The Obama presidency that never was

“Hope” and “change.”

Those were the words that propelled Barack Obama—a first-term, backbench United States senator from Illinois whose only name recognition came from a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention—from the hustings in small towns across Iowa to the White House.

Eight years later Obama’s presidency ends with the magic that once surrounded his candidacy and subsequent election long gone. 

In the end, however, Obama may go down in the annals of presidential history as an asterisk—the country’s first black president. Nothing more.

That’s because much of Obama’s record will be erased by Donald Trump, his successor as the forty-fifth president of the United States, and the Republican majority in both houses of Congress.

It may take a while, but the GOP will eventually repeal Obamacare and the litany of other laws and administrative regulations that make up the Obama record.

Obama’s poll numbers—54 percent of Americans approve of him, according to the latest Real Clear Politics average of polls—have recovered from the low point of his presidency following the enactment of Obamacare, when Lucifer probably had a better approval rating.

Nevertheless, his fall from grace is remarkable. Especially when you consider this was the president who was viewed by many on the political left as their messiah. 

Yet it wasn’t just the Democratic base that had lofty expectations. 

Running against Sen. John McCain, whose selection of an incompetent and grossly under-qualified running mate was a mortal blow to his candidacy, Obama appealed to many Republicans and GOP-inclined voters who thought he could heal divisions and bring Americans together. These were the Obamacons.

I didn’t vote for Obama, but I came darn close to doing so in the privacy of the voting booth, despite having my name on the GOP ticket a few lines underneath McCain.

Like many millennial voters, I was captivated by the possibilities of ushering in an Era of Good Feelings. This was after all a period when post-partisanship and good government were the fashionable buzzwords.

Flashing forward to the present-day, the allure of candidate Obama never came to fruition. 

America is more divided than ever. Obama has split the country in ways not seen since the Civil War. 

And those divisions aren’t limited to partisanship or even the identity politics of race, ethnicity, sex (who would have thought what bathroom you use would ever become an issue!) and religion.

Obama moved Democrats so far to the left that the two major parties no longer believe in the same creed. 

If there is an Obama legacy this will surely be it.

While the chattering class relentlessly opined on the tea party’s rise to dominate Republican politics there has been scant mention of Obama’s transformation of the Democratic Party. 

Pre-Obama you could find Democrats, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, who dissented from the party whip on abortion, the Second Amendment, morality, national defense and so forth. Today, those Democrats are relegated to the ash heap of history.

As a result, Obama’s Democratic Party has been decimated as the party of J.F.K. openly embraces the far-left and socialism embodied by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison, the Minnesota congressman who will likely be the next Democratic National Committee chairman.

Obama resurrected Republicans, who were electorally finished in the wake of his 2008 landslide.

The president and his partisans blame Republicans and their allies on the  airwaves, but the reality is Obama has nobody to blame but himself.

Attacking Republicans for doing what opposition parties are supposed to do — that is, being the party of ‘no’ — is an absurd attempt at blameshifting.

Obama failed because he was either disinterested or incompetent in the sausage making that was required to bring about the expectations he and he alone set with his soaring rhetoric and lofty promises.

Just think how things may have been different had President Obama actually governed like candidate Obama and unified the country in the process.

Dennis Lennox is executive director of Republican Party of the United States Virgin Islands. Follow him on Twitter @dennislennox.

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