Maybe I’ll sound like a whining Democrat, still aghast and devastated by the ascendency of President Train Wreck to the White House, but I’m saying it anyway: I miss Obama.
I like drama just fine—in movies. In real life, I keep my distance from drama and the drama queens, who litter your life with the stuff. Indeed, I don’t just keep my distance; I go out of my way to avoid drama, like I do with traffic.
Isn’t life stressful enough? Cholera-afflicted Haitians with no hope of redress from the culpable UN; A mind-boggling 10 million-plus displaced Syrians on the move; over 2.5 million famine-ravaged Yemenis; food shortages in Venezuela and a whopping 81% of households living in poverty (lookin’ at you President Maduro!); regular reports of terrorists speeding onto sidewalks and mowing people down. And what about here at home? Four out of 10 children living in poverty in the richest country on Earth; 40% of black men incarcerated, even though blacks make up only 13% of the population; over 300,000 victims of rape and sexual assault every single year. The list of horrors goes on and on.
So why, in the name of all that is good and sane and peaceful, must we bear the helter skelter, WTF, knee-jerk decisions masquerading as policy prescriptions of a seriously deranged, ugly know-nothing, who lives only for moneymoneymoney, and the flattery of any low-life, whose false words reinforce his inflated self-regard? This unsightly reptile hiding behind a grotesque human mask has, in just the last two weeks:
―hosted repressive Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago
―called Turkish strongman Erdogan to congratulate him on his recent election
―defended sexual harasser and pervert Bill O’Reilly
And that’s after a multifaceted offensive on truth, our planet, and common decency on too many fronts to list. Surely, these actions surprise no one—both Xi Jinping and Trump revile freedom of the press; like Trump, Erdogan won his election through manipulation; and as with Bill O’Reilly, the Neanderthal-in-chief believes that women exist for the taking. Should they resist, Modern Neanderthal Men simply throw money at them! (Honestly, why would Melania Trump be with that monster, if not for the money?)
How can it be that a pathological liar with a fake tan extraordinaire is the nightmare we must wake up to each day? Obama wasn’t perfect but he is sane, intelligent, elegant, never gave energy to the haters, and he inspired hope.
Interestingly, as I worked on this blog, an email arrived in my inbox from Progressive Turnout Project, a grassroots political action committee devoted to getting out the democratic vote. The subject line said: Miss President Obama? I must be on to something, I thought. And then I opened Saturday’s New York Times to find an article about four planned public speeches to come from Obama in the next few days. Finally! I thought. He’s back from his well-deserved vacation and ready to swing into action. To my mind, swing into action means vociferously denouncing Trump’s agenda of blatantly attempting to bludgeon democracy, fairness, and the rule of law, while spitting in the faces of his supporters with absolute insouciance.
But, no. If that’s what democrats hope for, the article warned, they will be disappointed. Although Obama’s got it in him (I saw him go there in the last few weeks of the election), he has no plan to criticize Trump. He will, instead, lend his voice to issues of “civic engagement, the health of the planet, the need for diplomacy, civil rights and development of a new generation of young American leaders.” In other words, although he will never utter Trump’s name, in stressing these concerns, by default, he will shine a light on the Trump administration’s assaults on the principles we hold dear. Vintage Obama. So classy. I both love and hate that about him.
So which Obama do I pine for? In the interest of living less stressful days, I have to admit it: I miss No-Drama-Obama something fierce.