They are at it again; there is an outcry from many segments of the American public about the fact that former President Barack Obama is slated to be paid $400,000 for a speech to Wall Street executives in September. A couple of these opponents are surprising – U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Some are calling Obama a “hypocrite” because he once criticized these individuals back in the day. But that was then, and this is now. Obama is no longer president, and since he has already placed the highest office in the land under his belt, he is bound to find other outlets.
Barack Obama is a relatively young man who has completed two terms as president of the United States. Where can he go from there? He already let people know that he had planned to continue his civic engagement work. His legacy is still somewhat intact after eight years, but President Donald Trump is promising to dismantle everything that he established. Barack Obama, therefore, has a legacy to protect.
The Trump administration has repeatedly promised to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, pejoratively known as “Obamacare,” but even though Republicans control both the U.S. House and Senate, they have not yet been able to come up with a viable alternative that will gain enough support to pass a bill that satisfies his cohorts.
President Trump has met and passed his first 100 days in office, but he has not been able to institute his highly touted plans. Arguably, his greatest accomplishment is his appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The plan for a wall on the southern border designed to thwart illegal immigration has been temporarily stalled, and his other immigration plans have met with setbacks.
President Trump has come off as someone who is woefully uninformed on many fronts. The most recent gaffe was connected with his statement about the Civil War. Incredibly, he asked why the Civil War could not have been worked out, and pointed to former president Andrew Jackson, who he repeatedly lauded, as someone who could have done something to solve the problem. Apparently, Trump didn’t know that Andrew Jackson died 16 years before the Civil War even started.
President Trump has still refused to release his tax information, and the alarming issue that connects the Trump administration with Russian head Vladimir Putin looms extremely large. It is becoming more and more apparent that there might have actually been Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. If this turns out to be true, this is huge and represents a ginormous breach in the American political and social fabric.
Now, the reason President Trump’s antics are mentioned here is because while former President Barack Obama is still on the whipping block, President Trump’s antics are ongoing. That Obama is being roundly criticized for being paid well for his speeches is ridiculous; former President Bill Clinton, and even Hillary Clinton, collectively earned millions of dollars for their speeches. A former president, especially one as knowledgeable and intelligent as Barack Obama, can share a lot of valuable information, so why all of the commotion about his accepting money for his expertise? The answer is probably connected to that same old ugly varmint known as racism. Obama would not be getting the kind of blowback about doing what others have done if he were not a Black man. Period.
People who are spending their time and energy attacking Barack Obama had better step back and check out what is really happening in America. While they focus on Obama, President Trump is poised to take America in a very different, and in fact, challenging direction, both on a national and international stage. The focus on Obama is serving as a red herring. People had better wake up, because after the smoke clears, America may end up being a very unpleasant and dangerous place! A luta continua.
