Trump created himself, don’t blame Obama

To the editor:

Of all the bizarre accusations made against President Obama, none is stranger than Alvin Gordon’s claim that Obama somehow created Trump.

When Obama was elected, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, announced that he would make it his mission to ensure that Obama would fail. Not exactly bipartisan there, eh?

Despite all of McConnell’s desperate strivings, Obama succeeded, with Congress, in bringing the American economy back from the brink of collapse.

The Affordable Care Act helped give millions health insurance, despite its flaws and an intense Republican effort to destroy it in the cradle, including false smears about “death panels.”

It’s true that President Obama acted on his own to give Hispanic immigrants a chance at living in America, because the Republican Congress doesn’t believe in any kind of immigration, creating a static country without any growth and change.

If Mr. Gordon thinks that Obama is a divisive figure (and many saw him as divisive, simply because he is African-American and how dare an African-American man become President?), let’s look at President Trump, who is a divisive figure without parallel.

President Trump got into a heated exchange with the Prime Minister of Australia, for God’s sake, one of our most steadfast allies, then hung up on him.  He harangued Mexico to pay for a giant wall we would build. What is that?

Is it possible Mr. Gordon regrets his vote for Trump? Trump fights with everybody. He offers American citizens nothing resembling mature leadership or direction.

Oh, and according to Trump, destructive climate change isn’t happening, because to admit otherwise would put a dent in the armor of the Republican ideology that capitalism is the perfect and only answer to all our problems. 

President Trump subscribes to a pinched view of a world that has only winners and losers and that America belongs just to giant corporations, not to all citizens, who have a right to ask for a say in their futures and that of their children.

President Trump embraces white identity politics, which excludes Jews, Hispanics, Muslims, African-Americans, Asians (which is most of the world, let’s face it)–anyone who is not of Northern European heritage, white and Christian.

I suddenly find myself nostalgic for the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, neither of whom I voted for.  At least they had the good sense to offer us a dose of optimism and hope that all American people could succeed together.

Michael Gold

Michael Gold is the author of “Consumer Culture is Consuming Us.”