By John W. Whitehead
\nJanuary 09, 2017<\/p>\n
\u201cThis light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two different phantoms, and the one attacks and punishes the other, the darkness of the despot struggles with the splendor of the captain. Hence a truer measure in the final judgment of the nations. Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.\u201d \u2015 Victor Hugo, Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let\u2019s talk about President Obama\u2019s legacy, shall we?<\/p>\n
This was a candidate who was ushered into office promising hope and change, pledging to put an end to the endless wars that were bankrupting the country (he was actually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a> in anticipation of his efforts to bring about world peace), and vowing to put an end of the corporate revolving door that had turned our republic into an oligarchy.<\/p>\n
After eight years in office, Barack Obama leaves our nation with a weakened Constitution that has been dealt one crippling blow after another by court rulings and government overreach, with more militarized police empowered to shoot first and ask questions later, with more SWAT team raids, with more government corruption, with more debt than ever before ($19 trillion and rising), with more racial tensions bubbling over into confrontations, with even greater surveillance intruding into the privacy of the citizenry, with less tolerance for free speech and thought, with taxpayers groaning under the weight of even more taxes disguised as fines and fees, with a more \u201cimperial\u201d president empowered to act unilaterally through the use of signing statements and executive orders, with a greater risk of blowback from military occupations, drone strikes and endless wars abroad, and with a citizenry more broken and oppressed than ever.<\/p>\n
In other words, Obama leaves our nation worse off than when he took office.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t hear any of this from Obama, who believes he would have been re-elected<\/a> had he been permitted to run for a third term. Nor will you hear it from the celebrities who are quick to sing Obama\u2019s praises, while likening Donald Trump to Hitler<\/a>. And you certainly won\u2019t hear it from those who are staging sit-ins, marches and acts of civil disobedience<\/a> to protest Trump\u2019s election, while having failed to voice even a whisper of protest over Obama\u2019s long list of civil liberties abuses.<\/p>\n
Yet the reality we must contend with is that the world is a far more dangerous place today than it was eight years ago, and Obama must shoulder some of the blame for that. As President Harry S. Truman recognized, \u201cThe buck stops here.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did we come to this?<\/p>\n
How did a politician who showed such potential and managed to ignite such positive feelings among the citizenry, young and old alike, go from being a poster child for hope and change to being the smiling face of a government that is blind, deaf and dumb to the needs of its citizens?<\/p>\n
Let me answer my own question in a roundabout way by quoting something Meryl Streep said recently in her recent Golden Globe acceptance speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Ostensibly taking aim at Trump for imitating a disabled reporter, Streep declared<\/a>: \u201cThis instinct to humiliate, when it\u2019s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody\u2019s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
Streep is right in one sense.<\/p>\n
We all lose when the powerful inflict violence, humiliation, disrespect on others.<\/p>\n
However, where Streep goes wrong is in failing to recognize that \u201cwe the people\u201d have been on the losing end of this relationship long before Trump\u2019s name was even being batted about as a possible candidate for the White House.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the agents of the Obama administration\u2014many of whom belong to that permanent government bureaucracy that is unaltered by elections and flows in a continuous line from one president to another\u2014have been consistently and persistently inflicting violence, humiliation and disrespect on the citizenry for the past eight years.<\/p>\n
Every time a SWAT team funded by government grants crashes through a door, that\u2019s an infliction of violence. Every drone strike that kills innocent civilians is inflicting violence on the less powerful. Every roadside stop that ends with an unwarranted strip search is inflicting humiliation on the less powerful. Every law that criminalizes the speech or activities of those whose views may not jibe with the mainstream is tantamount to government-sanctioned bullying.<\/p>\n
So for those lamenting the perils of a Trump presidency, who have been quick to blame racism, sexism and even the Russians for Trump\u2019s electoral victory, you might want to consider the old Native American proverb that says \u201cevery time you point a finger in scorn\u2014there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.\u201d<\/p>\n
As civil rights activist Cornel West concluded<\/a>, \u201cThe reign of Obama did not produce the nightmare of Donald Trump \u2013 but it did contribute to it. And those Obama cheerleaders who refused to make him accountable bear some responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
West goes on to document the many missteps that contributed to Obama\u2019s failed legacy<\/a>: his allegiance to Wall Street, the drone strikes that have killed innocent civilians, the demonization of whistleblowers, the killing of U.S. citizens without due process, and his refusal to hold police accountable for excessive force and civil rights violations among others.<\/p>\n
As West writes<\/a> for The Guardian<\/em>:<\/p>\n
\u201c[T]he mainstream media and academia failed to highlight these painful truths linked to Obama. Instead, most well-paid pundits on TV and radio celebrated the Obama brand. And most black spokespeople shamelessly defended Obama\u2019s silences and crimes in the name of racial symbolism and their own careerism. How hypocritical to see them now speak truth to white power when most went mute in the face of black power. Their moral authority is weak and their newfound militancy is shallow.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let me also say that this is not only an indictment of all that Obama has failed to do in the past eight years. It is also an indictment of those administrations prior to Obama, Democrat and Republican alike, which have contributed to our present sorry state of affairs. And it is a warning to Trump as he begins to carve out a path for his own administration.<\/p>\n
Every time I write one of these diatribes about the government, I\u2019m always asked \u201cwhat can I do to push back against the government?\u201d<\/p>\n
My answer, which I flesh out in greater detail in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>, is always the same: When all is said and done, politicians are only as effective, trustworthy and accountable as they are made to be. And they are only made to be effective, trustworthy and accountable when the citizenry stays engaged, informed and active in the workings of government.<\/p>\n
One of the best models I know for a citizen who took the duties of citizenship to heart every moment of the day was my good friend, mentor and hero Nat Hentoff\u2014one of the nation\u2019s most respected, controversial and uncompromising writers and a lifelong champion of the First Amendment\u2014who passed away on Saturday, January 7, 2017, at the age of 91.<\/p>\n
Nat was a radical in the best sense of the word, a feisty, fiercely loyal, inveterate freedom fighter and warrior journalist with a deep-seated intolerance of injustice and a love of America that weathered the best and worst this nation has had to offer.<\/p>\n
Nat didn\u2019t live to see the last days of Obama\u2019s reign, but he saw enough to describe the nation\u2019s 44th<\/sup> president as \u201cpossibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.\u201d A few years back, I asked Nat how he maintains his optimism in the face of the constant barrage of discouraging news about government corruption, civil liberties abuses, war, etc.<\/p>\n