Beware, Republicans! Beware

Watching American politics today can be a little frustrating for those in the know, and extremely confusing for the neophytes. The vast majority of this world’s people fall into the latter category; heck – that even applies to most Americans. To this, there are just two things to say: First, every time something good happens to the Democratic Party, someone in the Republican Party is groaning in excruciating pain. Second, the Republicans (or Democrats) have no interest, whatsoever, in helping the Democrats (or Republicans) govern – and this fact is especially relevant when Democrats control the White House, like they do today.

But I’d be remiss if I did not make specific commentary on the Obama Presidency. Since 2008 when Barack Obama trounced over John McCain, the Republicans have applied a losing strategy to try and take back the White House – they have, basically, been in denial about the Obama Legitimacy. To them, the Obama Win was a mere blip – a Techtronic shift that was nowhere near seismic – something that would simply be recalibrated in the short run. And they tried to deny him legitimacy by refusing to support a health care policy they, themselves, crafted; they refused to vote in favor of bailing out the American car industry; they railed against the government’s stimulus package and denied its efficacy and yet more than 30% of those billions of dollars went to George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy – and most of all, many believed that the Tea Party phenomenon was a real thing – a movement with real grievances. In simple terms, nothing Obama did was real. And for denial strategy, they were rewarded by another loss in 2012 – with Mitt Romney not really believing that he had lost Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and Florida.

And that’s why it’s very frustrating for my colleagues and I to watch what is happening in 2015. The fact is that neither the conservative press nor the current Republican field is giving Hillary Clinton the legitimacy she deserves. This is a woman who was a former First Lady of the United States – one whose husband was governor of Arkansas – a former Senator and Secretary of State. And yet they claim she is not ‘one of us’ because she has not driven herself in more than 20 years. They forget to ask Jeb Bush if he has driven himself in a while. They make snide comments about her husband – forgetting that she has had to bear the Scarlet Letter that is Bill’s infidelity. They also forget that Bill Clinton, at the height of his scandals, was incredibly popular – on account of a thriving economy. But most of all, they are extremely critical of Mrs. Clinton’s time as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. They throw out non-scandals like Benghazi and her email server.

The Republicans forget two simple things: Barack Obama – a black man – was elected TWICE with overwhelming majorities in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s, and that the Republican coalition of steady voters is not growing like that of the Democrats, but actually steadily on the decline. How can they, then, not realize that Hillary Clinton will sweep an even bigger faction of the American populace considering that Barack Obama has not been the abject disaster they actually told everyone he was going to be?