The Man Who Broke Them
The Republican Party died on November 4th, 2008.
On that night, a man overcame four centuries of our country's history; a history designed to ensure that someone like him never achieved what he was about to achieve. Strike one: this man's father was a Black African immigrant. Strike two: this man's mother was White and forced to raise him as a single mother. Strike three: this man was biracial, with the Black half of his identity now tied to four centuries of struggle. Strike four: this man attended primary school internationally, an experience traditionally reserved for those of a certain income level. Strike five: this man attended an elite Ivy League university, one whose admissions were only opened to him through progressive policies designed to open doors to historically underrepresented populations. And strike six: this man entered politics, a profession that had throughout its history been an old boys' club and one where your family name, bank account, and personal connections determined your success or lack thereof.
When the "skinny kid with a funny name" overcame all six of these strikes to become president, the Republican Party blew a gasket. For two hundred and thirty years, the conservative party in this country had done everything in its power to keep people like Barack Obama from reaching the pinnacle. From our nation's founding document that made slaves 3/5 of a person up through the Civil Rights movement, conservatives had actively opposed any and all legislation designed to level the playing field. In the wake of the Civil War when slavery was outlawed, conservatives quickly enacted Jim Crow laws to prevent Black ascension. Blacks struggled to own property and were eventually redlined out of various communities. Blacks were denied the right to vote and faced intimidation and violence for those who dared try. The education of Black children was inherently unequal, something that took the nation until 1954 to finally address. The 13th Amendment may have freed the slaves but Black men and women were never truly free in America.
Then came Barack Hussein Obama.
And for the first time, conservative America saw someone in the Oval Office who did not look like them. Who didn't have their same life experience. Who could be equally comfortable hosting foreign dignitaries and championship sports teams. Here was someone who, along with the First Lady, was opening the White House to thousands of Black children to experience art and culture in a way that had never been done before. Tan suit and all, Barack Obama was now the most powerful man in the world. He was the Time person of the year. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a political rock star with the kind of excitement that hadn't been seen since JFK. With 60 Democrats and independent votes in the Senate and a House majority, Barack Obama was poised to be a transformative president in a way that would forever change how Americans viewed people of color in leadership positions.
Republicans understood all of this. They understood that a successful Barack Obama would undermine their entire existence. After all, the country's conservative platform throughout its history was predicated on the status quo. They were against women's suffrage. They were against civil rights. They were against LGBTQ equality. Having a Black man elected president was a massive step forward for Democrats and one that threatened conservative dogma. If Barack Obama could overcome so much, so too could others. Barack Obama was a trailblazer, and his presidency would set the stage for those who would follow. If somehow he were to be unsuccessful, that would set back future leaders of color from ascending to that same position. Republicans had a clear choice: work with Barack Obama to help everyday Americans or work against him to try and rebuild their power.
When the "skinny kid with a funny name" overcame all six of these strikes to become president, the Republican Party blew a gasket. For two hundred and thirty years, the conservative party in this country had done everything in its power to keep people like Barack Obama from reaching the pinnacle. From our nation's founding document that made slaves 3/5 of a person up through the Civil Rights movement, conservatives had actively opposed any and all legislation designed to level the playing field. In the wake of the Civil War when slavery was outlawed, conservatives quickly enacted Jim Crow laws to prevent Black ascension. Blacks struggled to own property and were eventually redlined out of various communities. Blacks were denied the right to vote and faced intimidation and violence for those who dared try. The education of Black children was inherently unequal, something that took the nation until 1954 to finally address. The 13th Amendment may have freed the slaves but Black men and women were never truly free in America.
Then came Barack Hussein Obama.
And for the first time, conservative America saw someone in the Oval Office who did not look like them. Who didn't have their same life experience. Who could be equally comfortable hosting foreign dignitaries and championship sports teams. Here was someone who, along with the First Lady, was opening the White House to thousands of Black children to experience art and culture in a way that had never been done before. Tan suit and all, Barack Obama was now the most powerful man in the world. He was the Time person of the year. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a political rock star with the kind of excitement that hadn't been seen since JFK. With 60 Democrats and independent votes in the Senate and a House majority, Barack Obama was poised to be a transformative president in a way that would forever change how Americans viewed people of color in leadership positions.
Republicans understood all of this. They understood that a successful Barack Obama would undermine their entire existence. After all, the country's conservative platform throughout its history was predicated on the status quo. They were against women's suffrage. They were against civil rights. They were against LGBTQ equality. Having a Black man elected president was a massive step forward for Democrats and one that threatened conservative dogma. If Barack Obama could overcome so much, so too could others. Barack Obama was a trailblazer, and his presidency would set the stage for those who would follow. If somehow he were to be unsuccessful, that would set back future leaders of color from ascending to that same position. Republicans had a clear choice: work with Barack Obama to help everyday Americans or work against him to try and rebuild their power.
We all know what they decided. From the very first vote where not a single House Republican voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the GOP made their opposition to Barack Obama clear. Mitch McConnell famously vowed to make him a one-term president. Combined with the astroturfed Tea Party Movement and the natural lag time to turn the economy around and there was already momentum to undermine Barack Obama less than a month into his presidency. With Senator Ted Kennedy's health failing and Senator Joe Lieberman torpedoing the public option, Barack Obama had to work miracles to earn enough votes to pass the Affordable Care Act, a critical health care reform bill that had been an elusive dream for Democrats for nearly 80 years. When the ACA website initially crashed, Republicans were gleeful to announce that Obamacare as they called it, was on pace to be a spectacular failure. They didn't care that 20 million Americans would finally receive healthcare; all they cared about was seeing Barack Obama struggle in real time.
After two years in office, Obama was dealt a crushing blow by losing control of Congress after the 2010 midterm elections. Obviously, Republican House members got the memo and would go on to oppose everything Obama would try to accomplish over the next two years. When it came time to run for re-election, Republicans not only harped on Obama's "lackluster" record but they also added the racist trope of Obama being born outside of the United States as a way to "other" him against good ole boy Mitt Romney. Although there was never any truth to it, the birther movement led by Donald Trump was another example of how far the Republican Party had fallen in only 4 years. While John McCain famously shut down a GOP voter at a televised town hall for falsely claiming that Obama was an Arab, the party now was openly questioning the first Black president's right to serve in the role. This wasn't a dog whistle; it was a bullhorn that was fully embraced by the party that wanted to make sure that Barack Obama would not serve a second term.
Fortunately, Barack Obama was re-elected. But with a divided Congress for his entire second term, he was never able to recapture the legislative wins he had in his first two years in office. That's not to say he was ineffective; his use of the power of the pulpit was the single greatest catalyst in getting both red and blue states to raise the minimum wage. He also created DACA through an Executive Order which provided a security blanket for over 500,000 DREAMers to stay in the country. By the end, he had created 11.6 million jobs and gotten the unemployment rate down to 4.7%, a significant decrease from where he started at 7.8%. Everything he accomplished during the final 6 years of his presidency was done with an entire opposition party opposing him. The hope was that the American people would see through all this and realize that it was Democrats and Democrats only working for the betterment of the American people.
We won't revisit what happened in 2016. But let's be clear: the Republican Party made a choice during the Barack Obama years to put party over country, a choice that was made to specifically undermine the nation's first Black president. Once you go down that path you cannot go back and we've seen what the GOP has become less than two decades later. What started as opposition solely to Barack Obama has now become complete opposition to anything and everything that Democrats hope to accomplish. We saw this during Joe Biden's term from their uniform opposition to the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and countless federal judges where Kamala Harris was needed to cast the tiebreaking vote. While in the minority, Republicans became the Party of No as a way to stifle the progress Joe Biden was making for the American people. This division was no longer seen as extraordinary but rather as something that was simply a part of our everyday politics.
But it is extraordinary. It's extraordinary in the fact that one single president was so hated, so vilified that an entire political party would rather he fail than the country succeed. Our founding fathers are spinning in their graves knowing that their vision for a constitutional republic was ultimately destroyed by a governing faction that no longer wanted to govern by and for the people but instead against one single person. History will study these times. The rise of Trump. The misogyny of the American people prevented both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris from becoming president. The ageism and media bias that damaged Joe Biden. But the thing that cannot be overstated is how the rise of a skinny kid with a funny name forever changed what the Republican Party is and who they stand for.
And how irreparably broken they became on that fateful November night.
Fortunately, Barack Obama was re-elected. But with a divided Congress for his entire second term, he was never able to recapture the legislative wins he had in his first two years in office. That's not to say he was ineffective; his use of the power of the pulpit was the single greatest catalyst in getting both red and blue states to raise the minimum wage. He also created DACA through an Executive Order which provided a security blanket for over 500,000 DREAMers to stay in the country. By the end, he had created 11.6 million jobs and gotten the unemployment rate down to 4.7%, a significant decrease from where he started at 7.8%. Everything he accomplished during the final 6 years of his presidency was done with an entire opposition party opposing him. The hope was that the American people would see through all this and realize that it was Democrats and Democrats only working for the betterment of the American people.
We won't revisit what happened in 2016. But let's be clear: the Republican Party made a choice during the Barack Obama years to put party over country, a choice that was made to specifically undermine the nation's first Black president. Once you go down that path you cannot go back and we've seen what the GOP has become less than two decades later. What started as opposition solely to Barack Obama has now become complete opposition to anything and everything that Democrats hope to accomplish. We saw this during Joe Biden's term from their uniform opposition to the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and countless federal judges where Kamala Harris was needed to cast the tiebreaking vote. While in the minority, Republicans became the Party of No as a way to stifle the progress Joe Biden was making for the American people. This division was no longer seen as extraordinary but rather as something that was simply a part of our everyday politics.
But it is extraordinary. It's extraordinary in the fact that one single president was so hated, so vilified that an entire political party would rather he fail than the country succeed. Our founding fathers are spinning in their graves knowing that their vision for a constitutional republic was ultimately destroyed by a governing faction that no longer wanted to govern by and for the people but instead against one single person. History will study these times. The rise of Trump. The misogyny of the American people prevented both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris from becoming president. The ageism and media bias that damaged Joe Biden. But the thing that cannot be overstated is how the rise of a skinny kid with a funny name forever changed what the Republican Party is and who they stand for.
And how irreparably broken they became on that fateful November night.