The United States government of today is not the United States government of eight years ago. It not only looks different but it has an entirely different soul; with that soul, in a sense, being its motivations, ideology, and most importantly its leader. Though, in order to explain how we became what we are today we must first remember what we were. Eight years ago our leader was someone who promoted hope and change, someone who was the embodiment of someone that truly, for the first time, proved to millions of people young and old that anything is possible for anyone in the United States of America. Of course, that man was President Barack Obama, the first African American president. Not only we’re we led by the first African American president but also the first female speaker of the house, and one of the few men from the far west to be senate majority leader. America once again proved to be a land of opportunity. These bouts of leadership, though, did not end on the terms of our fresh faced heroes. The presidency was relinquished to a seventy-year-old white man from New York City and the opposition party. The speakership was taken away by voters and given to a male career politician and the senate leadership was eventually also taken away and given to a Republican from the eastern state of Kentucky. America was again looked after by its traditional holders of power. So why do we see the leadership and majorities in government being held by the typical suspects in today’s political climate? How could the exceptional and extraordinary people of the past eight years lose their power in such a dramatic and drastic way? It’s because, to many people, they turned out to be not so different after all. They all looked and sounded differently than their predecessors with different meaning, for most of the country, refreshing and renewing. They all had one thing in common with their predecessors, that one deadly and unforgivable sin, partisanship. They on many occasions put the interest of themselves, their supporters, and their party before the interest of the American people they served. The new and refreshing faces of hope and change turned out the be the not so uncommon and typically ugly face of business as usual. The Democratic party has lost over one thousand elections over the past eight years, at all levels of government, because of their unwillingness to negotiate and change their stances at the expense of voters. Their globalist policies have been interpreted by crucial voters as an attack on the American worker, a direct rejection of the notion of a sovereign national border, and the diminishment of America’s ability to lead as a global superpower.

If you look at electoral maps from this past presidential election the race was not won by Donald Trump in the deep south or the Midwest like it would be for a typical Republican president. It wasn’t won because New York, his home state, flipped red to support one of their own. In fact, New York went overwhelmingly in the way of his opponent. No, the election was won by Trump in the traditionally reliable Democratic rust belt states. These states hadn’t gone red for decades and no one really expected them to do so ever again. So, for this shocking change to occur the voters had to find some kind of dissatisfaction with the work of those that they had elected time and time again. This is where one of the first major failures of the Democratic party’s globalist policies ended up backfiring and costing them elections. Globalist trade deals such as NAFTA and TPP supported by Democrats, ended up costing many people in these rustbelt states and the rest of America their jobs and ability to earn wages.  Although TPP was recently shut down for good by President Trump it was a huge factor in the 2016 election with many signs, even some being, at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia being held in protest. The ensuing job record of President Obama doesn’t reflect the actual impact that his administration, and trade deals, had on the market either. While the record does show that he created 14 million jobs, which is true, other factors are not brought into the equation. Traditionally, job growth is measured along with population growth. For example, the Reagan administration created 18 million jobs, but population also grew 12 million in the same period netting his record only plus 6 million jobs (Merline). As we remember Obama created 14 million jobs but population grew by 20 million in the same time frame netting Obama a minus 6 million jobs record (Merline). This number can also be reflected in the workforce participation numbers. These numbers reflect just how many able bodied people are either out of work or actively looking for work. There are a staggering 95 million people out of the work force according to CNBC; the most at any one time in American history. These losses were all anticipated by Democrats when they instituted these programs as laws but there were other potential positives that they deemed to be more valuable than these lost jobs. They thought that finding a way to increase global trade would help the GDP grow for both the country and the world. In fact, since World War II, exports have risen form 5 % of global GDP to 20% (Berkeley). This tendency to put global GDP and well-being over that of the working American is the reason that they’ve lost so many seats in recent years. Let’s look at the testimony of someone that used to be a Democrat but flipped for these reasons and others. This man, Jeffrey Weiner, said this about why he can’t vote Democrat anymore, “This election with all of its lies, exposed manipulation, and suppression of competition succeeded in alienating me completely from the Democratic Party” (Weiner). This is a reflection of the feelings of many millions of people who flipped from blue to red like Mr. Weiner did. The loss of competition in the job market cost the left many voters. The Democrats must get back to their roots of serving and protecting the American working class above any other voting bloc. The poor of all races and cultures shifted to Trump and Republicans over the past 8 years because they have seen the party that they saw as their champions turn their backs on them. The African American vote, Hispanic American, Asian American, and White American vote all went further red in elections over the past eight years. To regain these voters and compete in elections again, the Democrats must reverse their policies on globalism to protectionism once again and serve their traditional base of people left behind and forgotten by the rest of Americans.

Another way that the Democrats can serve these people and get them back on their side, is to listen to their opinions on immigration instead of the fringe, hardcore, leftist that they seem to be catering to. When it comes to immigration and the border, people were faced with two opposing opinions in the past election, as they usually are. The stances put forth by both the GOP and the Democrats, though, were both radical and incompatible by their nature. Looking at the results of the election for the house, senate, and presidency we can see that the radically populist view on immigration put forth by President Trump won the day. While the President isn’t exactly the moral authority on how to treat illegal immigrants, his ideas were closer to the ideals of the average American voter. In fact, when Americans are polled on their opinions toward immigration and the border they seem to have very nationalistic views. According to a poll conducted by Gallup in 2015, only 33% of Americans were satisfied with immigration, 77% said that it was “very important” that the government take steps to take control of the US border and stop the flow of illegal immigrants, and 80% saying new laws should be adopted to tighten security at the borders (Newport). Although they may not be calling for a “big beautiful wall” the vast majority of Americans agree that illegal immigration should be stopped. These are not the views of the Democratic party. In an attempt to keep their status as the party of moral superiority they have missed the point of governing according to what the people want, not in spite of what they want. The only thing that their platform puts forth that is vastly supported by the American voter is the idea of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already living in the US. 87% support this notion (Newport). The actions and opinions of the party go further than just this though, they support and maintain “sanctuary cities” that make it illegal to arrest ILLEGAL immigrants, even if they have criminal records, only based on their immigration status. The most damning thing is that they have attempted in the past to remove borders from the US altogether and still support the idea even though it was shot down by the US Supreme Court. The Obama administration passed an executive order that suspended the enforcement of immigration laws for many, if not most of, immigrants coming to the United States (Barone). This was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but instead of giving up on the attempt to remove immigration laws Democrats doubled down. They ran a candidate for president in 2016 that said in a speech to Brazilian bankers that she dreams of a, “common market with open trade and open borders” (Wolfgang). These things are clearly opposed by the voters in the United States and mainly by voters in border states. 12 of the 19 states that share a border with either Mexico or Canada ended up going for Trump. The immigration system is undoubtedly in tatters right now and in dire need of reform. The first party to come up with a plan based on compromise will benefit tremendously and that doesn’t look like it will be the Democrats. 

The final nail in the coffin for Democrats over the past eight years were their failures in foreign policy. From day one of the Obama administration and the Democrat controlled congress, it was apparent that the US would pursue a policy of leading from behind. This became very apparent in 2009 with the “Russian reset.” Something that famously began with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov both pushing a big red button that resembled that of a doomsday button (Deyermond). This began a slew of failures that hurt the United States’ standing and credibility in the world. The events that followed were the rise of ISIS in the middle east, Libyan civil war, and currently the Syrian civil war. Once again moral superiority has been the perpetrator in these failures for the Democrats. One of Trump’s most effective talking points, in fact, was that Clinton and her party had “created ISIS” with the way that they mishandled the war in the middle east. He attributed this to the assessment of critics that say the premature removal of troops from the area, before the Iraqi government was ready to support itself, in pursuit of getting brownie points with the public was what allowed ISIS to grow into what it is today. Ironically, if this is true, then the Democrats may have destroyed their relationship with Russia as they tried to build it. ISIS is one of that main culprits in the Syrian civil war that pits the Russian backed Al-Assad government and the US backed Syrian rebels which has been infiltrated by ISIS. The foreign policy event that would end up stinging the Obama presidency and the Democratic leadership the most, in the end would not be in the middle east, but in one of the only operational globalist entities in the world. The United Kingdom on June 23, 2016 voted to leave the European Union which will be a possible death blow to the organization altogether. Something that was looked to as a shining example of how these policies would end up working in the end. The event also stung even worse when the leader of the movement, Nigel Farage, attributed the vote to Obama himself. Farage said, “I shall always be grateful, eternally grateful to Obama because he came to our country, he was rude to us, he told us what we should do and he led to a big Brexit bounce of several points. So thank you, Obama, for helping us to win this referendum” (Smith). This administration has left behind a still tattered middle east, increasingly powerful China, and, for the first time in decades, a splintered Europe.  

The last 8 years have left the Democratic party in tatters. They’ve lost the Senate, the House of Representatives, the majority of State legislatures, the majority of Governorships and yes, even the Presidency; and they stand to lose even more with 10 Democratic senate seats, up for election in 2018, hailing from states that Trump won. These losses are only matched by the Republicans after the Nixon administration experienced the Watergate scandal and the Hoover admiration after the Great Depression began. These are dire times in the lives of Democrats, especially with the new administration’s efforts, that they will undergo to support minorities and attempt to steal their votes from Democrats with the implementation of school choice and lower taxes. The only key difference in the policies of the left and right at current are the people that they seek to benefit with their actions. The Republicans seek a policy of “America first” while Democrats seek the policy of world government. The left has tried tirelessly for 8 years to implement their new view of how the world will work and have been met with nothing but tragedy and loss. It truly is time to flip their priorities from their new base of progressives and back to their traditional base of the liberal working class. The only ways that they can hope to do this is to abandon their dream of “free” world trade that kills American jobs, stop pursuing policies of open borders and immigration without rules and change their foreign policy from leading from behind to leading from the front. If they fail to do these things then they will meet the same fate as the people that flipped from them to vote Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania; the unemployment line.
