Imagine for just a moment that such a thing was possible; that you could jump into a wondrous machine, travel back in time to 2008, and then jump into the skin of, say, John McCain or Sarah Palin or Chuck Todd or Wolf Blitzer — anyone with a national platform — and knowing what you know now, issue this warning to the American people:
If Barack Obama is elected president, in just eight short years the following will be the result: Not only will race riots, domestic terror attacks, and anemic economic growth be a fact of life, but through government and media propaganda, these events will be normalized. What I mean by that is that as countrymen, as Americans, we will accept such things as normal, as the way things are, as life in our country today. And in the wake of this, Barack Obama will enjoy an approval rating of over 50%, and his successor, Hillary Clinton, running on his legacy, will be the heavy favorite to win the presidency.
If such a thing was possible, it would change … nothing, for you would be treated like Kevin McCarthy near the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a man screaming the truth against a stream of unstoppable traffic populated with drivers alternately amused or outraged by your paranoid ravings. For the crime of shouting this truth, you would not only be denounced as insane, but as a virulent racist, a fear-mongering Klansman spewing evil in order to stop The First Black President.
And yet, here we are.
And those of us not anesthetized by Pokemon Go, “The Real Housewives of Wherever”, the hypnotic, 24/7 virtue-signaling of cable news, our urban ivory towers, or the Velvet Bubble of Social Justice — we see it, and although it is not a mad prediction but instead a terrifying reality, we are still treated as racist crazies for daring to point and shout.
It is just a fact that race riots are now commonplace. We expect them.
It is just a fact that race riots are now commonplace. We expect them. This wasn’t true before Obama (unless you reach back 50 years).
It is just a fact that annual domestic terror attacks are now commonplace. We expect them. This wasn’t true before Obama, ever.
It is just a fact that anemic economic growth is commonplace. We expect it. This wasn’t true before Obama (unless you reach all the way back to the Depression).
Keep in mind that I am only focused on these three issues. I’m not even including the doubling of the national debt, an imploding Middle East, Russia on the march, a nuclear Iran, or the intentional losing of a hard-won victory in Iraq.
Yes, in the past, America has suffered through many failed presidents like Obama. One of the imperfections of democracy is the occasional bad choice. In my personal memory and in my autodidactic knowledge of our history, though, I am unaware of any time where the American people found this acceptable.
You can argue that due to Donald Trump’s many flaws he should be losing the presidential election — that this has nothing to do with anything. Fair enough.
But that doesn’t explain Barack Obama’s approval ratings, or a media more focused on Skittles than this week’s double feature of Islamic terrorism and race riots.
One of the great comforts for those of us on the Right side of the aisle was knowing that no matter how charismatic the Democrat or biased the media, reality will always eventually expose Leftism as the objective failure it is.
Well, here we sit with bombs going off, two cities on fire and eight years of economic growth that doesn’t average over 2% — and the arsonist enjoys a 51% job approval rating.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC