James David Jacobs
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

During the 2008 campaign, one of Obama’s most famous and oft-repeated lines was that he wanted “to change the way things get done in Washington.” Millions of people heard that line; few bothered to actually stop and think about what it meant. He didn’t say he wanted to change WHAT gets done in Washington; he just wanted to change THE WAY it was done. He said that his biggest concern was the “deep divisions” in the country. He wasn’t cryptic or deceitful; he said what he meant, and everyone heard something else. That’s because he saw a different problem than everyone else did. To most Americans in 2008, the problem was embodied in one man: George W. Bush, who had spent eight years driving the country into a ditch. They turned to Obama because he promised “change,” but what they didn’t get is that he had no interest or intention in changing what Bush was actually doing. He proved this in his first two years in office, when he squandered his golden moment of having a majority in Congress by wasting his time trying to reach consensus with Republicans. He thought he could take his campaign-trail magic into his job; he didn’t understand that he was hired to undo all the horrible things Bush did, and that he better do that quickly.

I voted for Obama, twice, and the more I think about this the angrier I get.

Last year I voted for Sanders in the primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election, and both times I voted with the majority, and both times we were robbed. And I keep thinking that if only Obama had done what we asked him to do, even if it had cost him re-election, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.

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