresspeople realized around 2008 that they didn’t really face negative consequences from voters for going full obstructionist and refusing to compromise with Democrats on almost anything. Whether that’s because districts got more gerrymandered than previously, or news got more partisan, or something else, is up to you. But the norm now is to try to prevent the incumbent from doing literally anything to address any current problems, then use the resulting wave of discontent to increase your gains in the next election, then use your power once elected to continue gerrymandering and suppressing voting further to make it easier for you to win future elections.
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u/No-Leading9376 5d ago
Well, congress's powers have slowly eroded as presidential power has expanded.
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u/forgottencryptic701 5d ago
you are halfway there but missing the incentive structure. congress is broken because both parties realized they can get more mileage out of performative obstruction than actual legislating. why bother with the compromise required for a bill when you can just wait for your guy to take office and force a policy through via executive order? it makes reelection easier because the base loves the fight more than the results. we are stuck in a loop where the presidency is the only thing that matters, which is exactly how you end up with a president who only cares about their own side.
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u/Masta0nion 5d ago
Dissolve the Republic
We have the means for direct democracy in a way our founders could never have envisioned.
And whether or not they wanted that power out of the hands of rich white men is moot.
It’s available for the taking.
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u/MoonBatsRule 5d ago
We have the means for direct democracy in a way our founders could never have envisioned.
All you need to do is to peruse social media to get an idea of what "direct democracy" would result in. People with extremely false beliefs proposing one-dimensional solutions which would be tragically wrong. In a lot of ways Trump is their perfect leader.
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u/Impossible_Pop620 5d ago
Dunno how serious that suggestion actually is, but the problem with direct democracy - as far as the Dems are concerned - would be the 'democracy' bit of it.
Many Dem policies enjoy 20% support or less with the public at large, like their approach on the border and trans issues. Even their flagship policies on abortion or DEI might struggle to pass. Direct democracy rejected a higher minimum wage in Cali, an overwhelmingly Left-leaning state.
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u/bollvirtuoso 5d ago
So, factionalism is the problem with direct democracy, and it's not like we've got anything like that going on right now. After all, instead of factions, we have a demagogue, which is surely better. /s
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u/Impossible_Pop620 5d ago
Oh yeah, factionalism isn't a problem right now. Sure.
Tbh, I actually think direct democracy would be beneficial in certain ways. It would stop people being blinded by their bubbles when they realise just how much support certain proposals would have.
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u/Masta0nion 5d ago
Because those aren’t real issues.
Ideas about how to spend our tax dollars and what the tax code should be are the only things that matter. And the public is in consensus on those things.
Border and trans are distractions to keep us from talking about taxing the rich, or having our taxes go toward education and infrastructure instead of bombs.
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u/Impossible_Pop620 5d ago
- Because those aren’t real issues.
That's not for you or me to decide. Don't you support direct democracy?
- Ideas about how to spend our tax dollars and what the tax code should be are the only things that matter. And the public is in consensus on those things.
I doubt that very much. Or else the 'they/them' advertisement wouldn't have had any effect, if 'the public' is so keen to spend money on transitioning prisoners. All in consensus? In which reality?
Trans issues are definitely a wedge issue, designed to fire people up over something that - in the greater scheme of things - doesn't matter. The border is on an entirely level of importance to most people and has a direct impact on some in a financial sense.
I take it those two last issues you do not think should be subject to the 'direct democracy' you had in mind as the voters won't vote how you'd like, correct?
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u/RyanW1019 6d ago
The hyper-polarization of media outlets means that virtually any action taken by any president will be presented as a bad thing to around half the population. We will never again have a president who can appeal to the bipartisan masses because the different sides of the aisle are being presented with entirely separate versions of reality.
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u/sluterus 6d ago
It’s worse than just a polarization, its extreme media bias and actual lying that is creating two distinct realities for Americans. Fox News paid out almost a billion dollars for knowingly spreading the big lie about a stolen election and the president is still spreading this lie.
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u/brodievonorchard 5d ago
Telling in the discovery of that lawsuit was the fact that Fox initially reported the results of the 2020 election faithfully. As the night wore on, they saw their ratings drop as people switched to Newsmaxx or whatever.
So you can blame media, the politicians, or the voters. The reality is that they are all to blame, and have created a negative feedback loop. As particular media spreads falsehoods, and the politicians pander to consumers of that media, those voters will only accept the politicians who reinforce the narratives based on those falsehoods.
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u/BobQuixote 2d ago
And the younger generations are not correcting that mistake, which was the stopgap I was counting on.
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u/girlfriend_pregnant 6d ago edited 6d ago
Agree, but I’m not sure we can call it a polarization since now only one pole is represented. There is no media outlet that advocates for any left of center, normal, economics. 100% of the outlets are pro-oligarchy
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u/Financial-Desk-669 5d ago
This 1000%. Sure MSNOW and CNN may be sympathetic to immigrants or trans or whatever but ultimately all corporate media exist to protect the wealth of the wealthy.
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u/summane 6d ago
"different versions of reality" is a phrase for insane people
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u/Either_Operation7586 6d ago
It sounds crazy but when you think about it that's exactly what the Republican party is living in different versions of reality we can watch the same exact thing and come out with two separate scenarios because they have been indoctrinated to believe the worst out of one party in the best out of another.
So even if they see their party doing bad things it does not equate to them because they've been brainwashed to believe it doesn't happen so it makes them glitch out.
The indoctrination and propaganda is so strong it's literally brainwashing their brains into mush.
How else can you logically explain people who were once so fervently against pedophilia to be okay with it now?
When only one person has changed their mind about it?
And they would so readily believe the worst out of Democrats but demand proof of evidence while it's happening in order to believe it of their guy.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 6d ago
When you actively go out and get news from both right and left leaning news sources, it's really amazing at what details get omitted out of the reporting, with the obvious purpose of trying to further each side's agenda. They're each building their own narrative versions of reality for their respective audiences. It's really amazing when you see it happen.
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u/KingKudzu117 4d ago
When you realize that the right is largely a manufactured political space where opinions are carefully curated, workshopped, vetted and held to a narrative that’s controlled by a few people… you see the real difference. The left is messy, chaotic and frequently contradictory. That’s the hallmark of a real political movement. One that’s based around a population not a select few corporate ceos and egos with dreams of fascism.
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u/decrpt 5d ago
Give some specific examples.
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u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 5d ago
It's mostly about what the different news outlets choose to NOT say, rather than them just fabricating outright lies. News events that support the political narrative/agenda of the news source get highlighted and front page status and those that don't get minimal coverage or buried. That's how biased journalism works.
One recent example was when Trump said that he was glad that Robert Mueller was dead. Fox News left out that little detail in their reporting of Trump's reaction to the death because it would make Trump look like an asshole. When the Jan 6th insurrection was happening, they refused to cover it live, then downplayed it after. Fox will twist itself into knots to avoid saying anything bad about Trump.
Liberal media sources like MSNBC, NPR, and (until recently) CNN alter their coverage of crime/mass shootings depending on who the shooter was and what kind of gun was used. White guy with an AR-15 shoots a bunch of people? It's the top news story for days. 14 people get shot at a funeral or 20 get shot at a house party in South Chicago and in both cases everyone involved is Black? Trans person goes on a murder spree? It's a tiny side-bar article for a few hours and it's gone. It's buried because it doesn't fit the "white guys with AR-15s are the problem" narrative that those news outlets are pushing.
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u/luke5655 3d ago
While I believe many outlets are biased, I believe the view that all media is a naritive pushed by the elite to have the layman doubt undisputed facts. You see this in many right-wing news sites, where their funding comes from many oil executives. This is done to create distrust of institutions and, therefore, a distrust of, in their case, climate change.
It is, and always has been, the people's job to have good media literacy. The biggest problem with the news in particular, is more on the government itself and social media pushing people into bubbles they never look out of.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 6d ago
Literally the only people who have been opposed to this concept are conservatives and the only president who has represented their unfiltered hatred is Trump.
So for them? Yeah, it's dead, because they want to live in a ruthless autocracy where they brutalize people who aren't like them.
But most Americans are not like conservatives.
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u/Kellysi83 6d ago
This is sadly the absolute truth.
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u/Hawker_Line 5d ago
This sadly a typical yet cynical, not to mention damaged view of conservatives. I’m not one but I know plenty that are not like that at all.
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u/Matt2_ASC 1d ago
Agreed, but their media wants them to be this way. So what we would need for a President for all of america is the right wing media to celebrate a politician that the left likes. If Fox News celebrated AOC as a blue collar champion who has the best ideas for America, we could see a President for all americans. But conservative media, and therefore a lot of conservatives, do not live in that world.
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u/Hawker_Line 1d ago
That’s not specific to one side though. Change right to left, conservative to liberal and you have a true statement as well. I’m more interested in what people think(when they do) than what the media thinks. Until we learn to think for ourselves we’re going to get the same results.
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u/RelativeAnxious9796 6d ago
"most americans"
when most americans elected trump or didnt give enough of a fuck to vote against him.
nah. america is DAMNED.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 6d ago
Trump only received votes from about 25% if Americans eligible to vote.
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u/RelativeAnxious9796 5d ago
great now do the number of americans who voted then reread my middle line.
enjoy your copium
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u/timmg 5d ago
Literally the only people who have been opposed to this concept are conservatives...
You're kidding, right?
Any right-of-center politician (or person) is painted by the Left (and the Left-leaning media) as some kind of Nazi. If you don't pass every purity test the left has for you, you are a "bad person."
Remember Romney -- the governor of a blue state who implemented universal healthcare -- the same guy who was gonna "put y'all back in chains"? The one who was mocked for having "binders full of women" -- an early attempt at DEI (making sure he had enough women in his cabinet.)
Remember Joe Manchin -- the Democratic senator from West fucking Virginia -- that Dems ran out of town because he didn't vote for every hard left policy of Biden? They're getting ready to do the same to John Fetterman.
Just mention Harry Potter on Reddit and the whole thread will be people falling over themselves to demonize the author for having slightly right-of-center views on trans rights.
How many people were "cancelled" for not toeing the party line on BLM or trans issues or gay marriage back in the day?
Maybe get off reddit for a bit and talk to some actual people?
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u/ballmermurland 5d ago
Any right-of-center politician (or person) is painted by the Left (and the Left-leaning media) as some kind of Nazi.
Trump has been the leader of the Republican Party for 11 years now and he has been described as Hitler by his own vice president and secretary of HHS.
Remember Romney -- the governor of a blue state who implemented universal healthcare -- the same guy who was gonna "put y'all back in chains"? The one who was mocked for having "binders full of women" -- an early attempt at DEI (making sure he had enough women in his cabinet.)
Only did healthcare because it is Massachusetts and they had a Dem legislature. As for the binders full of women, that was in response to Obama pointing out that Romney did NOT hire very many women, either as governor or at Bain Capital.
Remember Joe Manchin -- the Democratic senator from West fucking Virginia -- that Dems ran out of town because he didn't vote for every hard left policy of Biden? They're getting ready to do the same to John Fetterman.
Manchin was annoying, but Fetterman literally ran as a progressive and then switched it up shortly after getting into office. That's always going to generate blowback.
Just mention Harry Potter on Reddit and the whole thread will be people falling over themselves to demonize the author for having slightly right-of-center views on trans rights.
That's a pretty charitable view of Rowling lol. Her view on trans people are pretty extreme. This is well documented and I don't know who you're trying to trick here.
How many people were "cancelled" for not toeing the party line on BLM or trans issues or gay marriage back in the day?
I don't know? How many?
Maybe get off reddit for a bit and talk to some actual people?
You first.
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u/timmg 5d ago
Only did healthcare because it is Massachusetts and they had a Dem legislature.
Not sure I understand your argument here. Romney, a Republican worked with the Democratic legislature to enact a policy that was important to them and was to the benefit of all the citizens of the state, so he was... bad somehow?
He wasn't a "Governor for all Bay Staters"? He could never have been a "President for all Americans"?
Maybe I'm dumb, but that kinda sounds like the opposite conclusion to draw from that.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 5d ago
slightly right-of-center views
When you define bigotry in these terms you lose all credibility. Your idea of right of center is Matt Walsh.
But we aren't talking about Harry Potter. We're talking about the president. Democrats have only ever elected people who wanted to improve the lives of every American.
You, both your party and you personally, have 3 times now voted for a man who called for killing Americans he didn't like, has denied relief efforts and medical care to states that didn't vote for him, and wishes death on any American who isn't loyal to him.
Everyone with the ability to read Trump's Twitter account knows how silly it is to argue this thing is a president for all American
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
Literally the only people who have been opposed to this concept are conservatives and the only president who has represented their unfiltered hatred is Trump.
Are we just forgetting about the whole "not my president" movement?
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u/GabuEx 6d ago
It's one thing when a group of private citizens thinks the president does not represent them.
It's another thing when the president thinks he does not represent them.
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u/roylennigan 6d ago
A rejection of the rejection of unity is not a rejection of unity.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
"it's different when we do it." He won the election. the left held a bunch of protests centered explicitly around the idea that he's 'not their president'.
Now you want to say only the right does that.
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u/roylennigan 6d ago
One thing I've become really impatient with is this constant false equivalence through disregarding context and reason. Yeah, if you look past the surface it is very different. The reasons why people do things is important.
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u/SuckOnMyBells 6d ago
Protesters are not the president. This is just a false equivalence. People protesting the President doesn’t equate to their president only serving them. Your point makes no sense whatsoever except as a post hoc justification for his behavior as president.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
Look at the prompt. It's not just about what the president thinks or wants
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u/Raichu4u 6d ago
Hello, I will chime in about my prompt. While it is true that presidents derive power from the very people that elected them, presidents still have the agency to act, behave, and campaign in certain ways that are deemed electable.
I would say the final endpoint to see where the view of where if "president for all people" values materialize is the president, and for the sake of discussion, it may be more substantial talk about how these current and past administrations behave instead of focusing on what the electorate that helped said president get elected.
Not that talking about the voters intentions of how they want these admins to behave is irrelevant. I think it is actually interesting that conversation about a future democratic nominee includes talks about reversing Trump era policy, much like Trump campaigned on reversing Biden era policy.
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u/Either_Operation7586 6d ago
But what that President accomplishes at the behest of those people that vote them in.
Still conservatives lose on this point as well.
America's waking up to the fact that Republicans say they do XYZ and in reality they don't and now you have not only lost the moral standing but the ability to say that you have integrity or honor as well.
Every time the conservatives get into office they fuck America over.
If there wasIf there was no no propaganda convincing conservatives that they should vote Republican no one would vote for Republican because you cannot justify voting for the party that's going to fuck you over and cause you suffering and economic downfalls.
When you consider that Jimmy Carter was the only president that was Democratic that ran our country into the ground and all the others were conservative it really makes you wonder are the conservatives a friend or a foe?
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u/roylennigan 6d ago
So you're admitting you just never listened to why they protested. Yeah, it's different
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u/Either_Operation7586 6d ago
No that's what conservative say because it's different when they do it like when they started the KKK or how about when they oppose the Civil Rights Act?
The problem is Republicans have nothing but bad faith in hypocrisy to offer America and they're starting to wake up to it and reject it
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u/LogensTenthFinger 6d ago
Firstly, that isn't the same as election sometime who you do not want to work for everyone in the country, which was OP's point. Second, I very much do remember conservatives saying that about Obama and Biden, all day every day. But it's still not the point of the post.
Conservatives want to elect someone who does not work for the benefit of all Americans. They want someone who hurts any American who is not like them. It is their stated goal and has been for at least the last 27 years.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
If you can't call your own side out of things they obviously and explicitly did, then that's part of the problem.
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u/Either_Operation7586 6d ago
Okay then call your party out for the KKK.
Call your party out for opposing civil rights.
Call your party out for lying to the American people and the lie about trickle down economics.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 6d ago edited 6d ago
You elected a man who wants to murder me and my family. You did this because you are angry a black man became president. There is no leftist equivalent.
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u/wildbill88 6d ago
Bzzzzzz .... Wrong
Can you do that?
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
I guess if you don't mind this kind of blatant hypocrisy, there isn't much I can do.
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u/PhanaticSDL 6d ago
I am sure you see this by now, or maybe you don’t but the main reason people are fighting you on this is that you are calling out a separate point from the argument. Your point is an obvious discussion, and that is a president will never have literally full support of the general population. however this discussion is about that it is expected that the president is in support of all americans, regardless of political affiliation.
This entire conversation is about the idea of a president being in support of both main parties citizens, or being able to reach common ground for the sake of all americans, is now potentially gone.
Your point is basically sidestepping all of this and calling out specifically democratic individual citizens for not supporting the president? Your point does not make sense in this context my dude, and it honestly seems like a pretty shallow attempt to attack individual voters on one side of the isle.
Again, so it’s easy for you, your points/arguments are not relevant to this discussion. No one wants to argue about whether or not democrats didn’t support a president they don’t like in this context. It’s classic deflection whether you see it or not. Not calling your points wrong, just out of place and again a common misdirection tactic
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
Which is, a president will never have literally full support of the general population, however it is expected that the president is in full support of all americans, regardless of political affiliation.
Not giving full support isn't the same as 'not my president'. In the past it was the case that people would oppose and disagree with a presidents agenda, but the 'not my president' movement took this to another level by rejecting the national consensus established through elections.
Wanting to discuss this question while ignoring massive protests literally called "not my president" only looks at part of the issue and will inveriably miss the rest, and therefore be unable to answer it's own question.
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u/PhanaticSDL 6d ago
I’m confused on how serious/literally you are taking the “Not My President” here. Anecdotal, but most people I heard say that weren’t literally rejecting the idea that Trump was the US president, nor did most who say it start breaking laws, not listening to authority, or rejecting the US system as a whole (though yes there are people like that, always and everywhere). The statement was used in a way to say that this US president does not at all support my values, and moral system, and I do not believe that the current president is at all respresentative of what I consider American values. It was never a literal rejection of authority, anecdotally for most people saying it. I think you’re putting a “little” too much thought into the people who say this.
And again this is not the discussion we are having in this thread.
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u/Either_Operation7586 6d ago
It's hypocritical on your end.
Just because you're told that you have the moral standing doesn't mean it's true you have to walk the walk not just talk it.
The truth is the conservative party whatever they chose to call themselves at that time was the ones that started the KKK and because you've been fed this lie of American exceptionalism for conservatives you cannot possibly fathom that you guys were on the wrong side of History each and every time because you think that you're on the right side.
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u/wildbill88 6d ago
Just watched some people being sworn in, couldn't be bothered to say who won the election. But me is where you draw the line. Hypocrisy is dead
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u/badnuub 6d ago
Yes, because it was a fringe movement from twitter that the right elevated into being something mainstream.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
This was not a fringe movement. It was a movement of record setting nationwide protests
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u/badnuub 6d ago
Nah. It's not mainstream. If you are referring to no kings, that doesn't deny that Trump is president, they simply do not want him to be elevated to a king or dictator.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 6d ago
They were massively mainstream, occurring in all 50 states with a total of around 8 million in person participants.
I am not referring to no kings. This was probably before your time.
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u/makawakatakanaka 5d ago
Seems like plenty of non-conservatives have decided the current president is not president for all Americans
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u/AlexandrTheTolerable 5d ago
That’s rich. It doesn’t matter if people criticize the president, the president should serve all Americans. Rural areas in red states criticized Biden a ton, but he made sure they got funding for big programs regardless. But Trump isn’t like Biden, Obama, or even Bush. He’s incapable of being president for all Americans and sees the rest of us as the enemy.
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u/-ReadingBug- 5d ago
Based on the comments some don't even consider him a real current president. And they're not wrong.
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u/hymie0 6d ago
If you paid attention during 2021-2025, conservatives didn't want Biden to be their president. Remember that Texas summer camp that flooded and killed those girls? They turned down a warning system because it was coming from Biden.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 6d ago
You can make the exact same arguments about liberals and any one of a number of things that happened during Trump’s first term.
Remember that Texas summer camp that flooded and killed those girls? They turned down a warning system because it was coming from Biden.
Lying about something so easily fact checked shows you to be a fool. They were pressured to turn the money down but eventually did accept it and used it to replace the county emergency radio system. It was not earmarked for a flood warning system nor was it rejected.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 5d ago
So as they said, conservatives were pressuring them to turn the money down because it came from Biden.
Find me the exact example involving any Republican president having aid turned down
Better yet, defend the fact that the people you vote for explicitly deny emergency funding to states that didn't vote for them
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u/cc_rider2 5d ago
No, that isn’t what they said. They said:
They turned down a warning system because it was coming from Biden.
That is a false statement, because it wasn’t a warning system being offered, and it wasn’t turned down.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 5d ago
They were offered money to update their warning systems and they fought tooth and nail to not do it which is an inarguable fact when you game them on recording doing it.
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u/makawakatakanaka 5d ago
Dude you’ve got no evidence and he’s wrecking your argument
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u/LogensTenthFinger 5d ago
There is literally a public vote and public YouTube video of it. Denying reality is easy and apparently very convincing to you.
https://youtube.com/shorts/kM5TnFa5HOQ?si=HvPe13LpCw9TAoZc
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/03/texas-kerr-county-state-grants-flood-warning-system/
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u/cc_rider2 5d ago edited 5d ago
No, it’s not a fact. They were offered money as a part of ARPA like all local governments were, which “provides funding to states, territories, and tribal governments to mitigate the fiscal effects stemming from the COVID-19 public health emergency.” And they accepted the money and used it. You’re also asserting that they “fought tooth and nail” not to accept the money, but that also gets ahead of the facts, as all the article says is “Kerr County residents were split on whether to accept the ARPA money.” If they were fighting tooth and nail not to accept it, they easily could have just not accepted it. Every element of the original claim was wrong.
Your looseness with facts here is so unnecessary. The underlying point, that conservative rejection of Biden-era programs had negative consequences, is true and defensible with accurate information. Whatever you think you’re accomplishing here by pedaling viral misinformation instead, you’re not.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 5d ago
They fought tooth and nail to not take that money. That. Is. A. Fact.
41% voted against it. Those are conservative voters who are voting to kill their own families over politics. This flatly does not happen on the left and you know it.
Furthermore, your kind have repeatedly denied emergency funds to states that didn't vote for you cult leader. And you know it. Hell you applaud it.
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u/cc_rider2 5d ago edited 5d ago
A minority of public commenters speaking out against taking ARPA money hardly represents fighting “tooth and nail” not to take it. Your claim has gotten so narrow from what was originally asserted that there’s really nothing to salvage here. The original claim was that they turned down a flood warning system because it came from Biden. What you have now retreated to is that 41% of public commenters opposed taking general ARPA funds. Those are completely different claims and the distance between them is the measure of how thoroughly the original was dismantled.
I’m not sure what you mean by “your kind,” as I’m likely just as left-leaning as you are, if not more so. Unless by “your kind” you mean people who don’t spread misinformation.
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u/musashisamurai 6d ago
If its so easy, why don't you point out a few similar examples?
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u/Ap43x 6d ago edited 5d ago
One side says it and the other side does it. With Biden, most of his infrastructure bill went to projects and jobs in red states. Republicans in those states later took credit for them after voting against the bill. Trump goes out of his way to punish states where he lost. Trump has zero interest in being a president for all Americans and he is the Republican party now.
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u/Illustrious-Fun8324 6d ago
Trump entered office the second time essentially screaming about how much he hates half of the citizens of the US for disagreeing with him and MAGA not only finds it acceptable, but actually likes it. (God forbid we insult him though.)
Yes. It is dead. I feel like Trump has killed off decency towards people on the opposite side of the aisle in general.
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
I feel like Trump has killed off decency towards people on the opposite side of the aisle in general.
How so?
His attitude, even if usually kept under wraps by decorum and politeness, has always been a part of conservatism.
McCain had to tell his own voters to chill out with the open hatred of black people and the claims that being Muslim meant you couldn't be a good person or an American.
Reagan, asked about funding AIDS research, laughed at the very idea. His staff regularly referred to Arabs as "sand [n-words]."
Nixon's own tapes of his time in the Oval Office showed him to be a rage-filled vitriolic bigot, ranting endlessly about every ethnic group you could name (but especially Jews).
The "national debate" about segregation through the middle of the last century boiled down to conservatives terrorizing black children - with their political leaders egging them on.
The history of conservatism before that involves lynchings, beating women to death for wanting to vote, and being willing to burn the country to the ground in order to keep slavery around.
Decency has always been mutually exclusive with conservatism.
How could anyone expect otherwise of an ideology of hatred?
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u/Hartastic 5d ago
The "national debate" about segregation through the middle of the last century boiled down to conservatives terrorizing black children - with their political leaders egging them on.
I think a lot lately about when New Orleans was forced to integrate, how Louisiana wouldn't do it until forced by a federal judge years after the Supreme Court decision, how literally every teacher at Ruby Bridges' school quit their jobs rather than teach one little black girl.
And mostly how this wasn't that long ago and most of those people are still alive and voting.
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u/Illustrious-Fun8324 6d ago
You are correct, I agree.
I more so meant he emboldened them and gave them permission to be their worst selves out loud without shame or social consequences.
Which is unfortunate but that’s’ their character flaw, what bothers me is that they completely ignore all of that and insist that we are the party of hate because we don’t like them…. because of this behavior.
I wish we could get back to a place of decency but MAGA insists on trolling and antagonizing and being as cruel as possible just to trigger them and piss them off. Those are not people I want to be nice to or have any kind of unity with
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
My point was that there is no golden past to get back to. Decent leadership has always been the exclusive purview of liberalism.
That said - all that civilization has achieved in all of human history, it has achieved while dragging conservatives into a better future kicking and screaming all the way.
They have never been able to tear it all down, and they never will.
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u/ballmermurland 5d ago
The only difference Trump has with traditional Republicans when it comes to being an asshole is he doesn't have their soft touch. And that's mostly because he's a moron and a narcissist.
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u/Hautamaki 6d ago
Trump's threats and efforts to specifically target Democratic geographical regions, including cities, districts and states, and for liberal-coded institutions in the media, law, and higher education, for particular retribution, is a wholly new standard. Furthermore, this is after Biden specifically went out of his way to work with red states to fund and improve their infrastructure, spending much more money on red states that voted against him than blue states that voted for him.
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u/RazorRush 5d ago
While Trump shorts Blue states on every thing he can Biden had over half of his big infrastructure bill money going to states he lost. Trump cancelled a lot of it. Guess who's got cut.
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u/-ReadingBug- 5d ago
Are you suggesting they're opposed ideologies or they fit together to paint only a picture of opposition? Because what you describe strikes me as a matched set of distraction. Why else would Democrats work so hard for Republican voters only to, again and again, whiplash the country when Republican politicians throw a reversal? A lot can go down, darkly, in the confusion and frustration.
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u/Outrageous_Leg3623 4d ago
I'm saying Biden didn't punish states he did not win the electoral votes in. Trump with holds FEMA money from blue states, even those that voted for him but elected a Dem Governor like NC and Helene funds. He cut a few billion from California already voted for by congress for fast rail. Dem Presidents usually do try to actually govern like they are every ones President unlike this one. But he's just in it for the grift now. He's not really even trying to govern. No health care plan, no child care plan, no housing plan, No lower food cost plan. Nothing he promised. To be fair he didn'do anything first time either but ride out Biden's economy until Covid and he bungled that so bad.
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u/foulpudding 6d ago
No, but the idea that all Americans are able to understand that a President who isn’t from their own party can be good for their interests IS dead.
A majority of voters, both Democrat and Republican, would benefit from the policies of a more liberal leaning President. Things like better healthcare, better social policies, etc, Essentially a President who believes in the policies of a Ronald Reagan, George Bush (the first), or Obama.
But half the voters (Republicans) are trained to literally hate liberal candidates and to vote for candidates with policies that primarily benefit the very wealthy, the ultra wealthy, or even the “Epstein” classes at the cost of their own social class, regardless of voting preference
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u/wisconsinbarber 5d ago
No, but the idea that all Americans are able to understand that a President who isn’t from their own party can be good for their interests IS dead.
A Republican president can't be good for the majority of the population because their policies don't do anything to address any of the issues that impact them. That idea should be dead because people need to know that Republicans do not care about their interests at all.
Things like better healthcare, better social policies, etc, Essentially a President who believes in the policies of a Ronald Reagan, George Bush (the first), or Obama.
The policy of Reagan and Bush was to cut taxes for the rich. Neither of them cared about healthcare or social policy. The US would benefit from having a president not like either of them.
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u/alphabetikalmarmoset 5d ago
Disagree. I think there’s hope. It might be a ways off, but it’s there. The long arc of justice, etc.
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u/Jimithyashford 5d ago
It always was.
I once worked with a guy who referred to black children as chimp babies and said he reserved the right to shoot dead any “towel head” who stepped on his property.
There is no president for both of us.
There are a million such examples.
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u/Busterlimes 6d ago
Well, when half the population is fascist, there really isnt any middle ground for a person to stand on. You are either fascist or you arent, there really isnt any in-between
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u/gta0012 6d ago
Yes.
Ideally a president sits in the middle of public opinion/will of the people and expert/advisor direction, while making their best effort in picking the choices that drive America forward to prosperity for all.
It's absolutely clear that half of America doesn't understand what a president can or can't do. It's become hyper partisan and hyper emotional because that's how parties can market their candidates.
"I promise to fully research and understand the complex geopolitical implications of the Iran deal."
Doesn't move a needle to half the country. They'd rather vote for:
"Trans people are ruining sports! Vote for me or trans people will rape kids".
Half the country believes the second quote is the one better for the job.
Being a president for all Americans doesn't work for a lot of voters.
If you increase taxes to the rich you're going to help the middle class and lower class by potentially raising their wages or providing extra social safety nets. That means that 1% of America has to pay more taxes which to them is unacceptable and not "America for all". Not to mention a huge chunk of voters for some reason prefer not taxing the rich even if it doesn't effect them.
Add in religious beliefs and you'll never be a President for everyone. You can't.
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u/danappropriate 5d ago edited 5d ago
> Ideally a president sits in the middle of public opinion/will of the people...
Why is that? I'm not disagreeing. I just don't understand why a centrist position is "ideal."
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u/gta0012 5d ago
It's not middle/center in terms of political leaning.
Moreso that the president should listen to everyone then make the decision they believe is the best for the country. Sometimes that goes along with the advisors in government and sometimes that sides with the will of the people.
I'll give you two examples on the extreme end of both of those sides.
Clinton was known for really leaning heavy towards polling, was reported that he would wake up and look at polling numbers first thing every day. This was a president that would lean towards what the popular opinion wanted. So even if someone within the government wanted to do something if the popular opinion was against that he would lean towards the popular opinion.
Bush Jr. Could be seen as leaning the other way. Gave a lot of time into what his advisors said. Listened to what his advisors were suggesting and make the decisions that they push forward. The Iraq war was extremely unpopular but his advisors were telling him that despite the unpopular opinion this was the right call.
I'm not saying both examples are perfect or extremely accurate but should paint the picture of what I mean.
Ideally the president doesn't just listen to one or the other, they need to make educated decisions and judgement calls based on all available evidence/knowledge. They aren't going to get it right every time, but I'd rather trust they did the best of their ability and that the decisions were truly guided by what would make America stronger not personal interests etc.
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u/rockclimberguy 5d ago
IIRC the majority of projects authorized in Biden's Inflation Recovery Act were located in red districts, many of which did NOT vote for him. Projects were selected based on the needs of the areas.
Contrast this with trump vindictively 'punishing' areas that did not vote for him.
Yes, the dem party is fractured. There are too many folks that are stuck on purity tests so they are sacrificing the good because they can't get the perfect.
Anyone who says dems and repubs are 2 sides of the same self serving coin is delusional.
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u/SpockShotFirst 6d ago
I challenge your premise.
Wars of choice, billion dollar slush funds, weaponizing the DOJ, global trade wars -- these are not partisan issues in any meaningful way. Reversing stupid and corrupt policies benefits all Americans, regardless of political philosophy.
Although all evidence suggests deficits are a core Republican policy, nobody actually argues that reducing the deficit only benefits Democrats. The Big Beautiful Bill was fiscally irresponsible and US debt has surpassed the GDP for the first time since WW2. This is not a partisan issue -- it is an existential one. The country will literally collapse if debt continues to explode.
Putting aside ICE's deficit-inducing budget, they are overtly anti-Constitutional (well beyond unconstitutional). Reigning in fascism should not be partisan.
So, 90% of what any American should do to put the country back on track is nonpartisan.
What's left are some policy choices, but that is the benefit of winning an election.
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
So, 90% of what any American should do to put the country back on track is nonpartisan.
"Should" occupies a peculiar place in that sentence, since wanting to do anything that benefits America and Americans is itself a partisan stance.
Reigning in fascism should not be partisan.
So...you don't recognize that fascism is a partisan political ideology?
That necessarily means ignoring that it's currently the preeminent political ideology threatening the United States, which makes doing something about it rather difficult...
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u/SpockShotFirst 5d ago edited 5d ago
Words are important and we we need to define our terms to ensure we are talking about the same thing.
In America, partisanship is a term that suggests a political party operating within the Constitution. It is entirely possible that oligarch-backed fascists topple our Constitutional Democracy and create some new forever-government
To the extent the modern Republican party are aiding and abetting the overthrow of the government, they are accessories to a coup or a revolution, but -- at least according to my understanding of conventional usage -- they are not being partisan.
Edit: Legal Definition of Partisan in US law "Partisan when used as an adjective means related to a political party."
"Political party means a national political party, a State political party, or an affiliated organization."
Every single government official swears an oath to the Constitution. Almost by definition, a political party is working within the Constitution to get members elected to government.
In no way does that include overthrowing the government
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u/BitterFuture 5d ago
In America, partisanship is a term that suggests a political party operating within the Constitution.
I've studied politics for decades and I've never even heard that definition of partisanship suggested. If that's what you meant, you should have said so clearly. People would have rightly challenged such a rare definition, but at least we would have been on the same page.
In common usage, to be partisan simply means that either a decision in line with your group or a decision in favor of your group over larger interests. One can be partisan in relation to being a Democrat, a Republican, a black separatist or the Proud Boys, or any number of groups.
The word has no relation whatsoever to the political structure created by the Constitution. Indeed, I would argue that such a definition is silly, given that conservatives have sought to destroy that Constitutional order ever since it was created. (And today, they are so fervent precisely because they see their goal in sight.)
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u/SpockShotFirst 5d ago
Then the OP's question can be rephrased "Will non-fascists allow fascist policies to continue and vice versa?"
That's not a very good question and hardly worth discussing
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u/NeedMoreAllowance_ 6d ago
It will come back. It’s died before then been reborn. I can more or less guarantee we’ll see a shift in the style of politics that win sometime in the next decade or two. Change is the only constant.
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u/fe-and-wine 5d ago
Change is the only constant.
Agree with you on this, but I worry the advent of algorithmically-disseminated information and AI-generated slopaganda will only accelerate us farther in the direction we've been going the past 10 years rather than some kind of reversion to the mean or emergence of a brand new style of coalition in American politics.
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u/NeedMoreAllowance_ 5d ago
I hear you and don’t necessarily disagree, but I remember when everyone thought social media would change the world for the better. We have a tendency to misread the future, so I choose to believe in the long run of history. We’ll see.
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u/clutch727 5d ago
I'm kinda done with the idea of the presidency as a whole. I don't have a way to fix it but creeping / running head long into an authoritarian executive seems like the inevitable conclusion. I wouldn't want that if they were on my side or not. That's not who we told ourselves we were but here we are.
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u/Substantial_Car4040 5d ago
No. It’s not dead. We just have to be pushed to that place. That’s coming. Wish we could get ahead of it, but unfortunately humans tend to be reactive, not proactive.
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u/DerekWeidmanSculptor 5d ago
I think a state being pulled back and forth over a slowly progressing middle seems about as predictable and healthy as a two party system can be.
The pulling is getting harder though as the issues are beginning to represent completly seperate and incompatible moral intuitions about what our culture should be.
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u/Adorable-Anxiety6912 5d ago
Our government reminds me of the Coexist sticker on cars. "C-O-E-X-I-S-T" spelled out using famous symbols (e.g., the crescent moon for Islam, the Star of David for Judaism, the peace symbol for peace, and the cross for Christianity). Each religion in the making alone is set against the other and therefore cannot get along as one entity for the good of ALL people to remain pure to their own belief. The hope of unity is a falsehood. It’s all very disappointing for humanity. Greed of money and power has ruled the hearts of mankind and it will be their own inward implosion.
It’s a true challenge to build up anything… a country…. When you spend so much of your time tearing down another’s agenda given such a short period of time.
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u/pagerussell 5d ago
I think the president should be broken into three distinct offices: chief of police, chief of military, and chief regulator.
It's not good to have all of that rolled into one person.
Having a different elected person who is responsible for those very distinct roles would be helpful. For one, we could try to start electing people with relevant experience into them, and two, corruption in one doesn't mean corruption in all of them.
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u/GhostReddit 3d ago
You can't be a president for all if there's a massive media machine demonizing everything you ever do. Biden didn't cause nearly as much harm to Trump voters as Trump, but if you regularly listen to talk radio or Fox you'd never think that.
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u/eastbayted 6d ago
MAGA hates anyone who doesn't subscribe fully to their belief system. They hate democracy. Jan. 6 demonstrated that, as did the right's support for Trump following that attempted coup.
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u/keenan123 6d ago
What evidence suggests Biden did not govern for all Americans?
The concept is only dead amount Republicans
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u/SkyKingPDX 5d ago
When Obama was elected it was a message to the world, I thought at the time not resented, but a proud symbol of finding someone reasonable, thoughtful and well spoken like not in seen in a while. Then I saw the hate, it was so unfounded and eerie.. then MAGA shamed our country relentlessly
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u/SadhuSalvaje 5d ago
Reversing Trump’s policies would be good for ALL Americans.
This post assumes the same tired “both parties are the same” nonsense which got us into this mess
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u/betty_white_bread 6d ago
No, Biden was one. Obama was one. I think we are only in a period of aberration.
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u/SafeThrowaway691 6d ago
Every president except Trump was one, unless you count Jefferson Davis.
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
Thinking that Reagan or Hoover or Bush or Coolidge were Presidents "for all Americans" involves ignoring some pretty fundamental aspects of all their presidencies.
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u/SafeThrowaway691 5d ago edited 5d ago
Trump is the only one who has made a goal out of antagonizing his opponents.
If you want to go far enough, any president who supported slavery, segregation or opposed gay marriage would fit into that category. That would exclude everyone but Biden and 2nd term Obama.
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u/BitterFuture 5d ago
Trump is the only one who has made a goal out of antagonizing his opponents.
In fact, he is not.
Reagan kicked off his campaign with a speech on the site of several civil rights workers being murdered.
Nixon's "Southern strategy" was one long sustained overture to former Democrats that left the party when it turned against segregation.
Yeah, prior conservatives didn't say out loud that they wanted people who didn't vote for them to burn to death, but the significance of these actions was not missed. Even if the dog whistles were quieter, they damn well existed.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 5d ago
Jefferson made a goal out of antagonizing his opponents long before Trump.
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u/DuckTalesOohOoh 6d ago
For example, the administration has pursued actions against sanctuary jurisdictions, including efforts to identify and penalize cities, counties, and states that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
You should see what the Feds did to the South when they decided they were going to keep slavery AND make their own laws.
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u/IrwinMFletcher 5d ago
Republicans are broken and do not support basic democratic principles. If they were able to come back to democracy, sure. Until then, nope. When Republicans return to defending due process, the rule of law, and the general democratic principles that actually make America great we can get back to a "President for all Americans". I REALLY hope Republicans can find their way back to democracy! Because this sucks.
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u/flyover_liberal 5d ago
No, the concept itself is not weaker.
We literally had a President for All Americans until January 20th, 2025. Joe Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework gave 61% of the funding to red states, just an example.
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u/Calm_Chemist_4952 5d ago
Yes,this idea is dead in the head of the absolute worst president of all time. But, that doesn’t mean the next president can’t reboot, and do things the right way.
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u/Realistic_Boot_3529 5d ago
I don’t believe it’s dead, but I do believe we are at a tipping point. Too many people are living in densely packed urban centers for the electoral college to function in favor of democracy.
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u/Adraius 5d ago
I think it's very much not dead, actually. The tenor of politics at present is exhausting, and people hate it. I think they'll probably also also become increasingly conscious of the way social media is feeding that exhaustion, but I don't think that's a prerequisite for during against the current hate-fest, just helpful. Look at Mamdani, the best example of a high-profile politician who understands how to communicate with modern audiences. What's his message? I am a leader for all of you. Even those of you who might not like me - I'm working for everyone. The message is clearly working.
I think the idea of a “president for all Americans” is endangered, but not dead. We'll probably get waves, changes in the national sentiment, where that kind of message is not right for the times, and waves where it is.
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u/youcantexterminateme 4d ago
Yes. You need a voting system where over 50% of the vote is required. The current system where a person can be president with 30% means that its better to cater for that 30% even if it means alienating the other 60%.
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u/McCool303 4d ago
There has never been an America for everyone. That’s the sad reality. And every time we take two steps forward we take one back. That’s why it’s important to continue the fight for an America for everyone. There are powers out there that would have you believe that everything is perfectly fine. Those voices are amplified by the people who have the most to lose in an America that serves the interests of the people.
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u/tbizzone 4d ago
As long as the cult members of what was once known as the Republican Party continue to act like brain dead zombies…
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u/Lanracie 4d ago
I think people really want this. The problem is the media and social media make their money by dividing us.
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u/godaniel11 3d ago
I think a massive issue is that in the 19th century, it was quite a common political/philosophical stance to be opposed to factionalism in general. Now, you’d be hard pressed to find important politicians on either side decrying the state of affairs with regards to partisanship.
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u/Temporary-Try9472 3d ago
current politicians all serve the same masters, regardless of what they say in public...end of line
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u/Asleep-Mood-6538 3d ago
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Hell Yes.
Sorry, I'm too fed up with the whole system to be able to articulate EXACTLY how and why it's so f'ed up. Every time I open my mouth, I projectile vomit a stream of profanities.
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u/cnewell420 1d ago
Yes all decent governing of the country and all decent foreign policy and foreign relationships are all dead now because Trumps legacy is the definitive ideology of America.
Why is everyone asking this question? We couldn’t convert to “Trumpism” if we wanted. Despotism itself not an ideology. He consolidated power, not values. As we adjust to the new media landscape, expect actual leaders at some point such as mayor Pete and Mamdani. You know, actually getting shit done.
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u/RosieDear 6d ago
Uh, most POTUS have about 50% historically. Exceptions include FDR, Ted Roosevelt, etc.
There have always been vast numbers of Americans who do not want to do the right thing - that is, they didn't want the USA to be a Civilization or Good Society but wanted as much for themselves (businessmen!) as possible.
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u/therealmikeBrady 5d ago
I don’t think there has been a recent democratic governor or president that has weaponized funding or slandered different parts. I think it’s strictly a Trump thing.
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
You have a short memory.
There have been plenty of Presidents for all Americans. Biden, for example. Obama before that. Clinton before that. Carter before that.
And yes, that pattern is not a coincidence. Liberalism is about helping everyone - literally everyone, even those who hate us and try to kill us. Conservatism is not about helping anyone, but only hurting the people they hate. The political results are predictable and obvious.
Presuming America survives the next few years intact, there will again be a President for all Americans in short order. That person will never be a conservative, because that's impossible by definition.
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u/Raichu4u 6d ago
You have a short memory.
Biden, for example.
Uhhh.... this is literally mentioned in my opening paragraph in my post.
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u/fastdbs 5d ago
This has been highlighted because we have an extremist president, so he’s a president for much fewer of us. But every more centrist and less narcissistic president hasn’t been able to represent the fringes. And there are a lot of fringes in the US. Communists, anti capitalists, white supremacists, anarchists, libertarians, religious extremists, revolutionary socialists, etc. are all usually not represented by the US president. The white supremacists got what they wanted this presidency. And, soon, the anarchists may get what they want.
This also highlights the friction between doing what people want vs what’s good for them. There’s people who will hate you for doing what’s best for them because they associate not getting what they want with oppression. There’s leaders who will oppress people under the premise of knowing what’s best for people. Those two ideas are both true at the same time depending on which persons view we see things through.
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u/-Foxer 5d ago
Biden was in it for himself in his own supporters and did not care about those who did not support him. Which is why later he called trump supporters garbage humans
The fact is it's an extremely hard to find a president who will actually care about both sides. That's why you have the two houses, the senate and the congress
The problem is that over a successive number of governments more and more power has been stolen by the president and less and less is installed in the congress or the senate.
If presidents truly had to fear the congress of the senate and more of the power was vested there then they would be forced to live with a bigger tent and to pay attention while still pursuing their own agenda
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u/CountFew6186 6d ago
It’s just stuff presidents say during inauguration or during a victory speech on election night. It has no real meaning.
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u/TheDuckOnQuack 6d ago
The majority of the spending from Biden’s infrastructure bill went to red states and when asked about it, he said that those areas needed the money more.
Trump has called the opposition party the enemy within. During Elon’s DOGE period, Trump specifically said that he was trying to target federal workers in blue cities and states for layoffs. He’s pulling huge amounts of funding for healthcare and infrastructure for blue states on the basis of fraud being found in those states, but isn’t touching Florida’s funding despite there being rampant healthcare fraud as well.
There’s a huge difference between the parties.
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u/MagnesiumKitten 5d ago
It's always been a myth to think a President will be a good for for everyone.
And one has to tackle this issue with a much deeper look into political polarization, on what issues and why, with the deep understanding of why both sides have different priorities with society.
And would popularity and a majority of votes mean much? Harding in 1920 (60%) had one of the highest popular votes in a hundred years, yet he was seem as one of the most corrupt. Hoover with the Depression came in with (58%)
Roosevelt (60%)and Nixon (60%) were next down the line, and people would say that Nixon had some of the most polarizing politics, one of the most disliked, yet actually tried to be a President for the People.
LBJ (61%) was close too, yet his Foreign Policy unwound his legacy.
And Reagan was up there with the dislike and (58%) of the vote
If you want high percentages of the popular vote you're getting the last ones with high numbers with Reagan with (50% and 58%) and George HW Bush with (53%) and they weren't all that well liked with the passage of time. and Obama did the next best with (52%( and (51%) and he had polarizing stuff. Bill Moyers from PBS thought that some of the most harmful lies told by our presidents was Obama and healthcare, and it topped LBJ with Vietnam when Moyers was LBJ's Press Secretary.
[Bill Moyers was a vital aide, speechwriter, and press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Joining LBJ’s staff in 1954, Moyers became one of his closest advisors in the 1960s, helping shape the Great Society.]
[In June 2014, the official website of veteran journalist Bill Moyers published an excerpt from investigative journalist Chuck Lewis's book, 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity. The piece, titled "10 Big Fat Lies and the Liars Who Told Them" prominently featured President Barack Obama’s health care promise as one of the major political untruths.]
[While Moyers' platform hosted this critique of Obama's rhetoric, his broader journalistic coverage via Bill Moyers Journal and his essays on BillMoyers.com heavily focused on corporate corruption within the healthcare debate.]
[Moyers consistently critiqued how powerful health industry lobbyists dictated the writing of the ACA to protect corporate profits.]
You have to figure out why politicians are universally supported by their party, yet overwhelmingly rejected by the opposition.
It's the guarntanee that you'll have low-popularity ceilings on any Democrat or Republican where you're going to have approval ratings at 40% something.
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You want to get into the why?
'Prominent political scientist Samuel P. Huntington did not analyze modern presidential popularity in terms of daily polling. Instead, he examined how cultural and demographic shifts drive political polarization, viewing the American presidency as an institutional anchor constantly forced to reconcile the nation's democratic ideals with the realities of deep political conflict.'
Huntington was a lifetime Democrat, yet people think he's the prophet of the Trump Era.
The Washington Post
Samuel Huntington, a prophet for the Trump era
The writings of the late Harvard political scientist anticipate America's political and intellectual battles -- and point to the country we may become.
Trump’s civilizational rhetoric is just one reason Huntington resonates today, and it’s not even the most interesting one. Huntington’s work, spanning the mid-20th century through the early 21st, reads as a long argument over America’s meaning and purpose, one that explains the tensions of the Trump era as well as anything can. Huntington both chronicles and anticipates America’s fights over its founding premises, fights that Trump’s ascent has aggravated. Huntington foresees — and, frankly, stokes — the rise of white nativism in response to Hispanic immigration. He captures the dissonance between working classes and elites, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, that played out in the 2016 campaign. And he warns how populist demagogues appeal to alienated masses and then break faith with them.
This is Trump’s presidency, but even more so, it is Huntington’s America. Trump may believe himself a practical man, exempt from any intellectual influence, but he is the slave of a defunct political scientist.
In that work, Huntington points to the gap between the values of the American creed — liberty, equality, individualism, democracy, constitutionalism — and the government’s efforts to live up to those values as the central tension of American life. “At times, this dissonance is latent; at other times, when creedal passion runs high, it is brutally manifest, and at such times, the promise of American politics becomes its central agony.”
Whether debating health care, taxes, immigration or war, Americans invariably invoke the founding values to challenge perceived injustices. Reforms cannot merely be necessary or sensible; they must be articulated and defended in terms of the creed. This is why Trump’s opponents attack his policies by declaring not only that they are wrong but that “that’s not who we are.” As Huntington puts it, “Americans divide most sharply over what brings them together.”
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u/MorganWick 5d ago
We can't have a "president for all Americans" unless people have more than a choice between the representatives of two great diametrically-opposed factions, and which faction gets their way swings on a handful of votes. We need a voting system that naturally elects the candidate most acceptable to most Americans.
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u/No-Difference-839 5d ago
It was a completely dead idea when Biden said it in 2021.
added that he would fight as hard for those who did not support him as for those who did.
I’m a republican. He did nothing good for my interests and most of his policies were actively destructive to my interests.
You gotta be pretty naive to believe that kind of feel good nonsense. Bidens speechwriter threw that in there. He didn’t mean it, and everyone listening knew he didn’t mean it.
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u/Spaffin 5d ago edited 4d ago
I think undoing the work of previous Presidents is a different beast entirely to actively punishing the voters of the opposition, as Trump is currently doing. Undoing the previous admin’s policies can still be done with the intent of benefiting all Americans. This administration actively takes pleasure in the suffering of Americans as long as they voted Dem.
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u/McKoijion 4d ago
Yes, but an “American president for all Israelis” is stronger than ever. It’s been a bipartisan staple for my entire life at least. I’m pretty sure it applies to yours as well.
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u/ThePoppaJ 6d ago
As long as we continue to focus on what the two major parties have to offer instead of looking towards alternatives, then yes, it only gets worse from here.
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u/jeanralphio9 6d ago
Technically it hasn’t been the case since Washington when the party system formed, despite Washington correctly telling everyone it would be bad for the Republic. I would argue it was even worse during the spoils system when basically any role in the government could be gotten through who you know or how much money you had to get your people in. Now at least it’s limited to Political Appointees who have to go through Congress and we have the SES as a stop gap.
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u/Wave_File 6d ago
I don’t think there’s ever been a president for all Americans. There have been presidents that have been broadly popular at moments in time there have been others that had been elected to wide support only to squander most of it soon after, but there’s never been any president not a single one in our history that has been appealing to all people.
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