My dad will be turning eighty-four soon. Eighty-four years old, end of this month. His heart’s not as strong as it used to be. Probably true of most people, what with politics and pandemics, and the staggering amount of mass shootings that occur in this shining city upon a hill.
In eighty-four years, a lot of things have changed. Some changed and changed back to what they had been. And didn’t stop there, but kept going further and further in reverse, past Eisenhower and Lincoln and still they kept on until Jesus appeared one day in Petersburg, Kentucky. In sandals and robes. On a dinosaur's back.
Folks who go to Kentucky and the Creation Museum to see such a thing, and believe me, they do, prefer that reverse, backward sort of change. Forward change, not so much. You know who did? Obama did. Obama liked upward and onward kind of change. Liked hope a lot, too. Hope and change. Oh President Obama was just crazy about ‘em.
Remember those days when our greatest fear was a McCain/Palin ticket? Remember Sarah Palin, in 2010? The Tea Party convention? How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ for ya?
It was working just fine, thanks for asking, Sarah. Don’t drop that baton on your way out the door, and long as we’re here on Memory Lane, remember when Jon Stewart called Dick Cheney a “murderous cyborg”? Well these days “His face got in the way of my gun” Cheney seems almost cuddly, and instead of the curse words I once reserved just for her, now when I see daughter Liz on TV, I turn up the volume and fist-pump the air.
I blame Barack Obama for that. I blame him for coming and giving us hope. And term limits be damned, I blame him for leaving, and leaving us here.
That “hopey-changey stuff” seems hollow now, given what’s goose-stepping back to the Oval. I don’t really blame President Obama. I’m angry, is all, and I want the guy back who said, everything's fine, in a way I believed him and who never blew kisses to Vladimir Putin.
I’m angry that here in 2024, Trump and his coterie of Covid-deniers are one labored breath from returning to power for the singularly simple and stupid reason that Barack Obama—wait for it—is black.
Remember how proud we were, when Obama was elected? First black President. First African-American family to live in The White House. You could argue it should’ve happened sooner, I guess, but we may be lucky it happened at all. An intelligent and charismatic African-American man led the free world for eight relatively stable and tranquil years. Which some saw as “uppity.” And so we have MAGA.
First African-American President, the dawn of a new day. But the backlash it created put a man in the White House who went on TV at the height of the pandemic with baseless and potentially lethal suggestions about how to quash Covid that serial killers would've thought cruel.
Obama’s time in office was a sign of progress. A reason for hope. Trump’s four years were a sign of something too, best represented by a Far Side cartoon; the devil stands with the latest arrival in hell, and shows him two doors. One says, Damned If You Don’t. One says, Damned If You Do. C’mon, says the devil. It’s one or the other.
My dad was born in 1940. I was born in ‘64. His heart's not as strong as it used to be, and neither is mine. This city on the hill doesn't shine like it did, and I am afraid on Election Day, we'll be damned if we did and damned if we didn't. Unless Jesus rides in on his dinosaur. Or some other hopey-change-y thing happens.