Editorials

It’s a big week, this last week of the Obama presidency, ominously starting today with Friday the 13^th, including the anxious celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday, and followed even more ominously by the inauguration of “President” Donald Trump.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: As suggested by Charles Blow in the New York Times, this publication’s style sheet will now recommend the use of scare quotes around the fraudulent title of the man who will be installed in the henceforth-tainted office of “President” of the United States of America.]

It’s finally time to take a last look at the presidency of Barack Obama, so dry those tears, put away the handkerchief, and let’s see where we’ve been and where we’re going.

First of all, I’m profoundly grateful that I’ve had eight years of my life where I’ve never, not once, not for one minute, been ashamed of the President of the United States or his family. I’m glad that my mother lived to see the Obamas installed in the White House, especially Michelle Obama, whom she deeply loved and admired. I’m happy that my granddaughters, now between 15 and 21, lived their formative years with a first family they could be proud of, including similar-aged daughters who set a good example of how to be in the world as a young person. 

President Obama’s most significant accomplishment is that his term put an end, once and for all, to the myth of white supremacy. All of the other presidents in my adult life, all the rest of them White, were markedly inferior to Barack Obama, either personally or politically or both. He’s the champ. 

I just missed voting for John Kennedy, but I remember his presidency, and I’ve later learned that many of his policies before he was assassinated skated mighty close to the precipice. His personal life included the sordid tomcatting around that seems to have distinguished several of the White Democratic presidents in my lifetime. Jimmy Carter was an exception to that, but although he was personally above reproach he didn’t get much done in his single term. Lyndon Johnson got a lot more done than we gave him credit for, but there was little to admire in his personal life. Reagan, Nixon and the Bushes don’t seem to have fooled around much, but their political acts ranged from ineffectual to disastrous. And of course, there was Bill Clinton…not just his notorious lust, but his pursuit of wealth after leaving office. All of them have had their deficiencies, personal and political. 

On the personal level Barack Obama set an outstanding example. Raised by the White side of his mixed-race heritage in an international setting, as an adult he embraced the strongest aspects of the African-American culture, as exemplified by his chosen wife and her family. The “family values” of the African-America community into which he was graciously adopted include loyalty, honesty, a commitment to provide in a respectful way for the less fortunate, and courage in the face of adversity. He bought into all of them. 

And also, there’s just being cheerful and courteous, qualities which the incoming “president” profoundly lacks. Vulgarity (what an old-school word it seems now) is that oaf’s distinguishing characteristic. He’s also a liar. He exemplifies all that seems to have gone wrong with the dominant White culture in the U.S. \ 

Yes, I know that some of us White folks can be honest, courteous, etc. on occasion, but Drumpf is our guy, isn’t he? It was our voters who put him in place. Black Americans have often been blamed for the sins of the worst amongst them—now the shoe’s on the other foot. 

On the political side, many of my post-messianic Berkeley friends who salivate over alt-left conspiracy theories have been eager to express their profound disappointment that the first African-American president was not the corporeal embodiment of The Second Coming. It’s way past time, to use a surly cliché, for them to Just Get Over It. This kind of carping had something to do with the election disaster. 

It’s become clearer and clearer that the outstanding accomplishment of the Obama presidency will be the irrevocable acknowledgement that human beings, including Americans, have the right to decent health care. All the excitement among the newly empowered Republicans is about how to repeal AND REPLACE Obama’s Affordable Care Act. 

Nary a voice is raised to recommend just repealing the proudly nicknamed Obamacare without replacement, because—of course, we now say—Americans have the right, not only to health care, but to good health care, affordable health care, with none of that preexisting-condition nonsense. As our departing leader said in his farewell address, if you have a plan that works better than ours, we’ll happily endorse it. 

Oh, some alt-lefties have whined that the ACA was not single-payer. Yes, but do you remember, back in the day just eight years ago, when it was seriously argued that the government had no role in guaranteeing some kind of health care for all or at least for most? That’s over. 

Recognition of the right to care is the single biggest success of this administration, and now that the genie is out of the bottle it can never be put back. The best should not be the enemy of the good-enough—the merely good ACA is a stepping stone to what will be better. 

There’s been a long list of breakthroughs in the last eight years besides demolishing the white supremacy myth and establishing the right to health care, too many to discuss here. Some of these include acknowledgement of the need to combat climate change, normalization of relations with Cuba, the nuclear treaty with Iran , designation of many thousands of acres of protected lands, pulling out of a serious recession and many, many more. 

Sadly, we’re now entering a Moses-in-the-desert historical period. As the story has it, after successfully leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the poor guy wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, dying with the promised land in sight but not in reach. But they did get there eventually. [No, I’m not taking sides here about what’s going on there now.] 

It’s pretty clear that there was not much wrong with the campaign or the candidate per se. The outcome was caused by (1) the peculiarities of the electoral college system (2) Russian meddling with confidential email communication, exquisitely timed to tip key states at the last minute and (3) James Comey, obviously working on behalf of god-knows-who to discredit the Democratic candidate. Could he be a Russian mole? 

We should keep firmly in mind that our team, yes, even the whiners on our side, did win the election—we did convince the American people that we were right about most things. The fact that the new “president” will be someone else is a very unpleasant detail, but it’s not the message we should take away from what happened on November 9. 

We are out of Egypt now, and we will get to the promised land, perhaps not in my lifetime, but eventually. One of our daughters or granddaughters will be the first woman president…on a platform of ensuring healthcare and housing and all the other acknowledged human rights for all. 

Meanwhile, however, it looks like things could be pretty weird for a while. One cliché I’m really getting tired of is “you can’t make this stuff up”. But you know, you just can’t. 

However we should not let the baroque embellishments of the current sordid political plot line distract us from taking a moment to acknowledge the outstanding success of the remarkable Barack Obama presidency. Whatever bizarre events will be happening in the near future, they can’t take that away from us. 

We were there, and we’re proud to say so. In the not-so-distant future, we will overcome. 

Avanti!