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When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, his platform’s core belief was that the American electorate was only as partisan as its politicians allowed it to be. He resented the distinction between blue and red states, calling for reconciliation so that the nation may finally heal from the wounds of the Bush era–unfortunately for Obama, America’s polarized politics would only take on a new life after he left office, signaling perhaps that a belief in unity as the main thrust for positive change was all-too-naive to begin with.
Being the first African American president in US history, Obama’s tenure in office came to signify a symbolic victory for the liberal left–the then-marginalized political group was wholly convinced that America’s buy-in on its ideas meant that it had finally succumbed to the tenets of pluralism, soon-to-become the norm. If America, with its long history of systemic racism, managed to elect to its highest office a Black man, wouldn’t that necessarily mean it has overcome it?
Looking at the masses of people currently occupying the streets to protest what was thought to be a thing of the past, is proof enough that power indiscriminately corrupts, as it did to Obama. In a fiery speech at the…
