In 2008, voting for Barack Obama was a clear decision to me. At the time, America was emerging from two-terms of George W. Bush, Ground Zero was still a fresh scar on our national psyche, and the Republicans were serving up another staid, longtime politician, John McCain.
While McCain was palatable, Obama seemed supercharged. We needed a break from what had become the Clinton and Bush ping-pong of war-hawking and cozy Middle East oil interests. Those were the elements that led us to Desert Storm. And precipitated 9/11. And was what led us into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.
The hope and change he promised held Obama out as the next John F. Kennedy
Meanwhile, seemingly out of thin air — came a tall, lean, charismatic Democrat with a booming voice and a grounded demeanor. Some opposed the prospect of his ascension because he was black. To me, his race served as a tremendous asset: Obama stood to close the chasm to what racial strife and inequality lingered in our country.
Electing Obama would show the world stage America had moved far beyond its slave-owning history. It would also demonstrate that there were no more barriers — or excuses — based on race. The hope and change he promised held Obama out as the next John F. Kennedy, at a time when we needed a reset — from a cultural undercurrent, and the wars over someone else’s oil.
But before our own eyes, Obama failed to deliver. His idealism wilted on the world stage. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on what he intended — but hadn’t achieved. He fed into Middle East upheaval as a good thing — the “Arab Spring” — what his administration wrongly believed it could channel and reshape after the US removed a handful of desert-region dictators. Instead, the power vacuum left the Taliban unchecked, and gave birth to ISIS.
The table being set... rang familiar to the days that precipitated unending wars, globalism, and far-flung US military occupation.
He elevated Hillary Clinton to Secretary of State as a consolation prize following his win, after his contentious primary against her. The table being set for the future rang familiar to the days that precipitated unending wars, globalism, and far-flung US military occupation.
Domestically, Obama muddled in racial issues that were capturing national attention. He held a “beer summit” after a cop charged a black Harvard professor, believing he was breaking into his own home. Then Obama likened his younger self to Travon Martin after the black teen walking home in a hoodie was shot by an overzealous neighborhood-watch volunteer. On and on along this way to where our unifying beacon who was supposed to mend our country — instead cranked out ammo to further divide us. And then it became clear Obama too had succumbed to the DC establishment.
These were the things I leaned away from, and many of us did, in the ramp up to the 2016 election. Donald Trump, in those early primary days, seemed merely a spectacle — part of the carnival that New York was famous for dishing out.
By then, having worked in New York City for close to a decade, I had grown accustomed to seeing the likes of the Time Square “Naked Cowboy” run for mayor against some stripper, and the red-beret-wearing founder of the Guardian Angels. So now it was Trump, the real estate tycoon turned celebrity running for president — yeah, odds were he was doing it all to promote his next big TV gig.
Except Trump kept winning.... He sidestepped norms. He showed folly within the establishment system.
Except Trump kept winning. One by one, in the Republican primary, he kept besting all of the stalwart career politicians. He sidestepped norms. He showed folly within the establishment system. At some point it became clear that the change voters had hoped Obama would bring — Trump actually wielded. A change from the sprawl and monotonous tempo of our national governance — a pattern that had us furiously asserting our influence to fix the world while our own country faltered and fractured.
Trump spoke crudely, but authenticity, off the top of his head, and usually not from a teleprompter rehearsal. He was direct and brash and connected with the struggling middle class. After taking office he gut-checked a volatile North Korea by calling its dictator “Little Rocket Man” for test-firing missiles over Japan. But just when his critics were wincing at the next world war Trump would surely incite, there was Trump meeting the North Korean dictator at the notorious DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) to shake hands, size up each other face to face, and talk — in ways that prior presidents scoffed at.
He was in-fact the catalyst for change from ever-expanding, ever-intrusive government.
Trump questioned the standard fare of how Washington operated. He brought back corporate money held offshore by threatening tariffs, and brokered trade and manufacturing agreements the same way. He pointed the way for Americans to feel good about being American at just the time when the national lexicon had been infusing a national guilt. He was in-fact the catalyst for change from ever-expanding, ever-intrusive government.
Now, fast-forwarding eight years to today, Trump stands again to break the octopus grip that “big government” tightens on everyday Americans. Take out the hyperbole. Look and hear past it: Less government spending. Lower taxes. Less intrusion by the federal government on state and local affairs. Fewer wars. More jobs. More economic prosperity. I voted for Obama for the hope of prosperity — and to reign in big government. Now I’m voting for Trump for all the same reasons.
Jason James Barry is an award-winning essayist, journalist, and author. He has been a newspaper reporter, police officer, and a special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. His police-life memoir “The Midnight Coffee Club” is available on Amazon.
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