President Obama Again

   The piece below was written (and posted)  in November 2015, just after the last election. Now I don’t think it was strong enough in declaring my admiration for Obama, the outgoing president. Who, indeed, was a more stable liberal head of our country, between FDR and 2016?

   Trump will surely aim to erase Obama’s accomplishments and in the short run he is likely to be successful. But future historians—and we won’t have to wait for them too long—will see Obama to be what he was, a remarkably successful rational and liberal bastion who fended off powerful reactionary forces of his era. I much admire him and wish him and Michelle a great future.

President Obama 

   The election is over. In my view, the good guys lost, though unlike what the winner would have claimed had he lost, I don’t think that the election was rigged. But it was skewed by the fact that so many states run by Republicans have instituted practices that reduce the number of putatively liberal, that is, Democratic, voters. I’ll let those who follow discussions of polls more assiduously than I do to figure out just how these measures affected the outcome of Trump vs. Clinton.                      

   What’s for sure is that the constitutionally mandated creation of the electoral college can lead to a divergence between the actual number of US voters and the number of delegates to the electoral college, as it did this time around. So, live with it, buddy.

   But Barack Obama successfully went against the system and was elected. There was nothing obvious about that first victory. He was the first one in quite some time to show up on that top-level scene who was articulate, indeed, eloquent, and obviously brainy. Give American voters credit for propelling that kind of person to the country’s highest office. Not to mention that he was African American!

  And now, in not many weeks, he will step down and return to civilian life. He accomplished a lot, considering that he was none-stop combating an establishment that was not ready to accept a president the color of whose skin was not white. (My pessimistic prediction is that racial prejudice will not disappear in any foreseeable future.) Considering the odds stacked against him, he did very well, indeed. It’s always mostly a guess as to what future historians might say, but mine is that they will list him among the better president.

   He might “rate” higher if he had been more successful in persuading other politicians, in the House and the Senate, to push his goals, prodding in the style of Lyndon Johnson. That would have taken more than eloquent speechifying. Rather, more arm-President Obama 

   The election is over. In my view, the good guys lost, though unlike what the winner would have claimed had he lost, I don’t think that the election was rigged. But it was skewed by the fact that so many states run by Republicans have instituted practices that reduce the number of putatively liberal, that is, Democratic, voters. I’ll let those who follow discussions of polls more assiduously than I do to figure out just how these measures affected the outcome of Trump vs. Clinton.                      

   What’s for sure is that the constitutionally mandated creation of the electoral college can lead to a divergence between the actual number of US voters and the number of delegates to the electoral college, as it did this time around. So, live with it, buddy.

   But Barack Obama successfully went against the system and was elected. There was nothing obvious about that first victory. He was the first one in quite some time to show up on that top-level scene who was articulate, indeed, eloquent, and obviously brainy. Give American voters credit for propelling that kind of person to the country’s highest office. Not to mention that he was African American!

  And now, in not many weeks, he will step down and return to civilian life. He accomplished a lot, considering that he was none-stop combating an establishment that was not ready to accept a president the color of whose skin was not white. (My pessimistic prediction is that racial prejudice will not disappear in any foreseeable future.) Considering the odds stacked against him, he did very well, indeed. It’s always mostly a guess as to what future historians might say, but mine is that they will list him among the better president.

   He might “rate” higher if he had been more successful in persuading other politicians, in the House and the Senate, to push his goals, prodding in the style of Lyndon Johnson. That would have taken more than eloquent speechifying. Rather, more arm-twisting and pressure tactics not excluding blackmail. For that, Obama was too professorial, to blame my  own genre.

   As for the real world, Obama accomplished a lot, though too many of the good things he brought into existence are not protected from future wiping out by his successor. But before Obama disappears into history—and into a job, I hope, with an income greater than he has ever had, I want to salute him as one of the better US president, if not of the very top layer. By way of brief PS, I don’t know that conditions (weasel word) are such that at this time it is at all possible for someone to rise to the level of a Lincoln or an FDR.

   With strong feelings about the past eight years, I say, “well done” under very tough circumstances and best wishes for you and your wife’s future. Barack Obama has been a scholar and a gentleman. Now a rare characterization of a politician.