POTUS visiting kids with acute asthma. Who could dislike this?
Race Is obviously a huge part of Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS). If President Obama’s father had been, say, Canadian instead of Kenyan we certainly would have been spared the memes of bananas, monkeys, and nooses from the down market carriers of the syndrome. Similarly, the more up market possessors of ODS probably would not have been impelled to shout “You lie!” during a State of the Union Address, wag their wretched finger at him on the tarmac, or — sure, why not? — ignore a nominee to the frickin’ Supreme Court.
But imagine a different scenario. Imagine President Obama exactly as he is — Kenyan father, smart, mid-western affability, able to make things happen — but instead of having been a community organizer, let’s say he worked in business. Big business. I have some experience with a huge international corporation and I know that clients would be willing to pay a higher fee just to have him on their account team. The other managers would humble-brag about getting to play golf with him; they’d drop, “Yeah, I was talking to Barack in the elevator coming up this morning and he said…,” as many times as possible. He’d be the hero of the firm, and one of the few people who, were he to leave for a competitor, could actually take clients with him.
He would be respected because Private Sector Obama would be following the rules of a game people understand: (1) Make as much money as possible. (2) Leverage your skills in the service of other people and companies trying to make as much as possible. (3) Repeat.
Instead, he chose community organizing, the endeavor that seemingly nauseated grifter extraordinaire Sarah Palin, and risked his presidency on the Affordable Care Act.
Where’s the money in any of that?
Race aside, I think President Obama simply befuddles a swath of people, Maybe it’s something in people’s reptile brain, some unevolved notion of Make More Money, Get “Better” Wife. Donald Trump, though insane, makes sense to them: Even though I’m profoundly ignorant and obnoxious, if I earn enough money I can get what I want. And as much as I roll my eyes when people misuse the word “literally”, I believe Donald Trump has literally done nothing good for anyone that didn’t aggrandize himself.
So it’s this indifference to making tons of money but it’s also one more thing: Some people resent the people President Obama is trying to help. Had he rode a stallion shouting on behalf of “Small Businesses” or “Low Taxes” he might have been comprehensible.
But the society has been exposed to toxic, divisive elements. There was Richard Nixon’s “Silent Majority” of good, hard-workin’ honest folk — no Negroes need apply for that designation. Then came Ronald Reagan’s contempt for Cadillac-driving welfare cheats. Poor people somehow stopped being human beings who are facing a rough patch, fellow citizens who could use a hand, but instead were monsters, unrecognizable space aliens, vermin that need to be crushed. Speaker Paul Ryan tried to walk back his “Makers and Takers” line but if he truly needs weeks to decide if he’s cool with a Trump presidency, then that attitude is clearly still part of his make-up.
There’s a YouTube of the President visiting children with asthma and their parents at a hospital. The children are so thrilled to see him; imagine what it means to a little one with an ailment to know that the President has an idea of what you’re going through and that he cares! But Obama Derangement Syndrome means — I kid you not — there are 34 down votes, and comments along the lines of President Obama being racist because he only does things for black people.
Mmmh. I may have to re-work this diary. It may have more to do with race than I thought...
