President Obama, less than a month from exiting the White House, recently opined that he could have won a third term had he run. The Constitution’s Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits presidents to two terms, and conspiracists’ warnings notwithstanding, we are indeed about to experience the nation’s 44th presidential hand-off. Obama’s merely lamenting what might have been, not what he should have done, and he may very well be right. He certainly does not have the baggage that weighed Hillary Clinton down, he certainly has greater charisma and presence, and he still has cadres of devoted loyalists. And, while it’s hard to guess as to whether Trump would have been nominated or even thought to run had Obama been the Democratic nominee-apparent, it’s easy to conclude that Obama would, indeed, have defeated the untethered orange id.
That’s not the interesting part of his lament, however. His line of reasoning is. Rather than assess his probability of victory against Trump’s unfavorability, he stated it was because: “Americans still subscribe to his vision of progressive change.”
If this was true, why did voters defenestrate over 900 Democrats from federal and state legislatures? Why did Clinton, who would have cemented much of what he wrought, lose to The Orange One? Why did he have to resort to massive expansion of the executive branch’s power (something he denounced George W. Bush for doing and warned Donald J. Trump against doing) to effect “his vision of progressive change?”
Eight and a half years ago, Obama made his infamous bitter clinging comment. That comment echoed in my head when I read Obama’s assertion about his vision. While it is indeed true that the big population centers in New York, Chicago and the West Coast are well-stocked with people who embrace “progressive change” (no matter how it morphs), the election results of the past six years declare that much of the rest of the country does not.
Obama is, by many accounts, a very smart man. Those who scoff don’t realize that one simply does not achieve the presidency without being very smart. Very smart, however, does not mean correct, nor does it mean wise, nor does it mean self-aware. History is full of geniuses who got things spectacularly wrong. It takes a substantial strength of ego (which Obama claims to have) AND a substantial degree of humility (which Obama has not really demonstrated) to acknowledge large-scale error, which is why even smart people rarely do so. A more common response is “bitter clinging,” and Obama is indeed bitterly clinging to the idea that Americans see things his way despite plain evidence to the contrary. The shock of Trump’s victory and the near-certain doom it spoke for Obama’s legacy will burden Obama for the rest of his days.
Way, way back in 1984, Ronald Reagan was campaigning for his second term of office. He had inherited from Jimmy Carter a nation mired in stagflation and malaise, and had to deal with a recession that spanned his first two years in office. By 1984, GDP growth had climbed to 7.3%, and Reagan coasted to a landslide victory, winning 49 states and nearly 59% of the popular vote. Carter, by many measures a very good man, became known (despite some notable successes) as a failed president (especially given the economic boom of Reagan’s tenure), and in the decades hence has exhibited an ever-increasing bitterness.
Trump is no Reagan, but that doesn’t really matter. Trump, no matter whether he does well or poorly, will be the undoer of much of what Obama did. Since the Presidency has become far more powerful than it was in Carter and Reagan’s days, we don’t need to wait until 2020 to know that Trump’s election is the repudiation of Obama’s tenure.
In 1984, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, the greatest-titled movie sequel in history, was released. In 1984, Reagan’s re-election validated the repudiation of Carter, and very likely contributed to the latter’s descent into bitterness. We may have just witnessed a timeless, for-the-ages, political-sequel repudiation of the Democratic Party, and don’t be surprised if, 32 years from now, Obama is more bitter than Jimmy Carter is today.
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