I do not agree that Obama's presidency will be seen as a failure. It might very well be seen as a time of missed opportunities, a time where people agree stronger measures that were given were needed. The fact is, despite the fact that we all wish Obama could have done much more, he did enough to stave off the disaster that frankly we had been deserving long before he ever Bush became president. A lot of people forget that in 2008, we were seriously looking at the second great depression, one that makes the sufferings that we have had to endure look like child's play, because frankly we are not made of same stuff that the dustbowl generation is made of. Whether it was the ACA, or the fact that we still have a domestic auto industry, or the fact that both gay marriage and relations with Cuba or advanced to where the GOP will have to actively destroy them, and do so in a way that becomes a mess for them, is all Obama.
Now to brush off a little Shakespeare "I come to bury the man, not to praise him." Nor will I deny that there were many many times he need to do what Bill Clinton did and outright pander to the stupidity of the American people. Of much baser stuff are good laws made. However, one of his main problems, and the failure of Democrats as a whole, is that we are all too eager to accept the frames that other people offer us, instead of framing our own narrative. We are very eager to chant "Obama was a failure Obama was a failure!" Let's stop and listen, could it be that we are very eager to accept the Obama as failure narrative because it is being pushed by both the right wing and to some extent the self-appointed far left wing? Nothing but remove the energy we will need to fight the next four years like the feeling that we spent the past four years losing, when all around we had won victories that were so great that the GOP had to hire a reality show celebrity rather than run the 14 other people as their candidate. The thing that will give us energy to keep what victories we have is to remember that yes we have made these people bleed before, and we will again, especially once they fall under the weight of her own damn incompetence.
I will say though this opinion piece had some of the best, and most truthful words in any of the Obama postmortems:
" the laughably bad messaging of the White House and the cowardice of the Democrats in not proudly proclaiming success in things like health care are big ass contributors. Indeed, you could say that Donald Trump is the diametric opposite of Obama: all message and no policy. At the end of the day, though, the American people are fucking idiots who want to be told what to think. Obama seemed to believe that, say, a Kentucky resident who got health insurance through the Affordable Care Act would be able to connect two and two and see that Democrats enabled her to get those moles checked and for her to the melanoma taken care of before it spread. But fucking idiots don't make those connections because they're fucking idiots.
Americans like their world Manichean. They like to pick heroes and villains. They want to know which team to root for. They don't like gray areas. They don't want to point out that both teams played a good game. Obama believed that Americans were smarter and better than they actually are, even as every election except his in 2012 proved that they aren't. This was Obama's fatal flaw: the belief in the better angels of our nature, a phrase he used several times throughout his presidency. We don't have better angels, Mr. President. There are no angels. There are only humans, and, god, we are fucked up."
As much as I may be angry at Obama for believing in those better angels, I do want to focus any anger at the Democrats at where it is due. There were many Democratic Devils, and their first mission was to hamstring Obama because they knew he was a direct threat to the cushy job they had of being a toothless watchdog. I direct any anger Democrats in the next four years, it will be at those who seriously think that their main job is to restore things to the way they once were. No blue dogs, I'm afraid that you blew your opportunity because you were very willing to let Obama twist in the wind because he did not satisfy your vanity, avarice and yes, cowardice. It says a lot about you that many of you him for being to your left. Oh no, one of the successes of the Obama presidency will be an indirect one, the fact that the Hilo fell off many of your disguises that will allow those of us who Obama's last chance to make sure that this party has some of the fleas and ticks removed, or those that would remain will start to earn their damn keep! Yes blue dogs, you will have to earn your dog biscuits.
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