There is no photo to accompany this post because quite frankly the image of Barack Obama will forever haunt me as a once loyal Democrat that voted for his presidency twice and lived to regret it.
Seeing him now only reminds me of how easy it was to be duped into believing he would have all of America's best interest at heart and that somehow he would find a way to more unite our country after the bad taste that was left in so many mouths following the George W. Bush era. What we got on return for our investment of trust in him was a more divided nation than at any time since the American Civil War! Sadly, after all of the hope, this is how he will be remembered by many that trusted him to do better than he was clearly capable of doing.
When I look back on his tenure as the most powerful person in the world I can only come up with one thing that has happened under his watch that had a positive effect on the majority of us; the cost of gasoline tumbled to an affordable price for everyone that needed it. As far as many of us are concerned the only benefactors of his presidency has been foreign governments, the lobbyists that delivered wealthy investors who funded his campaigns, attention seekers and anyone bumming a free ride or demanding clemency from being held accountable for anything.
I saw a popular sway in American values and expectations under the Obama regime by people who identified themselves as Democrats and it was as if they were all holding matches to fuses with intentions of burning down most of the traditions that were struggled for, bled for, and have lasted more than 200 years that identified us as the strongest nation in the world. Not a perfect nation, and certainly one (like all others) that could stand a tune-up from time-to-time, but not one in dire need of turning us all against one another until we either fix everything at once or go to war with ourselves.
That is what happened in the 2016 election; we went to civil war against those that saw our country differently than we did or wanted it to become something we didn't want. The fuses were lit to pit everyone that stood for ideals that were traditional America values against everyone that either never respected them at all, or felt strongly they were no longer good enough. In our zeal to rise above prejudices and protect democracy for all we found ourselves wallowing in the gutters of hate-filled rhetoric, pointing fingers of blame and sacrificing decency and civility to one another for believing what we believed.
For us Democrats that felt disenfranchised by the failures and lack of concern for the whole country at the national level as well as by other Democrats within state and local party ranks it was not a difficult decision to break away and cross the lines that divided so many. We looked at and listened to who the Democrats had in mind to succeed him when it came time for Obama and his flock to vacate the White House and we heard loud and clear the other side. For me it was a first: never before did I ever consider trusting the Republicans with my vote and making it count for anything that would be in my best interest, but this time it was the Democrats not them that convinced me that I should.
In the end it came down to a handful of choices; two major party candidates that didn't seem to even belong in the same country (let alone be trusted by half of it to lead it back to grace and prosperity) and a few power-hungry renegades who identified themselves as neither Democrat nor Republican; none of whom seemed smarter than a fifth grader, and each of whom could have caused nothing but chaos and further discombobulation within our already fragile and vulnerable borders.
The Democrat's choice to assume responsibility for leading us in the post-Obama era was a woman that sported what amounted to a hateful chip growing from both shoulder blades. Her rhetoric against traditional America was as condescending and laced with as much racial divide and content for men and women that longed for being treated with respect for their sacrifices as Mr. Obama fostered and cultivated during his two terms. In many ways she came off as sounding evil and certainly more dangerous to the whole of the country than he.
In the final debate between her and the Republican nominee she railed against and questioned his patriotism when he suggested a wait and see attitude when asked if he would accept and support the process we have always used to select our presidents, and when it was over it was her and her followers that wouldn't go away quietly. Instead they protested vigorously and called for others to protest; they promised (and are still promising) total disruption of the results. They spent and wasted tens of millions of dollars on futile recounts, hoping for a miracle that would further change how we choose our leaders from a fair process to only something fair for them. In short, the entire world saw the new Democratic Party that I and apparently many others warned was festering before our very eyes during the Obama era.
I will remember President Obama not only for his many failures and weaknesses, but equally important for what he was able to accomplish; disruption of the old Democratic Party and how he led a national movement to redefine what it stands for, a wider racial divide since the 1960s, his promise for affordable health care for all Americans that left me spending more than a third of my income for insurance premiums and oh yes...lower gas prices. The idea that choosing the first African American president would unite us more and break down racial barriers that existed before him proved just the opposite and if he is an honest man he will claim the lion's share of responsibility for that.
When he said he wanted to be the president for all Americans he must have changed his mind sometime near the end of his first term when his focus shifted from all to only those making the most noise. His "squeaky wheel gets the grease" policies were carried out and paid for with higher taxes for businesses and working Americans that supported him and received nothing in return but made to feel double-crossed. And in the end, at this time for him to go, he has shown only low-class surrender of his powers by mocking and criticizing the man selected through due-process to replace him, while promising nothing to aid in facilitating changes that have potential to be positive for more people than he was able to deliver.
Even the First Lady refuses to leave quietly or with any resemblance to grace or dignity. Saying that because her preferred candidate lost the election she now knows what it feels like to not have any hope is a back-handed slap in the faces of people everywhere that really have known hopelessness. It is a punch in the gut to hungry and homeless people that never found a way out of despair under her husband's presidency; it is a kick in the groin to everyone forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and to sick people who cannot afford to see a doctor or anyone that was forced to file bankruptcy because they went when they needed to.
Her comments about knowing what hopelessness feels like when the servants that have served her for eight years are gone and when there are no highly trained Secret Service agents there to protect her and her children any longer is salt into the wounds of every family that lost someone who was murdered in some ghetto in America that she and her husband all but ignored and were left to become dirtier and more dangerous. It probably tightened the tourniquets and heightened the mental anguish of every wounded veteran now struggling for decent medical care for what they went through to keep our country safe, and for every college kid drowning in tuition debt it probably left them wondering why they even went to school in the first place.
Michelle Obama leaves her perch in high society a woman as defiant and stained by arrogance as her husband, and it is fair to attack her; the long honored tradition of keeping First Ladies immune from verbal prosecution for the failures of their husbands went by the wayside when she inserted herself as a voice and believing she spoke for the majority of the country. The immunity from scorn left her as it did when it no longer applied to Mrs. Clinton when she too insulted half the country.
When Mrs. Obama took the low road to mock the newly elected president and everyone that supported him she stood like a soldier defending what she believed was the good that came from her husband's time in office and she believed she was echoing popular sentiment. But sometimes soldiers lose the fight even when they believe it is the good one and they get knocked down. If she is truly a brave soldier (as she has poised herself to be for the past eight years) she should have expected all the cannon fodder coming her way since she invited it with bold remarks, but if she can't it only proves how alike she and her husband really are.
Many of us see him now as only a bitter man that was so caught up in his own ego and protecting what he believed was a proud legacy that he tarnished it with a patina that should never be removed; to be left for all to look back on as a lesson in the principles of democracy. His idea of democracy and that of what remains of the Democratic Party has shifted from what many of us knew it to be before they turned truth into prejudices against what they call being politically correct.
There can be nothing politically correct about anything they accomplished or hope to accomplish when it leaves tens of millions of people feeling frustrated and hopeless but it seems that was their goal all along. The evidence showed up when America kicked him and his hand-picked would-be successor to the curb and finally said enough is enough.
Many of my fellow Democrats took back any respect they once held for me when they discovered that I supported a promise to restore America to something that will once again resemble what made it great in the first place but I am okay with that. The friends I lost through all of this can and will be replaced, and all of us will keep believing in what we choose to believe in. What didn't completely destroy us will be our only hope to endure with any chance of ever coming back together.
I extended faith and trust in Barack Obama and I will remember him as a president who let me down. Walking away from the party he led, that of my parents and grandparents before them was made easy by those that have done all they could to cast out the old faithful and replace us with people that never believed in what we did. In his wake will be two very different countries, both pretending to be united but still divisive, and they will be represented by more than two political parties. The Democrats that shifted their support to Republicans are already proving that it needed us to keep alive and protect all that we hold dear, and we needed them. In this, the aftermath of eight years of division, Democrats working with Republicans are on course to becoming the only truly democratic party we have.
The old Democratic Party will keep trying to reinvent itself to become more and more attractive to younger generations and to various minority groups and millions of immigrants regardless of where they come from or whether or not they have our country's best interest at heart or their own agendas to weaken it. It is an act of clever awareness and resourcefulness on their part to keep fielding candidates that can hopefully restore their power and effectiveness over the masses.
For them it is only about numbers and they have done the math. However, what they were willing to sacrifice came at a cost just as unaffordable to them as Barack Obama's health care plan that was successfully shoved down everyone's throats. In the end the math was right, but the sum of it all was not in their favor and it left them even angrier at America than they were when they launched their revolt against traditional American values.
That to me is this president's legacy.
Our parent's Democratic Party was dismantled and sold off sometime between 2009 and 2016, but those of us with strong traditional Democratic roots are replanting in a new political garden now; forced to re-seed but finding more space to grow within the Republican Party.
Maybe what we really need now, instead of a third party is new names for both major parties.
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