Barack Obama signing of the vitally important Affordable Care Act
Despite assertions that Democrats have failed working people and have therefore forfeited their claim to power in Washington D.C, much of the passionate uprising we currently see in our city streets is being engendered over the guttural outrage of Donald Trump and Republicans rolling back important Obama administration and Democratic Party policies, put in place over the last eight years.
Yes, you heard me right, Obama and Democrats have supposedly failed working people over the last eight years, yet working people are storming the Bastille all across the nation in a desperate crusade to hold onto Obama era policies.
The Affordable Care Act is a perfect example of this counterfactual argument, despite the ridicule and denigration it has received since its passing, the furious pushback of the Trump administration and the Republican congress that we have been witnessing from millions of people, including women who refuse to see their access to healthcare rollback to the days where, by virtue of their sex, they were deemed to be pre-existing conditions is both powerful and stunning.
We are seeing working people leave their homes and stepping out into the streets to say “Hell no! We refuse to sit quietly and allow the Republicans to rollback gains this country has made over the last eight years!” And “Hell no! Keep your hands off my healthcare!”
Besides healthcare, important gains on issues like criminal justice reform, such as The Fair Sentencing Act, which has changed the disparity in drug sentencing and resulted in cutting the number of federal prosecutions of crack cocaine to half, as well as initiatives to phase out private prisons and the banning of solitary confinement for juveniles. Also, as was stated in a recent PBS special:
President Obama has commuted the sentences of more federal prisoners than any other president, and he’s on track to leave far fewer federal inmates in federal prison since the 1960’s.
These are all Obama era policies that have spurred thousands of angry people to march the streets and let their voices be heard, as Reuters recently reported:
U.S. civil rights activists vowed on Saturday to defend hard-fought gains in voting rights and criminal justice during the presidency of Donald Trump, kicking off a week of protests ahead of the Republican's inauguration.
About 2,000 mostly black protesters ignored steady rain to march and rally near Washington's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, as speakers urged them to fight for minority rights and President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, which Trump has vowed to dismantle.
Then there is the concern over the Trump administration’s rollback of sensible and sensitive Transgender policies:
NEW YORK (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - People are speaking out against President Trump's stance on transgender bathrooms. Friday saw harsh reaction from Olympian and transgender activists Caitlyn Jenner after the White House reversal of the Obama era transgender public school bathroom policies. Hena Daniels is in New York with the latest on protests and reaction from across the country.
Not only the U.S., but the international community is concerned over Trump’s signal to rollback initiatives Barack Obama and Democrats have made to better the environment.
Along with protests around the world regarding the Republican president’s threat to pull out from the Paris climate deal, many climate friendly organizations here in the states have held anti-Trump rallies and continue to plan massive protests for the near future.
As Trump dismantles Obama’s climate legacy, people’s climate movement organizes for mass mobilization in D.C. on April 29.
There are also demonstrations over the rollback of financial regulations like Dodd Frank, a recent protest in New York city is typical of many:
#ResistTrumpTuesdays organizer Nelini Stamp, 29, said Trump targeted voters who were hit hardest in the financial crisis by saying he would end government corruption.
"He said he was going to drain the swamp and all we see is that he's filling it more and more every week," Stamp, a member of the Working Families Party,told CNBC.
"This was never about the American people. This was never about making America great again. It was about rolling back all of the things that Americans have fought for since the financial crisis and ... during the Obama administration,"she said.
It is infuriating to constantly encounter the false and frequently utilized narrative that the Democratic Party has failed to contribute to the needs of working people in this nation. The millions of angry protesters marching along our city streets since January 20, 2017 refute this claim resoundingly!!
If I have one criticism of the Democratic Party it would be that the party allowed this narrative to take hold and rout its full embrace of its legislative record. It allowed detractors to enforce their own rhetorical reality and hold up the specter of the perfect in an effort to diminish hard fought and impactful gains.
The protesters who are marching in terror over the possibility of Donald Trump rolling back achievements of women’s rights, LGBT rights, rights of the DACA generation, criminal justice reform, financial regulations, and, yes, a healthcare reform law that has benefited more than a hundred million people, understand what Democrats have done these last eight years.
If I have one humble advice for new DNC chair Tom Perez, it would be to proudly proclaim what Democrats have achieved, pledge to do even more as a leader of an inexorably forward moving party, and if he is confronted by those who wish to force the false dictum that Democrats have failed to address the needs of working people in this nation, point to the tens of millions of people who have suddenly awakened to the reality of what they are at risk of losing and are determined to put up a fight!
Yes, the fight to prevent the elimination of eight years of important progress made under President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
