Peter Caty/the Mirror
Why do people hate Obama so much? Is it his performance as a President in his almost-2 year tenure? His ideals? His writings? His looks, speech, actions or family?
No, I don’t think it is any of these. Just as quickly as it was a “fad” to love Obama, with Obama ’08 shirts circulating around in Hollywood and among the most politically ignorant people one would ever meet, it has turned into an equally popular fad to hate the President. One cannot start a political conversation without someone saying, “Yeah, Obama sucks.”
But why does he suck? Whenever I ask that question of the disgruntled politico, I get a stammering of “socialist agenda,” “liberal media,” “healthcare reform,” and “crappy economy.” Beyond that, there is typically no other intelligent response. Is providing healthcare to those who cannot afford it a socialist conspiracy? Is providing unemployment to those who lost their jobs as a result of an economic meltdown an Obama secret mission to drain the funds of America? Certainly not. He is simply doing exactly what he said he would.
In this situation, providing these monetary benefits is a “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” situation. A close friend of mine’s uncle lost his well-paying job due to the downturn of the economy. Unemployed for several months, but actively looking for jobs, he began receiving benefits in the mail. However, this man complained about it nonstop. “That Obama, giving money to those who can’t get off their butts and work,” he’d say. And yet after all this complaining, this man still went to the bank and cashed the check – irony at its finest. Obama is helping to put food on your table and keeping a roof over your head, so don’t complain unless you decide to rip up that check as soon as you get it.
Whenever I hear about this “liberal media bias” I can’t help but shake my head. Of course the media has bias – look at the cities of origin! The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle – all are cities that have been liberal for decades. If you picked up the Chattanooga Times or whatever they have, I’m sure it would have a little less of a liberal twist, considering it’s from Tennessee.
Healthcare reform conjures up images of long waiting lines, underpaid doctors, awful health practices…but for what? The main point of the bill, one that Obama supported, is to make sure that everybody had insurance. The government didn’t do a massive overhaul of the system to provide everybody with the same healthcare, same doctors and same coverage. Just ask the company my mom works for; if there was truly a socialized healthcare system, this company wouldn’t be paying tens of thousands of dollars to ensure that my mom, my brother and I are covered. Communist universal healthcare? Not even close.
This last point of contention, a crappy economy, is what really gets me mad. How can someone blame a president for the state of the economy if he took office after the meltdown? To any intelligent observer it makes no sense. Economies follow a wave pattern; there are peaks and there are troughs, ups and downs. During Bill Clinton’s terms as President, the economy was in high gear. During Bush’s years, people spent the money they earned, without regard to their future ability to pay for it. And finally, during Obama’s years, these same people are foreclosed, homeless, penniless and jobless.
It’s the collective policies of administrations dating back to Reagan’s administration that have caused this downturn. At the time, the policies seemed prudent, but now we’re kicking ourselves. Don’t blame Obama for your overspending, over borrowing and over excess. Buying that million-dollar house with no money as a down payment, when you made $80,000 last year was just a dumb idea. Now Obama is bailing your broke self out, at the cost to those who actually planned their money and future well. Complain about that.
This article is an oversimplification of complex problems, but I’m just hitting the basics. Next time someone complains about Obama, at least you, the reader, has a basis to work from. And I’m not even a Democrat, in many ways. I’m a liberal Republican who can actually discern the facts from the fiction. So before anybody calls me an Obama-loving fool, consider your facts and keep in mind that I typically vote Republican.
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