Damn, I miss having a real president

He has been out of office for nearly nine and a half years now, but I still miss Barack Obama. Every day that some brand new atrocity is committed by #neverwasmypresident Donald John Trump and/or his flying monkeys (no offense intended to monkeys or to flying creatures of any type), I am reminded all over again why I miss having a real president. And don't get me wrong; I liked Biden a lot too and I miss him as well. But Obama is the guy I miss the most.

Barack-bashing MAGAts have been insisting for years that Obama was absolutely the most divisive president America has had in modern times or maybe ever. They won't even listen to any argument suggesting that Obama wasn't the problem.

There was deep division in the US during the Obama years, certainly, but the MAGAts are looking in the totally wrong direction for blame. It wasn't Obama who did the dividing. It was the Obama haters (most of whom who later morphed into MAGAts); they simply couldn't stand the thought of a Black man in the White House -- much less a sharp, articulate Black man.

And they will argue until they're red in the face that they are not, not, NOT racists and that they opposed Barack Obama because reasons. But I'm not buying it.

Austin-based content creator and self-described public figure Allen Clifton wrote in a May 30, 2026 Facebook post that he's sick of hearing Trump supporters imply that opposition to Trump is comparable in any way to opposition to Obama. Clifton wrote:

When Obama was in office, Republicans went after him for the dumbest crap I've ever seen. I saw segments mocking him shopping for Christmas gifts for his daughter. There was one where they belittled him for wearing a helmet while riding a bike. They pushed conspiracies about whether or not he was an American that were completely unfounded. They called him a Muslim, even though he had a well-documented history of Christian church attendance — unlike Trump. Many still believe Michelle Obama is actually a man and called her a communist for trying to encourage Americans to work out more and eat healthier. You know, what Trump supporters today call "MAHA," proving, once again, that they don't really have any real values other than opposing whatever Democrats support...

And then of course there was that whole tan-suit scandal, not to mention the brouhaha when Michelle exercised her right to bare arms. Obama haters loudly jeered all of it. In many cases they were outraged. And yet nothing Trump does seems to bother them in the least.

There are so many legitimate reasons to loathe what Trump has done and continues to do that it's hard to list them all. But Allen Clifton managed to do a pretty good job of it, producing a list that illustrates that Obama's trespasses, whatever they might have been, were ludicrously minor compared to Trump's. Unlike Trump...

• :Obama never publicly and personally attacked judges when they ruled against him.
• Obama didn't sue his own IRS, of which he is the executive, for $10 billion, only to have his Department of Justice "settle" the lawsuit for $1.8 billion in a slush fund he planned to personally control.
• Obama didn't name his personal attorney the acting attorney general.
• Obama didn't defend the killing of unarmed American citizens by federal agents, labeling those unarmed Americans as "domestic terrorists."
• Obama didn't sue universities that taught material that he disagreed with.
• Obama didn't sue media outlets for reporting stories about him he didn't like.
• Obama didn't gut funding for medical research.
• Obama didn't appoint his top political donor, and the richest man in the world, to a very powerful position within our government.
• Obama never tried to put his name on U.S. currency, get a new piece of currency produced depicting his face, put his face on passports, put banners of himself on government buildings, or push for the construction of ballrooms or arches he wants named after himself.
• Obama didn't even come up with "Obamacare," that was Republicans trying to slander the former president. The bill's actually the Affordable Care Act. So, even his signature piece of legislation, he didn't name after himself. But Trump did name his online prescription site and child savings accounts after himself.
• Obama didn't constantly call for media personalities to be fired for criticizing him.
• Obama didn't have his FCC go after networks for not firing those individuals.
• Obama didn't order the Department of Justice to go after his enemies.
• Obama didn't fire his attorney general for not bowing down and doing everything he told them. He damn sure didn't call files related to child predators a "total hoax," as Trump's called the Epstein files.
• Obama wasn't out blatantly manipulating the markets and engaging in insider trading.
• Obama didn't accept a $400 million plane from Qatar he then used hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars to fix up, which he plans to take with him when he leaves office.
• Obama didn't call elections that didn't go his party's way "rigged."
• Obama didn't order "blue states" to unethically redraw congressional maps, trying to give Democrats an advantage in midterm elections.
• Obama didn't constantly attack our allies while kissing the ass of dictators like Vladimir Putin.
• Obama didn't start a war with Iran he promised he wouldn't start.
• Obama didn't run up record deficits, he actually reduced them.
• Obama didn't try to take over the Kennedy Center and put his name on it.
• Obama didn't personally and publicly attack Supreme Court justices for ruling against his policies.
• Obama didn't pardon over 1,600 criminals who attacked our Capitol.
• Obama didn't incite an insurrection against our free and fair elections.
• Obama didn't publicly attack his political opponents with childish personal names and insults.
• Obama didn't try to politicize the United States military.
• Obama didn't publicly celebrate the death of opponents.
• Obama didn't mock the deaths of people who didn't support him.
• Obama didn't call Republicans "the enemy of the people" or Fox News "a network that hates the country."
• Obama didn't attack former First Ladies.
• Obama didn't call his predecessors "traitors" and accuse them of treason.
• Obama didn't go after and try to primary any member of Congress who voted against him.
• Obama didn't run his 2012 campaign claiming that if he was going to lose, it would be because it was "totally rigged."
• Obama didn't say of POWs, "he likes people who weren't captured."
• Obama didn't desecrate Arlington National Cemetery by staging a photo-op there he used in a campaign ad, which goes completely against the policies of that sacred place.
• Obama didn't say he deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor.
• Obama didn't constantly whine about wanting a Nobel Peace Prize.
• Obama didn't constantly demand "loyalty" and attack anyone who had stances in opposition to his.
• Obama didn't get accused by nearly 30 women of sexual assault.
• Obama didn't cheat on all of his wives.
• Obama didn't build a business reputation on screwing over small businesses and contractors.
• Obama didn't go around saying everything he's done is better than it's ever been done.
• Obama didn't constantly float the idea of trying to run for an unconstitutional third term.
• Obama didn't create a crypto business in which he has used to funnel billions into his personal net worth by donors that are completely anonymous.
• Obama didn't shill merchandise from an online store to make himself money.
• Obama didn't spend hours every day sharing conspiracies, self-serving nonsense, and personal attacks against opponents on social media.
• Obama didn't try to withhold disaster funding from "red states" when natural disasters struck.
• Obama didn't publicly state he "hated" anyone who didn't vote for and support him.

Here's that link again.

I'm far from the only person to speculate that Trump and Trumpism were in large part a massive racist backlash to having a Black man, and a Democrat to boot, in the White House. The fallout began on election night 2008, has never really let up, and may yet turn America into a failed state. So I shudder to think of the explosive reactions that would have occurred if Kamala Harris -- who's both Black and a woman -- had won the White House in 2024.

I still have what I think is a reasonable amount hope for this country, but there's one point I will state unequivocally: America needs to grow the f--k up and accept that cisgender heterosexual white males aren't the only types of humans who are fit to hold the most powerful role in America. It's too bad that this acceptance won't happen in time for the country's 250th birthday bash. But maybe it'll happen someday, and hopefully well before another half century goes by and the nation is celebrating its 300th.

This of course is assuming that the American Experiment doesn't completely collapse under the weight of Trumpism well before then. At this point, it could go either way.

As May gives way to June and we all brace ourselves for whatever fresh hell Donny Demento and his minions have in store for us this month, I will continue to miss the man in the tan suit, along with his bare-armed commie wife who dared to suggest that Americans should be getting more exercise and eating healthier diets. Millions of other folks feel the same way I do, and that fact continues to torment Donny every day of his miserable life.