Barack Obama broke the Republican Party.
The election of the first Black man to ascend to the presidency of the United States was a watershed moment in our history. It was celebrated far and wide by those who understood just how much Black people in this country had to overcome to reach that moment. Obama himself had to toe the line in everything that he did. He had to be smart, but not too smart. He had to be passionate but couldn’t be an angry Black man. He had to be a man of faith, but not one whose values were somehow skewed by the more radical elements of the Black church. In a sea of White faces on the classroom wall of presidents, Barack Obama was always going to stand out. The question was always going to be whether he was the start of a new movement of people of color ascending to the presidency, or simply an anomaly who would revert to the same race and gender as our first 43 United States presidents.
Republicans openly rooted for the latter.
And in doing so, they outed themselves and their previously repressed racist urges. Because from 2009 on, Barack Obama needed to fail, even if it meant that the country itself would struggle. From the onset, when not a single House Republican voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it was clear that the Republican Party would oppose everything Barack Obama wanted to accomplish. At a time when there was a needed 60-vote threshold for the Senate to pass legislation, Barack Obama gambled the entirety of his political capital during a six-month window to pass the Affordable Care Act, which was not supported by a single Senate Republican. At a time when 40 million Americans lacked sufficient healthcare, the Republican Party chose itself over the people in an effort simply to deny Barack Obama and Democrats a political win. After Democrats lost the House in 2010, Mitch McConnell famously stated that the GOP’s goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Because in their eyes, they’d rather have the Black man fail than the American people succeed. The GOP-led 112th Congress passed a mere 283 acts, making it the least productive Congress on record and helping deny Barack Obama any political capital leading up to his re-election campaign. They were more than happy to deny the American people, and more importantly, Barack Obama, any kind of substantive win that would improve their everyday lives.
Of course, it wasn’t just elected Republicans who were against the Obama presidency. Conservative media knew the outrage their listeners had about seeing Barack Obama and his family reside in the White House, so they willingly chose to belittle them throughout the duration of his presidency. Their goal was to imply that Barack Obama was somehow beneath the honor of office, and they attempted to portray him as such time and time again. No “scandal” was too small, whether it was Barack Obama with his foot on the Resolute Desk, or him wearing a tan suit, or him saluting a Marine with a coffee in hand, or him bowing too far to the Japanese emperor. When it came time for Obama’s re-election, the birther movement was in full effect, a clear effort led by none other than Donald Trump to delegitimize the country’s first Black president. Between do-nothing Republicans in Congress and a conservative media hellbent on restoring the normality of having a White man in the Oval Office, Barack Obama faced a challenging political landscape for re-election in 2012. It seemed as if Mitch McConnell might be able to accomplish his goal after all.
But Obama overcame this to win re-election.
And in doing so, broke GOP strategist Karl Rove, who had a legendary meltdown on election night when an Obama win in Ohio clinched his re-election. Because, like so many of his ilk, Rove couldn’t fathom that his beloved country would elect a Black man not once but twice to the presidency of the United States of America. This meant that Obama was more than a curiosity; that he was a legitimate politician who could not only win as a relative unknown but could also win with four years of governing under his belt. Obama’s re-election meant that the country now had a baseline for what Black people could do in the nation’s highest office, and this terrified the country’s conservatives. Gone were their long-held stereotypes about Black men being “lazy” and “uneducated.” Gone were their stereotypes about Black men and those around them being corrupt. Gone were their stereotypes about Black men being unfaithful in their marriage and absentee fathers. Gone were stereotypes about Black men being “low IQ” or uneducated. Barack Obama proved that Black men could be as successful as White men, and this fact alone caused the wiring malfunction of so many racists’ brains in this country. As his successful two terms ended, the conservative movement now had a choice: would they accept that their embedded racist ideas were wrong, or would they double down and try to elevate one of their own to undo all the “damage” that Barack Obama had caused over the previous eight years?
As we all know, they went the latter route. And in doing so, they completely removed the hoods they had been so desperately trying to hide throughout their lives.
Starting in 2015, Donald Trump gave them the permission they so desperately needed. To say the quiet part out loud. To proudly display the Confederate flag. To legitimize and empower White supremacist groups, which had grown exponentially during the Obama presidency. The red Trump hat became synonymous with hate. Hate against people of color. Hate against Muslims. Hate against immigrants. Hate against gay people. Hate against “wokeness” and DEI. Violence against protestors was encouraged at his rallies. Those asked to speak frequently provided overtly racist talking points and rhetoric. Republican voters who saw their beloved country slipping away under Obama now felt that there was a chance to return to normality under someone like Trump. For them, Barack Obama wasn’t an inspiration; he was an aberration. An error that shouldn’t have happened. The One Big Ass Mistake America (OBAMA) bumper stickers were proudly portrayed on the pickup trucks of Trump supporters and became a common sight in rural areas. Barack Obama wasn’t on the ballot in 2016, but his legacy was. And like Donald Trump himself, Republicans wanted nothing better than to do everything they could to erase or diminish what Barack Obama accomplished during his two terms in office.
The pendulum of history always swings. How hard it swings depends on the grandness of the moment. The first election of Barack Obama was one of our country’s grandest swings, and the swing back is being felt as forcefully as we’ve ever felt anything in our history. What we’re seeing in our current political climate is the continued fallout of Barack Obama’s presidency as it relates to Black power. Because it was Black voters who led the charge in electing him twice. It was Black voters who saw through the racism and incompetence of Donald Trump three separate times and have overwhelmingly voted against him. It has been Black political leaders, specifically Black women, who publicly challenged and held Donald Trump accountable for his actions, from Leticia James to Fani Willis to, most recently, L. Louise Lucas and her efforts in the Virginia redistricting fight. Trump’s all-out war on Black leaders hasn’t gone unnoticed and is quite obvious when you look at the places he’s targeting for his ICE enforcement actions. Cities like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Chicago all have mayors of color. Insisting that these mayors “need help” in preventing violence in their cities is a clear dog whistle attempting to link leaders of color to crime. This type of racial targeting has been a pattern throughout the Trump administration’s second term and is a clear signal to his base that their fears of the “other” are being heard and acted upon.
Last week’s VRA ruling has simply been a continuation of the policies handed down by the Trump administration. Under the guise of rigging the House to keep Republicans in control, what it has done is
give southern Republicans permission to attack Black political power through redistricting. Their mission is simple: to dilute Black power in a way that keeps them and other people of color from working their way up the ranks. Ultimately, they firmly believe that doing so will prevent any future Barack Obama from ever again ascending to the nation’s highest office. But it has also served as a way to overtly assert their dominance over Black men and women. The message these state legislatures are giving is out and proud: we don’t think Black men and women are deserving of political power. Because of that, we are going to eliminate districts that provide that power. It’s no longer simply about giving Donald Trump a GOP-led House, but instead has become an opportunity to disenfranchise Black voters by carving up their communities and no longer allowing them to be represented in Congress by a fellow Black man or Black woman.
At its core, the redistricting war is a battle to reinstate Jim Crow. This is a battle that Republicans are all too happy to revisit. But unlike Jim Crow 1.0, we now know what to look for. We know the end goal Republicans have in mind. But the toothpaste is out of the tube. Black Americans know what it’s like to have political power at the local level. They know what it’s like to have one of their own in the White House. No matter how hard Republicans try, they cannot erase the fact that 21st-century America has experienced a Black president. The pushback has been hard. It has been intense. In many ways, it has been devastating to see our country return to pre-Civil Rights Act protections for Black voters. Yet this is now our fight. Redistricting is a microcosm for a Republican Party that wants people of color to once again serve as permanent second-class citizens. But they won’t. Not in Tennessee. Not in Alabama. Not in Louisiana. Not anywhere.
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