2 decades ago going, “Yee Haw!” excitedly was enough to kill Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and like this was reasonable to people.
Today, we have a President suggesting for months that he may go to war to conquer Greenland and who is once again reiterating that he is considering running for a third term in office. On top of having felony convictions and a civil judgment for sexual violence.
I remember, as soon as Obama was elected, people declaring the end of racism because how could we be racist after electing a Black man as President. And yet, over the span of his presidency, our country went from a place where the Republican presidential nominee told off someone at a campaign stop when they suggested Obama wasn’t a real American or was a Muslim, saying it’s unAmerican to act that way, to being a place where a man could start his presidential campaign by saying “The illegals are all Mexican rapists you need to be terrified of!” and who explicitly led the charge for the claim Obama was born in Africa, being elected President (if only by the EC). And within 8 more years, a place where that man would win a plurality (though not majority) of the popular vote, against a Black woman, despite him fomenting an insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power when he lost the 2020 election.
Things have become much worse, and they did it very quickly. I do not see how anyone can avoid noticing that such a significant transition arose at the exact time a Black perdón was President. And I think that’s an indicator that voting actually does matter. Because voting did put Obama in office, and his power in that office terrified the forces of White supremacy and hegemony. So much, in fact, that Donald Trump has taken power on two separate occasions.
