I added air quotes to make irony obvious.

People these days use /s for that, not quotes..

You should understand what putting a word in quotes means, regardless of internet memes.

According to Wikipedia [1], and I quote:

"A quotation or quote is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation

By quoting "far-left" the poster is indicating that he himself does not believe that Obama is far left but that it is something someone has said or written about Obama.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes

I "support" the article's criticism section.

Agree, but when you staff an entire agency with his supporters, the echo chamber effect can result in it becoming a hive of far-left types.

The same would apply to the right too, except that the right tends to shut down agencies, not create them.

DHS is a counterexample here. It’s huge.

Especially on the international stage. American "far-left" is totally different to say, European "far-left."

Obama wasn't US far left either though. More center right.

Obama wasn't a member of the Weather Underground. He was 16 when it was dissolved and had never lived on the same continent where it operated.

Separately, your unprovoked personal attack on me is contrary to site policy.

Yes, what's center right in the US is "far left" to the far right currently in power.

He was real big on identity politics, and largely responsible for many cultural shifts to the far left in the past 15 years.

I think you made this up. Do you have any evidence at all? What do you even consider a "shift to the far left"?

Thats the problem. "Far-left" is just a label thrown around by ideological people without hard arguments.

Core leftism is about wealth distribution and unbounded solidarity. Being only pro-LGBTQ imo does not make you a leftist and yet, look around in this thread, what is brought up to proove left leaning tendencies.

The labeling/propaganda unfortunately worked and we devolve into tribal identity politics. Thats why some people think we just passed a far-left decade.

”Far left” is the new ”communism”. ”The civil rights movement is communism.” ”Gay marriage is far left.” The labels don’t mean anything else than ”something we don’t like and you should be scared of”.

Obama would be "far right" by current Democrat standards. He was against gay marriage in 2008, for example.

Funny, because I remember he was a far-left muslim communist from Africa back then by Republican standards.

Of course, it goes without saying that opposing same-sex marriage doesn't make one "far right". I mean, I know you knew that and are just ragebaiting – but I wanted it to be explicitly clear for others.

I'm not rage-baiting. I'm saying it's a reasonable point that people can disagree on, but if any Republican candidate had had it as a policy position in the last election they would have been labelled as "Far Right".

Yes, you’re rage-baiting; a republican candidate would have been labeled that way because of the aggregate of their positions, not this one.

Though of course, that is by modern standards quite a conservative right position to take. (And incidentally not one I’d consider reasonable to take; though I’m obviously biased by being directly affected)

No, I don't think it takes more than one position to get you labelled "far right" these days. The Free Speech Union, which is UK pressure group in favour of free speech was recently labelled "far right" by Wikipedia for promoting free speech.

This is what I mean by rage-baiting :)

Disagreeing with you is rage-baiting?

I just checked the wiki, but can't find the far-right references.

There is some chatter in the Talk page about some members of the group associating with far-right figures and pushing some very dodgy views on far-right topics. Is this what you are referring to?

The far right accusation was recently removed after they publicised it.

Which dodgy views on far right topics?

And Kamala Harris was labeled far-left for campaigning on a Trump-lite platform on immigration and the economy that appealed to no one.

I'm not sure if "free sex changes for illegal immigrants" counts as "Trump-lite"

Your mind was really warped by conservative propaganda wasn’t it? Amazing how effective it is on a certain type of person. Reality just doesn’t matter at all to you does it?

Look, I voted for Kamala and donated >$100 to her campaign. And I agree that it was absolutely not in any way the focus of her campaign.

But it's not lying to point out that she was for that in 2019. The fact that the video was made into a campaign ad doesn't make it false.

It's not propaganda if it's true.

"free sex changes for illegal immigrants" is a campaign slogan. That you are engaging with this topic at a slogan-level means you are not here to really here for curious inquiry. You sound like a election ad.

>And Kamala Harris was labeled far-left for campaigning on a Trump-lite platform on immigration and the economy that appealed to no one.

I am begging people on the left to stop slandering "we will enforce the law" as a right-wing position. It is not, shouldn't be, and the right doesn't deserve to get credit for it.

Kamala wasn't "Trump-lite" any more than AOC is "Stalin-lite". The differences between the two are fucking categorical.

Obama was further to the right than the conservatives in the UK at the time.