Obama’s ‘hope and change’ has given us ‘fear and loathing’
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So this is how Hope & Change ends. With the FBI in turmoil, with surging anti-police violence, withfears of voter fraud and foreign hacking, with a sluggish economy, with a terror warning and with two unpopular presidential candidates tearing at each other like wolves.
Heckuva job, Barack Obama!
The 44th president made history by being elected, but leaves behind a nation on the verge of a crack-up. He flatters himself by insisting his tenure has been a roaring success, but the public mood tells a different story.
Obama promised to unite America, but exits amid far greater divisions. It is telling that he has stopped portraying himself as a uniter and, like Jimmy Carter, blames the public.
Carter saw malaise, Obama sees bitter clingers, racists and xenophobes. While Obama’s lectures convey disappointment in his fellow Americans, it never occurs to him that he is a disappointment to them.
His failure to come to grips with the polarization, combined with an aggressively liberal agenda spearheaded by executive orders and a politicized bureaucracy, means his successor will inherit a country broken along every fault line imaginable. Voices of discontent and even estrangement are rising among Americans of all stripes and persuasions.
So much so that the one universal point of agreement is that the next occupant of the Oval Office must forge a fundamental consensus before the country can begin to address its critical problems.
But forging that consensus could prove to be the most difficult problem of all, especially with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both better at exploiting polarization than ending it.
Indeed, polls showing a close outcome suggest the winner will take office on a wave of bitterness. Legal challenges remain a possibility, both to the legitimacy of the vote and to the candidates’ past actions.
Still, the near-universal clamor for change offers a potential opening. Grievances from across the political spectrum demonstrate that most of the country agrees our public servants are only serving themselves, and that Washington is disconnected from most Americans’ daily lives.
The necessary consensus, then, won’t be found in a new program conceived in a winner-take-all environment. While there are some areas of basic agreement — infrastructure development, tax reform, and the need to more fully confront Islamic terror — they are not the sort of things that get to the root problem.
Building trust can begin with small steps of transparency conveyed in plain English — no parsing or government mumbo-jumbo allowed.
That root, I believe, is a fundamental distrust of government. It can’t be fixed by bigger government, or even by just a smaller one.
Instead, the only solution is a more honest government, a goal that must be addressed as a distinct issue from Day One. Building trust can begin with small steps of transparency conveyed in plain English — no parsing or government mumbo-jumbo allowed.
Tragically, neither candidate is equipped for the challenge. Clinton, because of her long trail of dishonesty in public life, will never be able to summon broad national support for anything.
In fact, the campaign has undermined her claims to be ready for the presidency, and she still offers no rationale other than ambition. Her contempt for everyday Americans, expressed through the use of a private server and in words like “deplorables” and “irredeemable” directed at Trump supporters, has created a new ceiling of her own making.
Thanks to the FBI and WikiLeaks revelations, we know her judgment is not trusted even by her closest confidants.
If Republicans hold either house of Congress, Clinton will face hobbling probes from the start. Her arrogant resolve to keep the family foundation open guarantees an endless stream of pay-to-play suspicions. Making gender history would come at too high a price.
That leaves Trump. His defects of temperament and instinct are enormous, and it is certain he is guilty of despicable abuse of some women. Also, there are reasons why the New York business and philanthropic communities hold him in low regard.
But we are where we are, and Trump has one advantage over Clinton — a clean slate in exercising governmental power. He is a genuine outsider whose promise of change is more credible, and better matches the nation’s mood.
Unlike Clinton, he would be free to break with Obama’s failed policies on immigration, health care and Iran. Moreover, Trump’s improvement as a candidate suggests he has more potential for upside surprises. A few good Cabinet picks would reassure millions of Americans and create a valuable honeymoon for his administration.
All that said, Trump remains a long shot to be a good president. But after eight years of Hope & Change, a long shot is the only shot we have.
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