Learning the Wrong Lessons From History: The Lasting Legacy of Barack Obama
“And even if it is not true, you need to believe in ancient history.” —Léo Ferré
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” —Napoleon Bonaparte
“History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” —David McCullough
“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” —Georg Hegel
History happened… way back in the past. That’s pretty much the only thing historians universally agree upon. Everything else — from who was historically bad to who was historically good and what it means for the future — is subject to never-ending debates, name-calling, and finger-wagging from the wonks, profs, and policy nerds in academia.
Or in politics. Especially in politics.
Ideology drives our interpretation of history because that’s what gives it power. On its own, history is just a collection of old stories about dead people. But taken in context, history is our story — the cultural legacy that helps us make sense of our world today. They’re society’s lynchpin beliefs.
Large swaths of today’s political agenda — including affirmative action, hiring quotas, tax rates, sex crimes, #MeToo legislation, immigration, usury laws, and education — are directly tied to historical interpretations of previous wrongs. In essence, they represent modern man’s attempts to make amends for the mistakes of his forefathers.
We try to erase bad old history with good new legislation.
What happened yesterday drives the events of today. That’s the true power of history. (And it’s what men like Ferré mean when they say you must believe in history, even if it’s not true.) You must believe in it because it’s the foundation for everything else.
It’s also what incentivizes political activists to argue so vociferously about long-dead people and events: If you can redefine the prologue, you get to write a new epilogue. (Not a bad deal!) So if America was founded by a bunch of freedom-minded patriots who believed all men were created equal, you’d march in one legislative direction. And conversely, if you believed our Founding Fathers were hypocritical, two-faced slave owners who sought to dominate and exploit all the other races, you’d march somewhere else.
And this brings us to our 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama II.
When Obama walloped John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, conservatives weren’t happy, of course: Their preferred candidate was just soundly defeated. But even hardcore conservatives took solace in the silver lining: What a wonderful statement from our country! From now until the end of time, everyone will know that America is still the one place in the world where dreams come true — where dreamers of ANY color can make it all the way to the White House!
Obama’s victory represented the ultimate realization of racial equality: Now, finally, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream and the American Dream were united. We were, at long last, one nation, under God — indivisible — with liberty and justice for all.
Sure, we were disappointed that McCain lost, but as far as consolation prizes go… delegitimizing race-hustlers like Al Sharpton via conclusively proving that America would elect a black man to its highest office (by a landslide, too!) was pretty damn good. Thanks to Obama, minorities will never again have to believe that the color of their skin will keep them from the top. This is America! And what matters in America is how hard you work, how much you pray, and how big you dream.
Don’t believe me? Go see the black man living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
That should’ve been the crowning legacy of President Obama. He should’ve gone down in history as the president who helped heal America’s racial rifts. It was low-hanging fruit! But instead, the exact opposite happened: The lasting legacy of President Obama isn’t that he delegitimatized the race-hustlers. It’s that he legitimized the race hustlers’ tactics of identity politics.
Between 2019 and 2020 alone, the percentage of Democrats who believed America hadn’t done enough to help black people obtain equal rights rose from 66% to 78%. (The Republican percentage stayed virtually the same: 17% in 2019, 18% in 2020.) During that same time period, the number of black people who believe that being white helps you succeed in life jumped from 69% to 81%.
So according to these polls, racial relations are getting worse… but only for Democrats.
Isn’t that strange? For most of us (especially those who lived through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s) we’ve personally witnessed remarkable improvements in race relations. We’re old enough to remember how things used to be. And there’s just no way it’s worse now. This is the best it’s ever been! By far!
Yet overwhelming majorities of Democrats are now convinced otherwise.
It's a fascinating — and deeply troubling — evolution: America is still America, and the Republican Party is still the Republican Party. But the Democratic Party itself has changed dramatically. Since the election of Obama in 2008, it’s become the one-stop shop for people who believe the American Dream isn’t just dead, but that it never actually existed in the first place: It was all lies by white supremacists.
And in just a few weeks, the generation that was in elementary school when Obama was elected president will be voting for the first time. Their interpretation of America is viewed through the scope of Obama’s lens… and they don’t like what they see. To them, this country is systemically unfair, racist, dishonest, and an instrument of global evil.
Prior to Obama, the Democratic Party still had radical, anti-American voices, of course — in the 1980s and 1990s, men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton raised lots of money by exploiting racial tensions. But their party elders kept a lid on things, fearful of the political repercussions of going too far: Since the black vote was already locked in, why risk alienating everyone else?
But Obama’s landslide victory proved to the Democrats that there’s nothing to fear: Identity politics is a political winner! Obama was elected 16 years ago; that’s plenty of time for an ideology to take root. And so it has. Now, they’re letting their freak flag fly.
Our children will inherit an America that’s colder, crueler, more racially splintered. Identity politics is here to stay.
This is the true legacy of the Obama years.
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