The State of American Democracy: Obama’s Forceful Speech

Then-President Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office, November 10, 2016.
Photo credit: Pete Souza / White House

Former President Obama recently gave a long awaited address at the University of Illinois. President Obama forcibly detailed his administration’s case for success. But the president concluded on a down note, suggesting that Americans today had previously felt solidly middle class, today felt economic insecurity.

Here’s what Obama told attendees:

Just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different. The stakes really are higher. 

By the time I left office, household income was near its all-time high. 

When you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle. I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016. 

 So we made progress, but — and this is the truth — my administration couldn’t reverse forty-year trends in only eight years, especially once Republicans took over the House of Representatives in and decided to block everything we did, even things they used to support.

So we pulled the economy out of crisis, but to this day, too many people who once felt solidly middle-class still feel very real and very personal economic insecurity. 

If you want it, you can make sure America gets out of its current funk.   

Current funk? Americans, under Donald Trump, are feeling “personal income insecurity”? President Trump a threat to our democracy?

Well, not exactly.

President Obama indeed delivered a crisp speech, but devoid of the facts and his willingness to rewrite history, his message not only falls flat, but allows the true light of day to be dawn on a progressive/liberal administration that was a bust on every front –  most certainly as it pertains to jobs and the personal security of the American workforce.

President Donald Trump, in contrast, delivered a strong campaign pledge on “making America great again.” As my displays clearly show, Trump made good on his pledge in spades. I mean, at all-time record levels.

No halfway unbiased observer can look at the factual, statistical record chronicled in my display set and conclude otherwise. As I wrote in August, it has been a Summer of Sunshine for the U.S. Economy:

The U.S. has not seen anything like this in a long time: The economy is faring better than it has in a generation, with simultaneous gains among various demographic groups, reports the WSJ.

• Older workers, women, minorities, seniors and the less-educated all are faring better in the labor force today than they did under President Obama.
• The jobless rate for Americans age 16 to 24 hit a 50-year low this summer.
• In May, the black unemployment rate dipped to 5.9%, the lowest number on record at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• People who had stopped looking for work are sending out resumes.
• More people are quitting jobs because they are confident that a better one awaits.
• Employers are increasing perks and benefits in an effort to attract new hires and keep the ones they already have.
• There were 6.7 million job openings last quarter, a 17-year high.

There is no plausible return to progressive Obamaville. Democratic Socialists’ gasoline has burned the flimsy structure to the ground.

American workers will ride to a mid-term election victory this fall aboard the “make America great again” Trump express.

And should some unforeseen unpleasantness occur this fall, not to worry. Plan B will swing into play to save the “make America great again” bacon.

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