Maureen Dowd: Obama Failed To Understand The Obama Revolution

Love her or hate her, the NY Times’ Maureen Dowd often provides interesting reads. She’s never seemed to be a big fan of Obama over the years, and has never shy’d away from taking him to task. Now she provides an interesting take on why Trump won, and puts a lot of blame on Obama

Obama Lobbies Against Obliteration by Trump

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Out of a hailstorm of unfathomable things during the week, one sticks out to me: How can it be that in the end, Barack Obama did not understand the Obama revolution?

He came away from that elated whoosh in 2008 not comprehending that many voters viewed him as the escape hatch from Clinton Inc. It never would have occurred to anyone then — even the Clintons — that President Obama would be the one to brush away any aversions and objections, take us by the elbow, and firmly steer us back to Clinton Inc.

Voters waited in line for hours at those early Obama rallies because they wanted thunderous change. They wanted a newcomer who didn’t look like the old dudes on our money, someone who would bust up the incestuous system and give us, as the poster said, hope.

But Obama lost touch with his revolutionary side and settled comfortably into being an Ivy League East Coast cerebral elitist who hung out with celebrities, lectured Congress and scorned the art of political persuasion.

In other words, all the hopey changey he promised became not only more of the same, but Obama became the very thing he campaigned against.

He was cozy with Silicon Valley and dismissive of working-class voters anxious about globalization, shrugging that “We’re part of an interconnected global economy now, and there’s no going back from that.” He was dismissive of Americans anxious about terrorism after the Paris attacks, noting that you’d be more likely to die from a bathtub fall.

For all his faults, Bill Clinton was able to put forth an attitude that he understood the average American, and that he could not only empathize, but sympathize, an attitude that neither Hillary nor Obama could do. Obama was always the guy on the pedestal, and, once in office, continued to show that He Knows Better, and that all you citizens with concerns are just silly.

The man who swept into the White House in a boisterous rebellion was dismissive of the boisterous rebellions in both the Democratic and Republican Parties. He insisted that an incrementalist and fellow Ivy League East Coast cerebral elitist who hangs out with celebrities would be best to save his legacy.

The elitists in the Executive Branch, from Obama down to the people he appointed, helped create the next revolution, both from the Sanders camp and the Trump camp. Obama said he would drain the swamp. He became King Lizard of the swamp.

As she cuddled up to Wall Street, Hillary forgot about the forgotten man — and woman. Bill complained in meetings that campaign manager Robby Mook was ignoring white working-class voters, according to Politico, but his concern was waved off as the plea of “a talented but aging politician who simply refused to accept the new Democratic map.”

Love him or hate him, Bill tends to have a good finger on the pulse of the voter. These workers had been mostly ignored during Obama’s years, and were now being ignored by Team Hillary.

There’s plenty more in the Dowd piece, well worth a full read, where she takes Obama and Hillary to task for essentially being the very elitists that are out of touch with the common American. The very ones who put Trump into the White House.