Michael Ginsberg | American Greatness
Barack Obama succeeded.
He promised his presidency would fundamentally transform America. And it did.
Understand, it gives me no pleasure to write these words. As a dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer and someone who is fiercely individualistic and innately skeptical of mass social movements, I much prefer the downsized presidential ambitions of Calvin Coolidge or Ronald Reagan. But credit where it is due: the election and presidency of Barack Obama unleashed forces within the United States that have permanently turned this country and its citizens in a leftward, statist direction.
Today we debate whether men can give birth, whether drag shows are appropriate for elementary school children, whether statues of Washington, Jefferson and other Founding Fathers should be displayed, and whether biological males should be permitted to compete as females in athletic competitions. People now claim to see the hidden hand of white supremacy in demands to reopen schools during the COVID pandemic. People contend with a straight face that America is committing genocide against transgender people.
All of this most definitely represents a fundamental transformation from 2008.
How did we get to a point where states openly define themselves as sanctuary states for transgender surgeries – even for minors without the consent of their parents? How did we reach a point where social justice demands corporations bend the knee to organizations like Black Lives Matter and ESG investing became de rigeur?
How did we get here? How did America’s social debates leap so wildly to these extremes?
Quite simply, it was the election and presidency of Barack Obama that is the genesis for all of the culture wars raging today. Modern Democrats always fancied themselves the party of civil rights, but their monomaniacal focus on race and identity began with Obama’s election and grew and metastasized into today’s obsession with identity following the election and during the presidency of Donald Trump.
In a sense, Obama’s election is the central pole of a Grand Unified Theory of Democratic and Progressive Politics of the last 20 years.