Last week, I mentioned that with the Democratic Party there is “something—and someone—who [is/are] a distraction to the detriment to us all.”
That someone is Barack Obama.
(Given last week’s blog topic was about entertainment, I don’t mind borrowing from the 1987 film title.)
What is represented is history, image, prestige, and honor.
Recently, there was a YouGov/Economist poll in which Americans said Barack Obama is the best president in the history of the United States.
The nation has experienced 45 individuals and 46 U.S. presidents. This counts the non-consecutive cycles won by Grover Cleveland. This counts current U.S. president Joe Biden.
No. 1 by the polls’ participants was Obama. Never mind the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Teddy Roosevelt. No. 1—Barack Obama.
Barack Obama—who turns 60 this year—made history, in 2008, as the first (and, so far, only) person who is black elected (and, in 2012, re-elected) to the presidency of the United States.
The image is that the people of the United States, in 2008, were finally willing to experience something many thought would never happen—or not happen in their lifetime—and that is, of course, the election of a black person to the presidency of the United States. Amazing.
The prestige is with the office itself. The No. 1 leader in the Free World.
The honor is with the noble tradition of welcoming, by election, a new leader and, of course, the promise of a new period that would be good for the American people and their lives.
That was depicted with the United States presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008.
The presidency of Barack Obama was something else.
After a year or two of Obama’s presidency, I came across a comment by Ralph Nader. He said he does not respect Obama. Nader considers Obama a “con man.”
Nader said, back in 2008, that Obama is—as it has been the case for some time with the Democratic Party—just another “corporate Democrat.”
In 2010, Barack Obama presided over devastating Democratic Party losses not only in the U.S. House but also state legislatures. They were made possible because he—but not so much the Democratic-majority U.S. House and U.S. Senate—deliberately did not deliver an “Affordable Care Act” bill which would solve our generations’-long, poor health-insurance system. Obama delivered, knowingly, an inadequate and terrible bill which was meant to herd people into the system—whether or not they could afford it—and impose a mandate; with no mechanism to compete with private insurance; and no re-importation of drugs, for lower costs, from another country like Canada.
Obama, during campaign season, spoke of his mother Ann Dunham’s battles with at least one ruthless health-insurance provider while she was likewise battling, and eventually succumbed, to cancer. (She died in 1995.) And he spoke righteously of the urgency to deliver a health-insurance bill that would be the solution we needed.
That was Campaigner Obama.
President Obama got the health-insurance bill he intended.
One month after winning re-election, Obama had this to say of his presidency: “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.” (Did the people voted Obama the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination—and/or voted for him to win his 2008 first-term election and/or win his 2012 re-election—do that because they wanted Republican policies?)
During the 2016 general election, to elect the 45th president of the United States, Obama went all out for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, with an over-the-top and breathless declaration. With Hillary Clinton, “there has never been any man or woman more qualified.”
Not long after Clinton lost that election, in what was a 2016 Republican pickup of the presidency of the United States to Donald Trump, Obama’s post-presidency was spent not helping The People—he used to be a community organizer—but in hanging with a billionaire like Richard Branson, giving six-figure paid speeches to wealthy people, and further enriching himself.
In 2017, Obama—knowing of the fractious relations in the Democratic Party as a whole—maneuvered behind the scenes and made sure the supposedly competitive DNC chairperson election was won by Tom Perez who, after working against Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, conspired to make sure more corporatist candidates won the primaries in 2018 in preparation for the Democrats winning back the U.S. House. (Perez also violated his position by making a high-profile endorsement: Andrew Cuomo for re-nomination—not Tony and Emmy winning actress Cynthia Nixon—for Governor of New York.)
In his speeches, Obama scolded people who supported his 2008 presidential campaign who are yearning for change, change that they need, and told them they need to stop complaining about the Democratic Party and join the Democratic Party to bring the change they need.
In 2020, as the Iowa Democratic caucuses were a corrupt affair clearly engineered by Obama’s DNC chairman pick, and other behind-the-scenes players, the popular vote in the first three scheduled states—the other two were New Hampshire and Nevada—were won by Bernie Sanders. Just before the South Carolina primary, Obama had that state’s sole Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn—who is in the pocket of the health-insurance industry—endorse Joe Biden. Obama contacted fellow Democratic presidential candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg—who invested in that Shadow app—to drop out simultaneously and endorse Biden. The nomination for Biden was orchestrated by Obama.
The best comment I came across with anyone sharing his understanding and with describing the Democratic Party came from a YouTube member responding to a video by one of this site’s recommended sources, Unapologetic. It was by a person named “Captain Obvious.”
“My stance is that the [Democrats] are no longer a real political party at all…they don’t function as one. What the Dems are is a fundraising corporation and a mechanism of control designed to flush away all of the [actual] Left’s efforts to obtain progressive policy. The main function of the Dems is simply to maximize fundraising profits which therefore makes them, first and foremost, a fundraising corporation.”
The Democratic Party, in its current form, is empty. It can only project—project image along with expressing rhetoric of being the so-called political party, of these times, which is moral and good. (Really—have you seen the Republicans?!) To act like they are the political party which is…enlightened.
When one considers which individual is most influential in the Democratic Party in its current form—a “fundraising corporation”—one may figure Bill Clinton. He brought Wall Street into the party in the 1990s. That is a very good guess. But, I think his party successor is more pernicious.
Reason for this is because of timing.
Bill Clinton was the only two-term Democratic-affiliated U.S. president during the realigning period of 1968 to 2004, in which the Republican Party won the presidency of the United States with 7 of 10 cycles. Clinton was to that period’s Democrats what Dwight Eisenhower was to his period’s Republicans. The Democrats won 7 of 9 cycles beginning with the realigning period of 1932 and with their last in 1964. Dwight Eisenhower was the only Republican U.S. president from that period. Both Eisenhower and Clinton were that one candidate their then-minority parties needed for their particular times.
Barack Obama, with his first election in 2008, was the presiding president of a realigning period favoring his Democratic Party. From 2008 to 2020, the Democrats have won 3 of 4 cycles. And in history, no party which went 3-for-4 failed to experience a realigning period in their favoring. (At this time, I would estimate the Democrats win again in 2024, which would up them to 4-for-5. That would run an exact 40-year parallel experienced by the 1968 to 1984 Republicans.)
Let us also remember that, during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary season, Clinton was verbally dismissive of Obama’s chances for nomination and general-election victory. That Jesse Jackson also had wins. The comment backfired badly on the 42nd U.S. president.
Last week, at least one reader thought I would cite Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez. No! “AOC” is formulaic. She is what the Democrats offer up these days to get people to think their incumbents are pretty cool people—who hold elected office—who are in tune and care. “AOC” is a…star. But, stars fade. And more stars rise.
This brings it back to Barack Obama.
Obama is the first—and, so far, only—person who is black to be elected (and re-elected) president of the United States. He chose his prevailing Democratic-affiliated successor. And, just when it looks like people may rise up for something that is progressive and in need for improvement, he is there to help oppress them. To get them to not fight when fighting is what they need to do. Obama did this against Black Lives Matter. Obama did this against the players in the National Football League. And it is, highly likely, that anything more which surfaces will reveal Obama once again yielding his influence.
When Obama suffers embarrassment, it’s nothing that sticks for long.
There is no one from the Democratic Party who is more a distraction—and who is more harmful while supposedly coming across as highly trustworthy—than 44th U.S. president Barack Obama.
