The slogan was “Hope and Change,” the year was 2008 and a young African-American U.S. Senator from Illinois was elected President of the United States. In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn into office.
His political coattails were shared with many as the composition of the US Senate changed from 49 Democrats to 57. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the composition changed from 233 Democrats to 256.
It was a grand time for the Democratic Party due largely in part to Obama’s victory. But the dark clouds of defeat were not far behind. In 2011, Democrats retained control of the Senate, but lost six seats to Republicans, giving the Democrats a 51-47 advantage. In the House, Democrats lost 59 seats and control to Republicans. The GOP controlled The House by a wide margin of 242-193 over the Democrats.
The political fallout was stunted as Barack Obama was again on the ballot in 2012 for re-election. In 2013, Democrats gained 18 seats in the House, but still were in a minority to the 234-201 GOP majority. In the Senate, the Democrats increased their lead to 54-45.
The seeds of defeat for the Democrats that started in 2008 came home to roost in 2015. The American people were fed up with Obama and his Democratic minions. In 2015 Republicans won nine seats in the Senate to take a 54-44 lead over the Democrats. In the House, Republicans won 12 more seats to increase their lead to 246-188. The political rout was on and there was no stopping it come 2016 and the presidential election stunner.
This coming year, not only will a Republican be sworn in as President of the United States, but Republicans will continue their control in both the Senate and House. The composition of the Senate will be 52-46-2 in the Republicans favor (2 Independents) and in the House, the makeup will be 241-194 in favor of the Republicans.
Who is to blame for this dramatic decline in Democratic power? Barack Obama refuses to see the obvious reason for the party’s losses since he took over. In a recent interview, Obama blamed the reason for the Democratic losses on the Democrats failing to show up and to properly make their arguments to the American people. That is the most uninformed piece of tripe imaginable.
Obama told the interviewer in the understatement of 2016, “There are clearly, though, failures on our part to give people in rural areas or in exurban areas a sense day-to-day that we’re fighting for them or connected to them.” He ignores Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party’s open disdain for blue collar white people from the Rust Belt states. Clinton described them as “deplorables.”
Yet the man who led the Democratic Party to ruination and loss of control of the White House, Senate and House plans on coaching young Democrats to be just like him. He will be the first president in modern times who chooses to stay in Washington after his term runs out.
Will that be a good thing for the Democrats who are at their lowest political power in Washington since 1928? When Obama isn’t on the ballot, his words and actions are loathed by millions of Americans who reject his policies, not the man himself. Does he fully understand that?
Do the Democrats have the wool pulled over their eyes simply because Obama’s approval rating is at an all-time high for outgoing presidents? That was what got the man elected twice to the presidency. To not admit a lot of those votes were not white guilt is to reject the reality of Barack Obama’s ultimate success. Just ask Hillary Clinton, the first white woman to run for president. Being a woman made no difference to white people.
