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Now it's the Trump party vs. the Anti-Trump party

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

After Donald Trump delivered his big shock of 2016 by winning the presidential election, even President Barack Obama -- Mr. "Hope and Change" himself -- began to sound to associates like he was losing his optimism about America's future.

So says Benjamin J. Rhodes, a close advisor through both of Obama's terms, in his new memoir, "The World as It Is," as reported by The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy.

"What if we were wrong?" he asked his aides who were riding with him in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, according to Rhodes, then Obama's deputy national security adviser. Obama's aides tried to reassure the president, Rhodes writes. He still would have gotten re-elected again if he could have run for a third term, they told him. He wouldn't make big mistakes, like fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign when it seemingly forgot to campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin. They talked about the long-term victory: The next generation had more in common with Obama than with Trump.

But Obama did not seem convinced. "Maybe we pushed too far," the president continued. "Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe."

What? After all the happy talk of a "post-racial society" that surrounded Obama's election, has tribalism triumphed? I understand his gloom. His legacy was in jeopardy now, after Clinton's defeat by a man who had treated Obama for most of the campaign as some sort of alien life form who didn't deserve the simple courtesy of having his American birth acknowledged.

"Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early," he said.

 

Well, who's to say? Nobody knew when he started his presidential campaign as to whether America was ready to elect an African-American president. It turned out that we were. Twice. But elections are only the first step to big change.

As one of the pundits who urged him to throw his hat in the ring after his 2004 debut on the national stage, I'm glad he didn't wait. After his national debut at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his approval ratings soared past 80 percent. Approvals don't get much better than that. Besides, before Americans can take their next step in racial progress, somebody's got to get the ball rolling.

Still, even though he claims Chicago as his hometown, a town that gave us the expression. "Politics ain't beanbag," Obama apparently wasn't prepared for the brutal lies and paranoid conspiracy theories that were hurled his way.

Perhaps Obama could take some tips from former Speaker of the House John Boehner on how to have a happy retirement, even after the Trump incursion has devastated the Grand Old Party as Boehner -- and most of the rest of us -- knew it.

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(c) 2018 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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