The real Obama legacy is a toxic administrative statute, a corrupt judiciary, the end of the Rule of Law, and a world that is unstable and very dangerous.
With only 1,392 days left in the Trump presidency, we’re already being told that, because Obamacare has not yet been repealed, Trump’s presidency is officially a failure. I happen to be a bit more sanguine. First, I think 1,392 days gives the administration and Congress time to act on the adage that, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Second, two bloggers who accurately called the Trump odyssey from its beginning, believe that this first attempt to remove Obamacare is, in fact, a Trump success.
According to Don Surber, who realized immediately how well Trump plays everyone, Trump went through this exercise as a way to chasten Paul Ryan, who has been unfriendly to Trump from the get-go. And according to Scott Adams, the repeal debacle destroyed the “Trump as Hitler” meme. For Lefties, the cognitive dissonance is too great if they try to hold “Trump is incompetent” and “Trump is Hitler” in their brains at the same time. The former drives out the latter . . . and Trump’s upcoming accomplishments will eventually erase the incompetent meme too, at least in the minds of all but the true believers.
The reality is that Trump is very competent indeed. While the media has been waxing alternately hysterical and lyrical about Obamacare, Trump has been decimating Obama’s regulations. With Obamacare temporarily sidelined, my Lefty Facebook friends are starting to get very, very upset about the fact that Trump is walking back a lot of regulations that kneecapped business and energy sectors. The energy walk-backs also remove the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.
Everything that Obama did with a pen and a phone, Trump is busy undoing with a pen and a phone. Moreover, thanks to Newt’s wisdom back in the 1990s, these regs once gone, stay gone.
Before the year is out, Obamacare will be gone too. There’ll be some toxic, sticky tentacles lingering, because the bill was drafted to be like a virus that infects every area of healthcare, but most will be gone.
So what is the Obama legacy if his regulations are gone and Obamacare is gone? He’ll actually have an impressive legacy, all the more impressive because everything that cannot be erased as easily has his regulations and Obamacare is truly awful.
Possibly the worst thing Obama did was to create a partisan administrative state. As is shown by the leaks aimed at invalidating Trump’s presidency; the attempts to manipulate documents in all administrative sectors; the EPA hysteria about “anti-science”; the IRS scandal; and myriad other agency drama and corruption, Obama has destroyed the idea of a non-partisan administrative state, one in which employees, regardless of their political preferences, simply do their job. Under Obama, partisanship, no matter how corrupt, was encouraged and rewarded — and most certainly, when employees were caught, they were not disciplined. If they were, IRS chief Koskinen would have been shown the curb years ago.
Not only are administrative agencies acting as if they are the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature combined, individuals within those agencies are way too powerful, at least in their own minds. This video about Comey’s investigation into Hillary, although it’s from October, perfectly exemplifies the power games Comey has been playing (and it’s very catchy):