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Over the past 4 years, the right wing news machine (Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, The Corner etc.) have painted President Obama as a socialist striving to rewrite the American Experience. They have done this before with other people, but they have perfected the system with President Obama.
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Per this narrative, President Obama passed "socialized medicine of Obamacare" - which is actually based on a Republican think tank proposal. He "left Iraq with his tail between his legs" - when he followed the George W Bush negotiated timeline. He is "ruining the incentive for work" - when he actually lowered federal taxes and gave small business owners tax breaks to hire workers.
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I am not arguing the applicability of these remarks. If someone honestly thinks that President Obama is a "socialist" there is no arguing with them. The problem is that rhetoric is now believed by many on the right - but it isn't true. Not only isn't it true, people tend to tune one out when you say things like that.
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And I know of what I speak. Many on the left - especially the gay community - felt the same overwhelming hatred of George W Bush. Ed and I couldn't carry on a conversation with them either. Where Ed and I felt W's over the top gay-bashing was only for political expediencies' sake, some friends really though George W. Bush was going to round us up and lock us away. Explaining that George W. Bush wasn't Ivan the Terrible was met with the same condescending look of "you're too stupid to understand" that we get from Republican friends when we say Barak Obama isn't a socialist or even very liberal in most things.
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It's going to be a long 4 years either way.