In the late stages of the campaign, President Obama made a feeble attempt to coax people into voting for Hillary Clinton to protect his legacy. Discerning voters have a right to ask, “What legacy?”
Record numbers of Americans are out of the workforce, the labor participation rate is lower than it’s been since the halcyon days of Jimmy Carter, wages in real dollars are lower now than they were 20 years ago, the cost for health insurance is spiraling through the troposphere, the nation’s debt is at a staggering $20 trillion, a car loan bubble is about to burst that will match the housing bubble of 2008, students are staggering under an overwhelming burden of student loans for worthless degrees, racial tension is higher than it’s been since the 1960s, illegal alien criminals are flooding our cities, unvetted Muslim refugees are flooding our country, and President Obama has kept this nation at war longer than any president in our history.
Legacy? What legacy?
The only thing Barack Obama has accomplished in these eight long years is the complete and utter destruction of his own political party. It is now an empty shell, with no vision, no energy, no leadership, and no future. That, and that alone, will be his enduring and lasting legacy. He will be known to history as the man who singlehandedly destroyed the Democratic Party.
All the Democrats have had for the last eight years is Barack Obama. Without him, the party has nothing that appeals to any part of the American electorate. He is the weak and watery glue that held the party together. But he is now about to leave the political stage, and when he goes, he will take with him the only thing the Democratic Party had.
As I looked at Hillary’s headquarters on election night - the night she failed even to make an appearance (there are reports that she threw one of her epic profanity-laced tirades, and was in no condition to meet anybody she couldn’t throw a lamp at) - I was struck by how young, sad, helpless and hopeless the faces in the crowd looked. They had, and have, no leader. They are like sheep without a shepherd. The Democrats have no bench and no rising stars. It is bankrupt party, bereft of ideas and leadership.
The Democrats have been stripped of power at every level. The number of Democrats who are in the Senate is down 10% from what it was when Obama took office. The number of Democrats who are in the House is down 19%. The number of state legislatures which are in Democratic hands is down 20%, and the number of governorships the Democrats hold is down a staggering 36%. Republicans have gubernatorial control in 33 states, and total control of state legislatures in 25 states, while Democrats have similar control in just six. Republicans control a phenomenal 69 out of 99 state legislatures.
The reason is simple. Democrats have campaigned for the last 40 years on a platform of grievance, condemnation, and sheer intolerance. They have relied entirely on the thin gruel of unfounded and hateful accusations of bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia. Voters are tired of that message - because they know it’s not true - and have tuned it out. That message no longer works, and it will be decades before it has a chance of working again. But the Democrats are so utterly without ideas that they have nothing else. The cupboard is bare.
The Democrats simply do not seem to realize that you cannot constantly insult half the electorate with name-calling, insults, and ridicule and then expect them to go into the privacy of the voting booth and pull the lever for you.
Barack Obama has been the chief architect of the demise of his own party. It lies in ruins around him, in shambles, and in disarray. Rank and file Democrats have taken to shouting at the ineptitude of their own leadership in utter frustration. This is all Barack Obama’s doing.
He set out to fundamentally transform America, and he succeeded. America is a much different and much worse place than when he took office. But he not only transformed America for the worse, he destroyed his own political party in the process.
America is on the verge of becoming a one-party nation, and the Democrats will have no one to blame but Barack Obama. Some legacy.
