Why the world really did “end” in 2012
By Jason Kelly
In 2008 The United States made a landmark decision to elect the first ever African-American man to the office of president. The rise of an African-American to the highest position in this country was historic, but with this election our great country also elected one of the most arrogant, smug and prideful presidents in the history of American politics. Although he showed signs of his elitism in the first four years of his presidency, he was elected as a progressive and fairly straightforward democratic president.
However brilliant Obama may have been he had annoying habit of speaking down to those who disagreed with him. He treated groups of people who had differences with him in terms of ideology as the “bad guys”. He framed conservatives in a light that made them appear to be racist, climate-change denying, religiously fanatical, gun loving and extreme. Ironically the man who constantly used the phrase “not all Muslims” was never caught uttering “not all conservatives”. He never seemed to understand that republicans wanted the best for The United States and its citizens despite their flaws.
This constant demonization of the right finally “jumped the shark” when candidate Mitt Romney, one of the most honorable men to run for the office of President, was attacked by the Obama administration as an elitist. He drew Romney out to be a man only interested in himself and other rich white people in America. Though Romney certainly wasn’t a perfect candidate, he was a family man who loved his country and who wanted the best for its citizens. Famously his vice president Joe Biden said to a crowd that republicans wanted to “put y’all back in chains”. The implications of this quote are numerous and disgusting. This was the divisive rhetoric that made the Obama administration incredibly popular on the left but increasingly hated on the right. This trend inspired the left to views and assumptions of the right that polarized the two sides of the political spectrum.
The four years after the 2012 election were marred with some of the worst examples of Obama appealing to the assumptions people of the left often make about conservatives in order to remain popular. The backlash against a President who demonized and belittled more than half the country had already begun as republicans swiftly took congress. The more the Obama administration lost control of the government the more it criticized the stereotypical middle America. The more they were criticized the more they felt like a backlash was needed against the culture that Obama inspired. He was so eloquent that social media and news media melted at his feet and adopted much of the same rhetoric. As the social-justice warrior movement grew so too did more extreme members of the right. The tension grew and grew until our nation elected a giant middle finger to the culture that Obama had shaped, in the form of Donald Trump. Even today Obama was recently quoted telling people that those who listened to Fox News “lived on a different planet”. While our culture has been calming down from the tumultuous year that was 2016 it is to be seen how damaging the Obama administration really was with its smug divisiveness.
It all began in 2012 with the strategy to defame Mitt Romney. While he had his issues, he was certainly not the devil painted by the left. When Obama used this strategy to take down Romney it did near irreparable damage to our culture that will be felt for a long time to come. Despite the lack of physically catastrophic damage to the earth predicted by many in the year 2012, there was damage. Looking back decades from now we will the ripple effects of the decision taken by the Obama administration.