So, I was watching some Youtube clips of Jimmy Dore's show (highly recommended if you don't listen already) and one of them brought up an important point. Dore had a political science professor on discussing the Obama presidency, and he called it the "Seinfeld presidency." Why? Because Seinfeld is a show about "nothing", and so was the Obama administration.
Essentially the argument is this, America is in need for change. Obama's presidency didn't really change much, he simply acted as a steward of the status quo, and ignored the desire for change. Over time, this led to people getting sick of Obama, and when given the choice between more of the same and change, even bad change, people will take the bad change. He drew parallels between Trump winning in 2016 and the Nazis winning in Germany in 1933, and how it was the same thing. The Weimar republic was ineffective at solving the problems at the time, so along came Hitler, promising change, and they voted in Hitler. I found the argument to be effective and persuasive, and I really just wanted to say that I agree and I saw this coming.
Obama did a lot of good in his first term, although in his first term I was much more conservative than I am now. He did save and fix the economy, he did preserve workers who were unemployed through unemployment insurance, and he did fight the republicans to get them to pay off screwing over the 99% of America. Being relatively centrist around 2011-2012, I even respected Obama's move to the center to attempt to compromise with them, and it really did appear that Obama was an adult in a room full of children.
But this kind of act wears thin after a while. Maybe 2008 was too early for real change. I don't think the country was ready for progressivism in 2008. We just started entering the recession. The fatigue had not really set in yet. America had not yet gotten to a point where it was really ready for actual change. But we did. Obama laid the groundwork for fixing the economy in 2008-2010, and passed Obamacare, but after the GOP won, he didn't do anything. I respect his attempts to compromise at first. I think it was noble of him to try to do so. But this good guy act only works once. After that, you become a doormat. And as the fatigue of years of recession and a bad economy sets in, people become more and more desperate, and are more and more willing to push for change. I felt this fatigue myself in his second term. I really began realizing around 2013 or so that what we were doing wasn't really enough, and started looking into alternative solutions like basic income and stuff. The recession is really what pushed me far to the left, as I looked for solutions to our problems and found that our very governing ideologies were what was failing us. And that's when I developed the economic views I currently hold and realized the democrats weren't doing enough. People can only stand obstruction and inaction in the face of serious challenges for so long before they start yelling at Mr. Doormat to throw a punch once in a while, give the tea party a taste of their own medicine. Use the bully pulpit. Do stuff even if it can't pass the other branches of congress. But Obama didn't, and when the 2014 mid terms came around, the democrats were nowhere to be found, and the republicans came out in droves for tea party people in congress. Most of the country went hard red in 2014, save my state, which kicked its tea party governor out of office.
By this point, I realized we needed serious, systemic change. And looking at the upcoming presidential election, 2 potential candidates stood out to me, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders. I preferred Sanders since his policies were a bit more well thought out, but I would've settled for Warren. But then, as we know, it was "her turn." Hillary was back to claim what was "hers" and the wave of change building within the democratic party was suppressed. We were told to shut up, that our ideas were crap, and that we needed to fall in line. Sanders would have given the democrats the morale boost to win this election, whereas Clinton did the opposite, she sapped the party of energy, and her approach to politics came off, to me, as a huge middle finger for everything I stood for.
And what happened? On the republican side, while Trump faced opposition from the establishment, he managed to win his party's nomination against 16 empty suits with no enthusiasm. And going into the general, the people who wanted change either voted for Trump or stayed home, or voted third party. And the establishment candidate lost. Way to go democrats, way to go.
It's rare for a party to maintain the presidency for more than 8 years. You need to have an extraordinary legacy to pull it off. You need to be a Reagan or FDR in today's climate to make it happen. And while I suspected Clinton would do it by default based on how horrible the GOP was, no one really wanted to continue the Obama legacy. She was a mere lesser evil candidate. The country wanted change, and because the democrats suppressed it on their side of the aisle in favor of running an antagonistically boring status quo campaign, Trump won the election.
I can't say Obama's legacy is a complete wash, but most of the groundwork for what he accomplished happened in his first term. His second term was a waste of space. Let's be honest. The guy was an empty suit, and he didn't do ANYTHING. I understand he's a president and not a king, as he always likes to say, but he needs to stand up and try to do something, anything, even if it is only give stump speeches to rally the troops (his voters). The bully pulpit exists for a reason, USE IT. He should have gotten out there in 2014 and said to the American public "look, you want crap done? GIVE ME A CONGRESS! GIVE ME A CONGRESS AND I'LL DO X, Y, and Z!" But no, he just sat there like a lump with his "I'm a president, not a king" line and twiddled his thumbs and pushed for the TPP.
And I could even forgive him for this, IF WE RAN A 2016 CANDIDATE WORTH A DARN! I mean, okay, Obama didn't go as planned, let's do something different to offer new solutions and keep peoples' attention. Even 2014's losses could be salvageable if the democrats changed direction right then and there. We needed someone who could distance themselves from Obama's inadequacies, not continue them. Someone who pushed progressivism, but does it in a way that motivates people and inspires them and offers them solutions. Sanders did this. Clinton didn't. Clinton was more of the whole lukewarm tepid "we can't do anything because republicans" line of thinking. And the country rejected that. Yes, she won the popular vote, but she lost entire regions of the country that were de facto democratic strongholds because she not only was unresponsive to the plight of the people, but antagonistic toward it.
And yeah, that said, I agree, Obama was a Seinfeld president, and I'll go further, the democrats have become a Seinfeld party. For the record, this analogy has an extra meaning for me, because I don't even like Seinfeld. I mean, I've tried watching it, but it's always so boring that it can never keep my attention, ever. And that's what the democratic party is nowadays. They are boring, uninspiring, and fail to draw people in. Even worse, they are antagonistically comfortable in this role. They tried to force Clinton down our throats like a 1950s mom trying to force broccoli down a kid's throat by bringing up there are starving people in China. And now instead of eating a healthy middle ground, the person who was offering candy, soda, and a one way ticket to Diabeetusville is president. Way to go, dems, way to go. You had them eating out of the palm of your hand and you blew it through your own ineptitude. Way to freaking go.
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