Looking back and looking forward this morning.
The New York Times, saying that biases "blinded many Americans to their own good fortune, fortune that flowed from policies set in motion by this president," recounts some of the President's achievements in the face of Republican party- before- country nihilism. Here are two of the biggest:
... The Obama stimulus, which staved off a 1930s-vintage economic collapse by pumping money into infrastructure, transportation and other areas, passed the House without a single Republican vote. [snip]
... Driven by ideology or envy, or maybe both, Republican leaders have now pounced upon the demonstrably successful Affordable Care Act of 2010, a law that has improved the way medical care is delivered in the United States, providing affordable care for millions and driving the percentage of Americans without insurance to a record low 9.1 percent in 2015. Despite the law’s clear successes, Mr. Trump and Republican congressional leaders have nevertheless declared it a failure, hoping to justify a repeal that would rob an estimated 22 million people of health insurance. The point of following this destructive course can only be to destroy a central Obama legacy — even though doing so will drive up costs and cause havoc in the lives of the newly uninsured.Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald looks at the many pluses (and a few minuses) of the Obama presidency which accelerated the derangement of right- wingers:
... By simply existing, by acting as if winning two elections actually entitled you to be president, you drove them crazy. You made them reveal — even revel in — the ugliness, hatred and fear that have always undergirded so-called conservatism where race is concerned. It is telling that the folks who grasped at every untruth and exaggeration to make you out as an America-hating Other now watch in feckless silence as Donald Trump plants sloppy kisses on the autocratic thug Vladimir Putin.Mike Luckovich (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) puts it this way:
