in Obama, Opinion, Politics, Trump Administration

Trump Could Give Barack Obama the Legacy He Always Wanted

by Andrew January 22, 2017, 8:13 pm 49 Comments

Donald Trump ascended to the presidency after a sustained, multi-year campaign – both official and unofficial – to discredit and oppose Barack Obama. In his support of 2012 candidate Mitt Romney, his efforts to find out the truth about Obama’s citizenship, and his inflammatory campaign for president, Trump made it clear that he wanted to erase every last stain of Obama’s legacy from the White House.

Legislatively, we have every reason to suspect that President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress will do just that. He has promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, turn the clock back on Obama’s immigration agenda, and eliminate the federal regulations keeping the economy in stagnation. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. By the time he’s done, it may be difficult to tell that Obama was ever president.

And strangely enough, that may be exactly what gives Obama the legacy he always wanted.

If Obama had handed the keys to the White House over to Hillary Clinton on Friday, he could rest assured that the vast bulk of his presidential agenda would be kept intact. It would form the foundation of the Clinton years, and the Democrats would use the next four years to expand on Obama’s platform, driving the country further and further to the left.

Ultimately, that could have only ended one way: Disaster.

That Obama managed to get to the finish line before his incompetence really came home to roost is a true American miracle. But make no mistake about it, the choices he made as president will lead to catastrophe if they aren’t reversed. Under a President Hillary Clinton, that’s what we would have seen happen. And while Clinton would get her fair share of the blame, Americans would not forget who put us in this mess.

Trump’s first job is to steer us away from these impending disasters. If he’s successful, though, he will not only save the country – he could wind up saving Obama’s precious legacy. Obama and his supporters will be able to pretend that his agenda would have worked, given enough time and space. The media, along with liberal historians, will be glad to indulge in the fantasy.

If this only fed Obama’s ego – if it only preserved him as a black icon – we could live with it. But it will also allow his misbegotten ideas to survive, meaning we could see them again in Democratic administrations to come.

And so the fight continues.