Obama has destroyed the Democrats

By the time a president reaches the last couple of years in office, his attention inevitably turns to his legacy. A president’s legacy, whether good or ill, is built upon accomplishments, not rhetoric. Therefore, it’s not hard to identify what this president would point to as the legacy bookends of his eight years in office. At the front end is the enactment of Obamacare. At the back end is the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Presidential scholars, political pundits, and the American people will debate and disagree regarding the worthiness of both of these two monumental undertakings. You can be certain that when the Obama Presidential Library opens in Chicago it will make the case that healthcare was reformed by Obamacare, and the world was made safer by the Iran Nuclear Agreement. Alternatively, it’s entirely possible that the voters in 2016 and beyond will make the countervailing argument.

But regardless of history’s assessment of Obamacare and the Iran Nuclear Deal, there is another part of the Obama legacy that he won’t acknowledge and that is too little discussed. Obama has virtually destroyed the Democratic Party. And the Democrats, like lemmings, have been willing accomplices in their own demise.

It was opposition to Obamacare that produced the enormous gains the GOP made in 2010 and 2014. Rather than delaying health care reform in the face of an imploding economy in 2009, Obama chose to ram it through Congress with only the support of Democrats. It was a catastrophic blunder.

The numbers are staggering. In 2010, the GOP captured the House by gaining 63 seats. In 2014, they took control of the Senate. And the damage has been just as ruinous for the Democrats at the state level. The Republicans now have 31 governors and fully control 30 state legislatures.

In a recent column in Politico entitled, Democratic Blues, Jeff Greenfield says, “In fact, no president in modern times has presided over so disastrous a stretch for his party.”

Having painted himself into corner, it’s not surprising that President Obama basically chose to attempt to govern as if he were the only decision-maker. In his first Cabinet meeting in 2014 Obama said, “We’re not going to just be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help they need. I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”

There is no better current example of Obama’s go-it-alone, go-for-broke approach to governance than the Iran Nuclear Agreement now pending before Congress. It’s his foreign relation’s version of Obamacare. Not surprisingly, it has spawned the same kind of bitter partisan rancor on the Hill and across the nation as did Obamacare.

The Iran Nuclear Agreement aims to prevent or at least delay Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. In addition, it lifts the severe sanctions on Iran that have been in place for years. The Obama Administration assumes that Iran will become less menacing and easier to deal with as a consequence of the Agreement. In fact, the day after the deal had been reached, the President falsely argued that the choices now facing this nation are to accept the deal or go to war. He said, “Either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is resolved diplomatically through a negotiation or it’s resolved through force, through war.”

Virtually all Republicans on Capitol Hill and a majority of the American people as measured by national polls do not agree with President Obama’s assessment, and they do not agree with the tortured way the agreement is being presented to Congress so as to make it next to impossible for it to be rejected.

Instead of submitting the deal as a treaty that would have required a two-thirds vote in the Senate, it takes the form of an agreement. Congress will almost certainly reject the agreement, but Obama will veto their disapproval and Congress will not have the votes to override his veto.

Former Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, puts Obama’s scheme in proper perspective. He says, “if the majority of Americans continue to oppose the deal, it will ultimately be rejected...An agreement, as distinguished from a treaty does not have the force of law. It can simply be abrogated by any future president.”

Obama has decimated the Democratic Party. What remains is a geriatric joke: Hillary 69, Sanders 74, Biden 74, Kerry 73, Warren 66, Reid 75, and Pelosi 75. A political party, unwilling to challenge its president when necessary, deserves its ignominious fate.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock. He was a member of the federal government’s senior executive service for many years.

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