SerpApi.Org
Yesterday marked one month since the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, where celebrities, former presidents, first ladies, and various other elites gathered to extol the glorious legacy of President Barack Obama. Liberals patted themselves on the back. Empty platitudes about democracy, freedom, and liberty echoed over the loudspeakers between performances by Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen.
All of this begs the question: what, exactly, is Obama’s legacy? Under President Obama, wealth inequality exploded to almost unprecedented levels, the Global War on Terror expanded, and civil liberties were further attacked and dismantled. Whistleblowers were jailed. Environmental concerns took a backseat to expanding imperial ambitions in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. As a result, the Democratic Party lost more seats under Obama’s eight years in office than in any prior period.
Of course, liberal elites and those who listen to them would like to gloss over, forget about, or actively excuse Obama’s many failures as Commander in Chief. Constructing palatable and simplistic narratives about Obama’s tenure in the White House has become a key task of liberal journalists, commentators, and Democratic Party elites. It goes something like this: Obama was an ethical leader who wanted to do great things, but was hampered by the Republican Party. In the end, he was a good man and, for some, a great president.
To be fair, Obama indeed faced backlash from reactionary elements in the GOP, but liberals tend to forget that Obama came to power in 2009 with the Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, and on a wave of unprecedented electoral success (Obama was the first Democrat to win Indiana since LBJ in 1964) that catapulted him to power. Obama had the political capital and legitimacy to enact a series of substantial progressive reforms, but chose not to do so. Likewise, his supporters let him off the hook and excused his worst policies.
This, of course, opened the door for the Tea Party, a movement that took power in the House in 2011. Since then, politics in the U.S. has become increasingly reactionary and pitiful, despite some limited and geographically isolated progressive electoral victories. Culturally, the same dynamic has played out as Americans shift further and further to the right on various social issues. Since Obama exited the White House, the bleeding has continued.
Trump and Co., if nothing else, understand how to effectively wield political power, something liberals and progressives have never been interested in or willing to do. They are ideologically and materially predisposed to maintaining the status quo, with slight alterations at the edges of society. And something the left has never had the chance to do because it’s never been organized, coherent, or serious enough to gain power in the United States.
All of this, without question, will come to a head in November, when Americans show up to the polls for the Midterm Elections. The overarching assumption is that the Democratic Party will at least take power in the House, perhaps the Senate as well. We’ll see. I remain unconvinced, but completely open to every electoral possibility. A series of external factors, including Trump’s urge to maintain power at any cost, could significantly alter the perceived wisdom that the Democrats will return to power. That said, for the sake of time and space, let’s assume the Democrats will at least win the House.
What, precisely, is the Democratic Party’s platform in 2026? No one can answer that question with a straight face and a concise answer because one doesn’t exist. Various platitudes about “restoring democratic norms” and “respecting the Constitution” abound, but no details or specific policy recommendations. Oh, I forgot to add “affordability” to the list. Yet again, no particular legislation is proposed, just buzz words that resonate, according to opinion polls.
Liberal commentators and Democratic Party insiders, such as James Carville, predict that the post-midterm victorious Democratic Party will launch a full-scale legal battle against the Trump Administration, holding the sycophants to account and forcing Donald Trump to resign from the White House. Yes, Carville genuinely believes that’s a possibility. Then again, no one ever accused Carville of obtaining stellar predictive qualities.
But are impeachment inquiries what the American people are demanding from the Democrats in 2026? Not really. There currently exists no popular movement urging the impeachment of Trump. And even if the Democrats win the House and go through the arduous process of filing articles of impeachment, they will never obtain the 67 votes required in the Senate to convict President Trump and remove him from office. And so, where does this leave the American people?
As the U.S. Empire rapidly declines in the wake of 25 years of neverending wars, Big Tech oligarchs sink their fangs into every element of the federal government, buying off state, county, and municipal government agencies and politicians, and becoming an indispensable segment of the global economy, the Democratic Party offers no alternative vision for the future and doubles down on anti-Trump fervor in the hope of solidifying their electoral chances for success. In the short term, this approach may prove successful in an electoral sense.
However, winning elections and maintaining power are two very different things. Maintaining power and wielding that power to radically alter the American healthcare system, economy, and geopolitical arrangements and priorities are also two fundamentally different tasks. And that assumes the Democratic Party’s base actively seeks to radically change those political arrangements and institutions. Little evidence suggests that’s the case.
In the absence of vibrant, growing, militant, creative, and disciplined social movements, no one should expect much from the 2026 Midterms beyond the Democrats potentially hampering some of Trump’s more outlandish policies, which, to be fair, would benefit those most at risk. Yet, even here, no one can articulate precisely which policies the Democrats will seek to challenge, overturn, or disrupt. They will give speeches and hold hearings, no doubt. But pageantry isn’t strategy.
Unfortunately, liberal delusions still maintain that Trump was an aberration, a bad apple who followed the brilliant Presidency of Barack Obama. This narrative, too, was on full display following the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. Liberal Americans took to social media to proclaim their love for the Obamas and celebrate the hollow presentation of bipartisanship during the grand opening ceremony. The corporate media, always willing to whitewash history, sang a similar tune. Fundamental lessons about the conditions that gave rise to Trump are virtually nonexistent.
Here, we have cultural rot at the top and cultural rot at the bottom of society. All too often, Americans parrot the views and ideologies emanating from the Elite Class. The digital algorithms reinforce this phenomenon. Digital Culture creates a feedback loop: Trump, right-wing commentators, and activists spew outlandish nonsense about Obama, then liberals and Democrats respond (and react) in defense of the former president. Principles, nuance, and values are nonexistent. At this point, it’s a predictable and absurd phenomenon.
Instead of reexamining Obama’s eight years in power, liberals, much like their MAGA counterparts, would rather double down on their absurd defense of Obama’s neoliberalism, hawkish foreign policy, reactionary immigration policies, and abandonment of poor and working-class Americans. This, without question, is the worst dynamic of Trump’s reascension to the White House: he makes horrific characters such as Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Barack Obama seem more palatable.
Disappointment is virtually guaranteed at this point. If or when the Democrats take power in 2026 and 2028, in the absence of millions of people organizing and mobilizing, Americans will once again endure the structural limitations of electoral politics and the Democratic Party. In other words, we’re doomed to repeat history, albeit this time with greater consequences, if Americans don’t start learning valuable and fundamental lessons in the near future. Those lessons, useless on their own, only become valuable if they inform and motivate mobilization, organization, and the pursuit of strategic objectives.
Those lessons, to be clear, won’t be learned on social media platforms, YouTube, or podcasts. Those lessons must be institutionalized. And that can only happen through developing political institutions that people buy into, participate in, and help build. Like many Americans, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that the Democratic Party is the institutional vehicle for such a task, even if it’s the only viable electoral alternative to the GOP. Again, voting in the absence of growing social movements, militant unions, vibrant student organizations, and committed faith-based organizations won’t accomplish much at the federal level.
As always, there is only one solution: organizing. Yet, people don’t seem particularly interested or committed to engaging in political work. Americans are flush with information, constantly posting, sharing, liking, commenting, and so on. But they remain quite disorganized and unwilling to dedicate or sacrifice the time and effort necessary to force even modest reforms, let alone a radical restructuring of the economy and political system. Culturally and socially, Americans remain locked in a collective digital haze. Trump’s opinion polls have reached historical lows, but his loss of popular support hasn’t equated to a massive upsurge of political engagement.
In the end, our collective hope for the future should be tethered to reality. And the reality is that most people are checked out, uninterested, alienated, socially and culturally fragmented, and, as a result, disempowered. And yet, no one is coming to save us. No superheroes. No saviors. And no miracles. Either we fight back with the understanding that our expectations should be directly tied to our willingness to organize, or we will endure another cycle of low expectations and dismal results, creating a perfect opportunity for the right to rise to power once again.
