The 2014 Midterm Elections: Was it a Plebiscite on Obama’s Leadership or on the Racism in America?

This mid-term election that took place throughout the nation on November 4, 2014 has come and gone. The Republican Party cleared enough seats to lead in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Most analysts, media and political commentators seemed to have missed the point in the verdict they seem to be passing.  Their seemingly inconclusive and incorrect verdict or assessment is that the Democratic Party lost the elections to the Republican Party due to what they called Obama’s disappointing low approval rating because of the direction the President is taking the nation.  They conclude that many of the President’s Party incumbents and the aspirant members lost their seats while the aspirants could not defeat those whom they have challenged because the majority of Americans saw President Barack and his party members as taking the country in the wrong direction.  This is why we are asking the question: Were the 2014 Mid-term elections a plebiscite on President Obama’s leadership or were the results of the elections not a referendum on the racism in America as it predominates while affecting many genuine and honorable Americans?

Our response to the first part of this question is an absolute “NO.”  The elections were not a referendum on President Barack Obama’s leadership; not on his leadership of the Party nor was it on his leadership of his administration of the country.  His leadership ability and his policy direction were approved during his first term in office as the first Black man to lead the greatest country in the World, America.  As a result of his unblemished tenacity of purpose in his administration of the United States and the World, against all odds, a resounding Second Term mandate was given to the young African intellectual ever to lead this great country in our time.  In no way could the elections have been a plebiscite on Barack Obama. Secondly, if anything, the results of the election of the Mid-term elections should be seen as validating racism and its effects on America.  In other words, Americans still believe that some people are less human.  This opinion may not be ours alone as there are many observers who are expressing the same.  There are many adducible reasons for this opinion.   

In spite of the overwhelming mandate President Obama received from the majority of Americans, in his first and second terms in office, there were just a cabal and a few other racial bigots who were openly very critical of Barack Obama being the President of this country.  Relatively or comparatively, the few racial bigots were found in some of the media and in the parliament of this country.  Whatever good deed Obama did, in policy, bills, administration, and any proposal, no matter the benefits of such proposal that the President had brought forward for the good of America was turned against him. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell fed the people with unfounded lies, and repeated the lies so many uncountable times that the lies turned to look like truth.  This was how the President’s approval ratings began to tumble.  The much needed Affordable Health Care Act, validated by the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land became “Obama care” which they staged its repeal many times.  How could you continue to repeal what you have told the world that you have repealed many times? The Act you want to repeal and you have faked its repeal many times is a well deserved health care law enacted to assist the teaming millions of Americans who are not as rich as Mr. Speaker and Mr. Senate leader.  Before the Act, America remained the only country among the developed economies of the world that has no health care policy for its citizens. To be selfish is to be an uncivilized human.

Republicans rejected outright every of the President’s moves across party lines to get the Republicans to work with him for the benefits of all Americans; the cabal in Congress refused to allow Obama to run the country.  Some ideas that were previously known to belong to the Republicans which Obama brought forward to the Republicans for consideration were rejected as bad ideas for America.  The hatred for Obama was so clear and pronounced that some well meaning Americans were crying foul.  I can recall the yelling of Chris Mathew, Rachel Meadow, Rev. Al Shapton, The Ed Show and the other folks at the MSNBC.  They were condemning the disrespect meted on the President of the US.   There were so many rejections from the Republicans to all Obama’s proposals and efforts to the extent that every American came to know the Republican Party as the Party of NO.  To this day, they blocked almost all of Obama’s judicial nominees. President Obama’s important accomplishments in his first term in office numbered over 200 which Americans are today enjoying.  The Affordable Health Care Act is one of the most important among the over 200 accomplishments that directly affect the people lives positively.  It has been very unfair to the man who became the 44^th President of the Free World, President Barack Obama.  It is impossible to think that there would ever be a president of the United States of America who will ever suffer such humiliation and disrespect as President Barack Obama.  Americans are known to respect their presidents, but with regards to President Obama, all protocols were thrown to the wind. 

President Obama promised Americans that he will get Bin Laden to pay for his crime against America and he did; Bin Laden at the time, was America’s No 1 enemy in this century, yet he (Obama) was never accorded any recognition for having done the feat.  Instead, Republicans claimed that it was the information obtained from the prisoners held by Bush that helped President Obama get rid of Bin Laden.  Bush, himself could not use the same information to do the job especially that it was said that President Bush knew where Bin Laden was while he, Bush was still in office as the President of the US.  Looking at this background, though quite sketchy, compared to what actually happened to President Obama and his administration, it is clear that the hatred and prejudice against him are all in effect that of racial hatred.  It is the same effect that translated to the defeat of the Democratic Party members and candidates at the 2014 Mid-term elections in the US.  This is so because the Democrats were seen by majority of White Americans who see the Democrats as favoring Black minority Americans, the group that the President Barack Obama belongs.  The implication therefore, is that from the top to the bottom, and bottom to the top, racism in America is not dead. Otherwise, the teaming population of Whites in America would have joined the rest of Americans to vote for Democrats in the 2014 Mid-term elections.  Then, it would have been a plebiscite on the Republican Party, the Part of No; the party that caused the shutdown of Government activities at a critical time of needs in America; the party that blocked every move that was meant to rejuvenate the soul of America through employment for those who were deliberately thrown out of work so that the 1% elites of America and the Corporate entities will live their life more abundantly; the party that believe that minorities especially, Blacks and other Americans have no right to live a decent life.  

This 2014 Mid-term election was never a plebiscite on Obama.  Those Democrats who ran away from President Obama during their campaigns; at a time when they needed to show that they were sincerely with Obama in all the good deeds he was doing for America were guilty of insincerity and indecision therefore, blamable for their electoral defeat.  They became Al Gore; “I am my own man,” and he failed himself in that presidential election; and so it was for all the Democrats who failed to align themselves with a wrongly maligned, but pragmatic, illustrious, and well intentioned President Barack Obama.  You see; when you run away from what you are, you become what you are not.  When incumbent Democrats and aspirants abandoned President Obama, during their campaigns they ran away from his aspirations for America; was it a conscious effort?  They then joined with those Americans who hate Obama because of his race, and they, by so doing legitimize racism in America. It is sad. This was that time when Democrats should have stuck with President Obama to death, if death was to come; because they knew that they the Democrats were aware that Obama was leading them to destroy that which makes the world cast aspersion on America – RACISM.  Could any reasonable American tell the President of the United States that he will burn himself if he uses his Executive Authority to settle any dispute in America?  John Boehner said today that if President Barack Obama uses his Executive Order to settle the Immigration issue that he the President would be playing with a match that will burn him.  Could Boehner have said such to Mr. Bush?  Mr. Boehner is still burning within six years after because a Blackman is in the White House as the President of the United States. 

The various analyses that are being done on the Mid-term elections are failing to call a spade a spade.  They seem to be basing their analyses more on the ethnic demographics of the various communities to the exclusion of race.  They are saying that the votes of 40% of the Asians in the country went for Republicans.  Why 40% of Asian Americans do joined the White Americans to vote en-masse for the Republican Party?  There is so much evidence that is beyond the scope of this treatise that shows that Asians like many White Americans discriminate Black Americans in America and in their Oriental countries.  It is no news or coincidence that the Asians joined Republicans to defeat the Democrats who they believed to be sympathetic to African Americans.

Black Americans need to read between the lines at this time in our national life.  In as much as we know that integration and reintegration are a desired state we cannot refuse to understand ourselves.  We need to listen to ourselves as much as we listen out of ourselves.  Black America cannot afford to hate itself.  The acrimonious remarks from some Black intellectuals directed at the current President of the United States, President Obama are unfounded.  They are divisive as much as they are disuniting and confusing those with less understanding amongst us, Africans in this country.  One cannot be faster than his or her legs for the consequence is greater.  President Obama was not voted in as president of Black America nor did the votes of African Americans alone put the President in the White House.  Both White, Green, Black, Yellow and Blue votes landed the President in the White House and he was voted in to repair America that was damaged recklessly by his predecessor, Bush.  President Obama did not earn the criticisms that Smiley and Professor West are levying against him.  These gentlemen whom I respect dearly, have what it takes to launch an effective campaign in the Black community with a view to turning all Black people around to become an effective participants in the electoral process in America.  In every election in recent time in America it has been shown that many Black Americans do not want to own up to it, to vote.   Many do not want to vote because they do not understand why they need to vote; as a university teacher who teaches the subject of politics, I have spoken with many in the classroom and had talked with many out of the classroom, they simply do not understand that to vote is to participate in the process which gives the right and responsibility to criticize political leaders and governmental authorities should they fail to meet public expectation. That an African American, Obama was the President of America is enough a motivation for African Americans to storm the polling booths with their registration cards on election day ready to vote, but yet we have to beg them to go and register to vote.

As for me, the man, President Obama has not failed America; he has done what Napoleon could not do; he is first in our time to get to the Mountain-top predicted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  President Barack Obama needs every of our support that we can give him, he deserves it and we should give him. Do we blame those who think, only they and themselves alone have the prerogative to live in this country?  There is power and strength in numbers; we have it but we do not use it because we are apathetic at political participation in this country of ours. Many of our people do not register to vote in most elections especially in the Mid-term.  The likes of Mr. Speaker and the new Majority leader in the Senate, Mitch know that our people, the Obama constituency does not vote; therefore, there are no political consequences they can suffer for their unruly verbal attack on the President.  This is why they can have the audacity to insult the President of the United States, President Barack Obama anyhow and every time they are behind the microphone speaking to the nation. Watching the body language of Mr. Speaker yesterday when he was warning the President, one could see that there is worse in Mr. Speaker’s mind about President Obama. You cannot hate another human being Mr. Speaker in such a manner! It is wrong; your action and attitude towards the President of the United States, breach protocols. Let the people speak with Mr. Speaker.  The President has the political mandate to run the affairs of the country. The gridlock you and Mitch have created is turning the politics of this land into “Fourth World” politics, an uncivilized politics; this is unholy in God’s Own country.