In about 10 months, the voters of the United States of America will have the responsibility and privilege of electing a new leader. Because of the historical significance of this land of the free and home of the brave, that elected leader will have influence imposed upon her/his shoulders well beyond the confines of our 50 states and its protectorates. When the January inauguration of that person takes place and the pomp and circumstance of that winter day in Washington D.C. fades into memory, the new leader must be willing and able to make far-reaching decisions for four years.
Will our great nation be home to a term in office that will be recorded in history books as a towering success or as a monumental failure? Those are two extremes but be assured that mediocre, moderate or average won’t get the job done domestically, fiscally or internationally. The person who, in January of 2017 enters the Oval Office of the White House and sits at the desk must be a leader of character, commitment and determination. Anyone less than the most qualified man or woman for the job of President, Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief could lead to disaster of staggering enormity.
Regardless of the historical significance or perceived performance of all those 43 men who served 44 terms in office (Grover Cleveland served two non-sequential terms) this next term starting in 2017 could be the most consequential in our history. Hiring the former community organizer has been a colossal failure from the day he took office in January 2009. We have been misled regarding executive amnesty, the Iran nuclear ‘deal’, immigration, transparency, the Syrian ‘red line’, terrorist containment and spying on Congress and allies.
This has been a cosmetic Presidency from the day of Mr. Obama’s inauguration. ‘Cash for Clunkers’ cost taxpayers more than $2 billion. Each new multiple murder elicits talk of new gun laws thus evading the real issues. The President keeps pushing for higher minimum wages but unemployment and incomes among minorities continues to germinate. Iran has been launching ballistic missiles in violation of the nuclear deal in July 2014 and the President’s boasts have turned to silence and inaction.
In his lectures, the many faces of terror in today’s world are spoken without using the word Islamic; we are told these evil-doers are a JV team, they are contained and not a threat to our nation. As these hallucinations are broadcast as seed, people are dying at the hands of those whose name cannot be spoken at the highest levels of our government.
History records that most democracies last a couple hundred years. It takes that long to muddle through the various sequences of pride and self-sufficiency to total government dependence. We may be standing on the trap door of anarchy right now considering that almost 50% of U.S. citizens receive a federal government check every month. When that number tips over to more that 50%, our Republic will be on a trajectory of going into the history books as a prodigious experiment that was formed in North America in 1776 after wresting the land and natural resources from aboriginal natives.
The reason for failure will elude historians (deliberately or accidentally) by simply saying that the ‘economy collapsed.’ That perfunctory remark will be the superficial cause but the core underlying reason will be that the economy collapsed inward as a result of the domination by political elites, citizen’s virtual total government dependence and the presence of personal apathy and the absence of self-determination. Unsustainable national debt coupled with unfunded liabilities of government benefits like social security, supplemental security income (SSI), Medicaid, Disability, Medicare and retirement benefits to millions of elected, appointed and career federal workers will amplify the death knell.
Not too long ago the President said that if the law allowed, he would run for office again because he felt sure he could win that whimsical election. Here’s something that Mr. Obama’s ego shields him from understanding: we cannot judge our own individual success for that would be hypocritical and hypothetical; our perceived achievements are weighed and assessed by friends and foes alike after all the results are etched on the scoreboard of history.
