Barack Obama, the leader who inaugurated the era of politics that has now come to a definitive end, preached about the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice, while bending it toward self-enrichment for a select few (including himself). He established a new hierarchy in American culture: a chosen class of elite progressives at the top, a bureaucracy of unofficial commissars in the middle, and underclass of regressive plebs at the bottom. Obama’s smug pragmatism thus evolved into HR culture (Human Resources or Hillary Rodham—take your pick). This puritanical order reached its peak in the late 2010s after Clinton’s loss supercharged the moral certainty of the post-2008 Democratic base.
A new secular religion emerged, with “In this house we believe…” signs displaying its catechism. Identifying with Trump was portrayed as monstrous, the worst thing imaginable. For eight years, the American psyche was bombarded with negative, often fabricated stories about Trump—hoaxes, out-of-context quotes, and conspiracy theories. Relationships ended, marriages collapsed, jobs were lost. Pointless protests and cultural mini-revolutions raged. Dissenters faced punishment without due process—reflecting a manic Calvinist certainty, complete with its elect, sinners, and rituals of public shame. Yet this claustrophobic, self-satisfied paradigm has now produced exactly what it feared most: Trump’s decisive popular-vote win. (
The problem, of course, is that the social justice warriors of the last decade were not inspired at all by justice, but by a sanctimonious neo-Puritanism. True justice inspires; moralistic priggishness shames. Sooner of later the shamed come out of the shadows and revolt.
I disagree with Gasda's insinuation that Trump's awfulness was exaggerated. If anything, we still don't know the half of it. But we're gonna find out pretty quick.
And I don't think that Obama is a moralistic scold. He's got a touch of the poet, which means he is in touch with Justice with the uppercase J. But he governed as a Neoliberal materialist, and the consequences of that, alas, will be his legacy.
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