For Carib News 10/12/16
Barack Obama is demitting office with high approval ratings. He came into office at a time when the economy was in the throes of the Great Recession. With the stimulus package of almost $800 billion dollars, the economy revived and the high unemployment rate kept rolling back to pre-recession numbers. During his tenure almost 15 million new jobs have been created. Just last month the American economy created 156,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was at 5 percent of the workforce.
At long last wages are beginning to climb upwards, poverty has been reduced by 3.5 million people and household income for 2015 rose by $2,800.
From he entered the Oval Office, the Republicans according to Sen. Mitch McConnell felt it was their duty to make Barack Obama a one-term President. As the President stated in his last State of the Nation address to a Republican Congressman, “I beat you twice”.
Barack Obama could accomplish more in his two terms if he had been able to keep a Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House. A divided government led to paralysis, particularly in domestic policy and the obstinacy on the part of the Republicans to increase spending led to sequestration and the gutting of valuable programs and the negation of wholesome initiatives.
Other than the economic recovery and the gains made on climate change, his historical accomplishment is the Affordable Care Act which has extended health care to 20 million people and restrained insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existent conditions and lifting the limit on a patient’s long term care. Nonetheless, the ACA is still a work in progress and perhaps introducing a public option would bring greater efficiencies to the system.
What President Obama will be remembered for is not just his understanding of the limitation of military power in places like the Middle East but the profound impact that his occupation of the Oval Office has had on American politics. Obama’s election has precipitated seismic shifts in the Republican Party. It is the election of Obama to the Presidency that has created the debacle of Donald Trump.
There were onerous signs from 2010 when The Tea Party rose up against the affordable Care Act and began challenging the conventional wisdom of the Republican leadership. The Republicans objected to every initiative that President Obama presented to Congress. Paul Ryan claims they are the Party of ideas but no ideas were forthcoming. They repealed the Affordable Care Act sixty-five times but could not produce an alternative bill that would extend health care for the Americans who were not covered prior to the Affordable Care Act.
As the Congress accomplished very little, the country became increasingly polarized and political exchanges got nastier and nastier. The refined leaders of the Republican Party became dispensable in the eyes of the dissatisfied base. By the time the Republican primary came around, the base was in search of an outsider. They had lost faith in their leadership.
Trump was more savvy than the conventional parade that he faced. He was appealing to their raw instincts. The base no longer listened to the donor class or to elected leaders. They had moved into the Alt Right camp, vehemently opposed to immigration, convinced that blacks had become too privileged and yearning for a white knight who would apocalyptically march into Washington D.C. and set things right for a forlorn white working class.
Trump exaggerated the problems of America. He argued that borders were porous, excited fears over terrorism and bemoaned the loss of manufacturing. He bashed trade agreements and promised to build a wall. Trump, the rich billionaire, would make America first and restore law and order.
Trump was running for the highest office in the land even though in his entire life he was not even elected as a dog-catcher yet he managed to obtain 14 million votes in the primary and delivered his opponents into the rubbish heap of history.
Trump had star quality. He was a celebrated television personality who commanded ratings and his media non-critics gave him an infinite amount of free publicity. And somewhere on his way to the White House the bubble burst.
The investigative reporters at the Washington Post and the New York Times began scrutinizing his business practices and that his management skills in handling lucrative casino hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey, were found wanting. He piled up losses of over a billion dollars in 1995.
But his achilles heel was the treatment of women. Megyan Kelly of Fox News in the first Republican Primary debate confronted his misogynous proclivities. Trump responded defiantly that he reserved that rudeness only for Rosie O’Donnell. From the Republican Primary, Trump showed a zebra-like quality. He was rude and uncouth but so many felt that he was cute.
The polls kept specifying as he entered the big arena of the general election that this was a man who lacked self-control and did not have the temperament to be President of the United States of America. The first debate and the second debate demonstrated that after reciting platitudes on a few policy matters, Trump lacked critical thinking skills. He was adept at being an attack dog but was a puppy in the world of ideas. He was basically a bag of wind.
The world has changed and the Republican Party has not kept up with that changing world. It is essentially a white male party with no appeal to African Americans, Hispanics or white educated women. The dramatic exposure of Mr. Trump on a tape where he bragged about clutching the genitals of women has led to the implosion of his campaign. The revelation shocked the conscience of Americans. Trump will cling to his hard core support of true believers but a majority of Americans will not select a dirty old man to be their President.
He has taken American politics beyond the family table and made it into a blue soap opera. His resurrection of former President Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affairs only has shown us that Donald Trump is the unadulterated billionaire barbarian. President Barack Obama has shown that class in the White House is important in the image that America projects to the world.
