Unlike the rest of you, my new year starts Friday, the day the Marxists vacate the White house. I hope they don’t leave sabotage in the offices like their leader is leaving in his last-minute malevolent policy bombs.
When Obama was first elected, I tried to be respectful in my public opinions. His actions, even worse than I feared with disappointments far too many to even start a list here, soon disabused me of that restraint.
For the past year, the me-me-me selfie President has been and remains obsessed with “my legacy,” because like any narcissist buoyed by a bevy of sycophants, it’s all about him. The strange thing is, while in search of his legacy, he studiously ignores his legacy. To wit:
Since Obama became our empty suit of a President, the Democrats have lost control of the House and Senate, and of course now the presidency. More specifically, under Obama’s watch the Democrats lost 63 seats in the house, 11 seats in the Senate, 12 governorships and over 800 seats in state legislatures. States now have 16 Democrat governors, 33 Republican governors (1 independent in Alaska).
A state “trifecta” is one party controlling the governor and both houses of the state legislature. There are now 25 Republican trifecta states and only 6 Democrat, a reversal since the arrival of the king with no clothes.
In this setting of severely weakened Democrats, you might wonder how the liberal agenda dominates? It helps to own the mainstream media, as the Dems do, so you control the public conversation every day.
Even so, with losses like those under Obama’s watch, you would think his worshipers would find a convenient place to hide him. I suspect that, just like the public, the Dems have done little of their own research and continue to drink the daily Kool-Aid served by the mainstream media they have owned for over 50 years.
Obama’s legacy is deeper than Democrat bleeding. Focusing only on domestic issues to keep it simple, he blew a golden opportunity to bridge the gap on race relations in America, choosing instead to make the divide far worse. The president was asked recently about the four black thugs who kidnapped and tortured a mentally impaired white man, capturing on video their nasty deeds and stated motivation of hating Trump and white people. Obama begged off, saying he could not comment on a matter under investigation.
In the words of a crude and country-fried stand-up comic, “Now that right there is funny, I don’t care who y’are!” Given the history of Obama’s intervention into live cases to play the black victim card, fanning the racial fires, encouraging rioters and giving birth to the war on cops nationwide, any one of us could write his racist rant for him had the races in that torture incident been reversed.
Obama poured $800 billion down his friends’ rathole in a fraud called the “stimulus” that didn’t stimulate anything. He diverted hundreds of billions to other buddies like Solyndra since their green energy ventures were not financially viable. I wonder if the resulting failures that dug into your pocketbook and mine taught the Dems anything about the market? Well, he certainly didn’t learn anything while he was running up $10 trillion more in debt.
I’m sure Obama is quite proud to have added 13 million Americans to Medicaid, many through Obamacare, and 11 million more were added to the SNAP program, or food stamps, after rules were loosened up to make access to the benefit easier. Connecting Obama to the 11 million increase in Medicare enrollment would be unfair since the population is aging, but he has added considerably to the financial doom of entitlements.
Obama’s lefties have squeezed out of the military the very officers we need to make our military a lethal force, while they wussified the military with the LGBT agenda and … well, don’t get me started.
These are just a few examples of Obama’s damage to America, but plenty to stain any honest review of his domestic legacy; the perpetual division of identity politics, racial animosity, the religion of victimhood, expansion and indoctrination in entitlement, flushing the financial future of America down the drain and weakening our military.
It is fitting, I suppose, that this administration ends with an inexhaustible demonstration of the coercion and bullying somehow ingrained in the left. Democrat operatives were hired to start trouble and violence at Trump rallies during the campaign. Some have had their employment threatened for voting Trump. Businesses like L.L. Bean are being boycotted for having contributed to Trump. Some restaurants have posted signs refusing service to Trump voters. Trump voters have been savagely beaten. Anti-Trump protestors refuse any duty to a peaceful transfer of power.
The Friday inauguration promises to be interrupted by dissent, and I hope the lefties don’t bring violence. They certainly don’t appear prepared to concede in peace.
The satisfaction of my new year is the exit of the leftists from the White House, but I don’t have stars in my eyes about Trump.
Can Trump repair the damage? I don’t think so, especially since the damage was already fatal before Obama arrived to make things far worse.
Here’s what I mean. Merely slowing down the rate of growth on entitlements brings screams of protest and TV cameras capturing every wail and tear to broadcast 24/7, generating political upheaval. To make any real difference in the unsustainable entitlement financial burden, the cuts needed would require knee-deep blood on the floor, and I just don’t think it will happen. Soon, every dime of tax revenue will be required to pay entitlements and interest on the national debt.
Trump has assembled a respectable dream team of a cabinet, and I am hopeful to see some rapid Executive Department downsizing and dismantling of Energy, Education, EPA, etc. But I have doubts about their ability to conquer the bureaucracy. I hope I’m wrong.
I do expect Trump will very soon reverse Obama’s extra-constitutional executive orders, but that is tinkering with minor cuts and Band-Aids while the patient requires major surgery to survive.
Much has been made of Trump’s Twitter practices. I don’t mind so much that he uses that medium. I do mind quite a lot, though, that he seems oblivious to the impact his words have now, and instead of careful consideration he seems knee-jerk impulsive in what he tweets.
There is an old piece of wisdom, “When the elephants dance, the grass gets trampled.” It means your actions and words have multiplied effect when you occupy a high position.
And so while I will watch with crossed fingers for some return to common sense in Washington, D.C., I will also hope someone with brains takes The Donald’s Twitter capability down before he starts WWIII within 140 characters.
[Terry Garlock of Peachtree City occasionally contributes a column to The Citizen.]
