Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer
Before he’d served even one year President Obama lost the support of
the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the
hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and
ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight,
57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive
writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical
leader) this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our
President. Why?-- because he is succeeding.
We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him
as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.
Obama’s steady supporters will be proved right. Obama’s critics will
be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best
and shriveled hate mongers at worst.
The Context of the Obama Presidency
Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World
War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not
since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided
country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any
president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully
ignorant opposition – from both the right and left.
As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from
some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all
those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over
themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008
election.
The left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy”-- snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then
pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!
Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was his
fault:
# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was
really two countries
# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was
unnecessary and immoral
# The worst economic crisis since the depression
# America’s standing in the world at the lowest point in history
# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of
prisoners of war
# A health care system in free fall
# An educational system in free fall
# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about
which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)
# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left
# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible
Bush administration…
And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s
desk!
“Help” from the Right?
What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and
half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans were
reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to “help” our new
president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn’t a
real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born
here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist", was secretly a
communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of
Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!
They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the
not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a
bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to
sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and
gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry
lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) “commentators” from Glenn
Beck to Rush Limbaugh.
The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the
utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who
was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment,
to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to
help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican
leadership only knew one word: “No!”
In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American
far right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war
mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed
Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting
acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating
flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an
uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!
“Help” from the Left?
What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of
them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad
choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan
that he’d inherited from the worst president in modern history!
Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic
policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them!
Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won
within virtually minutes of the President taking office, they’d been
“betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community
is stronger than any other president’s has been. Never mind that he
signed a new hate crimes law!)
Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific
emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how
"disappointed" they were that they’d not all immediately been
translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!
Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still
mere mortals!
And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay
attention for longer than a nanosecond… “Governing”?! What the hell
does that word, uh, like mean?”
The President’s critics left and right all had one thing in common:
impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone
reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the
white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t
imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought
they were and certainly not as smart as their president. He hadn’t
consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!
The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality
rather than reality defining their ideas—say, about what is possible
in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt
by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush
into office… twice!
Meanwhile back in the reality-based community – in just 12 short
months -- President Obama:
#Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices
regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Restored America’s image around the globe
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to
halt global warming
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system
of checks and balances
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost
impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed
to even begin
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor
and patience
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous
far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that
show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying
Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to
“water the tree of liberty”…
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but
explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR -- President Obama “failed”! Other than that he didn’t “live up to
expectations”!
Who actually has failed...
...are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of
national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the
smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this
President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and
morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our
obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more
stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.
Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help
of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!
The Future Looks Good
After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom
in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all
fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds,
(it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are
burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not
just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were
panicked into thinking the sky was falling.
Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and
fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us
stayed the course. And we will be proved right.
PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president,
please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure
that his “report card” gets the attention it deserves.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “Patience With God – Faith
For People Who Don’t Like Religion (Or Atheism).”
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