Alright today is the "referendum" on President Obama's job performance in the last 19 months. Is this really a referendum on his accomplishments or on how comfortable America is with a black man as their political leader? Because when we look at what he has accomplished in the last 19 months he got the hotly contested health care legislation through, stimulus money that saved jobs, stabilized the auto industry, put 2 women on The Supreme Court, legislated financial reform with a host of consumer protections and lowered our taxes. Now some things he didn't score high on like: Guantanamo Bay, the handling of the BP disaster, the increased military presence in Afghanistan and not abandoning the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
He took office with all the problems we're all painfully aware of and stopped our economy from dropping off the cliff. He has done an admirable and careful job and is a smart and judicious leader in my opinion. But let's examine the Tea Party and their ridiculousness. Their wanting to "take back America ". Take it back from whom? I can remember when the healthcare legislation was enacted many Tea Partiers said they didn't want any help from the government. By the looks of these people they needed as much help as they could get with their one tooth dangling in the wind. They should only hope that dental was included in our nationalized health care. But they seemed to express that the healthcare reform was all about a new kind of "welfare" for the minorities and immigrants to get free shit on the backs of hard working white Americans, the "true Americans". This rhetoric keeps coming up with their insistence that our president is a socialist and the constant insults and attacks on his legitimacy as our commander in chief. Now the right has gained real political momentum as they hide behind the fact that the unemployment rate is still high. Did people really think that job creation was gonna be a magic trick? Presto you're employed. No. They're using people's dissatisfication with the pace of the economic recovery to stir their basicly racist political agenda that never promotes any solid economic plans but to cut taxes. And I say racist political agenda because they don't want anyone who doesn't look like them to do well when all Americans want the same things: safe drug-free neighborhoods, financial security and good schools for their children.
There's the undeniable sense that these people view the ascendancy of a black man to the white house as white people losing control over "their" country and all these "others" taking over. The right screamed and hollered about the stimulus plan and now economists are saying that the problem was that it was probably too little. Reminds me of the little street adage that "it takes money to make money". Meanwhile the banks have stabilized and money is slowly circulating again. But he gets no credit for that all the while the media gave all its energy to Sarah Palin and the brewing anger. Yeah people should be angry and even a little at our president if they want, but get a grip. He didn't create this mess and he's done a hell of job managing all this crap left behind from "the incompetent one". And there's the overtly ignored record unemployment that African Americans are suffering with and the increasing ranks of the poor while all the attention goes to "saving the middle class". And what's the really crazy part is that the Republican party, over the last 30 years since Reagan, has been able to dupe poor and working class whites into believeing that they share anything with the wealthy elites. The only thing they share is skin color and we're seeing just how strong a unifier that can be. These Tea Partiers are complaining about social welfare when they should be complaing about "wealthfare" and all the tax breaks and protections the wealthy get.
It still confounds me that the President and his advisors didn't see that this would happen. I've always hoped that he has some old wise black man in his corner to school him about some things that he didn't learn at Columbia and Harvard. Things that Rahm Emanuel couldn't or wouldn't tell him. If these elections turn out to be a disaster for the Democrats in the House and Senate, then I hope he'll use a different kind of political and social wisdom to prepare for the next 2-year fight of his life. When you're black, it's not enough to be smart, talented and the best one for the job. You always need a strong dose of "mother's wit", courage, street smarts, fire and a "ride or die" approach to accomplish anything.
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