What Obama Being President STILL Means To Me

Note I didn't say 'potentially'. I have the confidence to say that he WILL be a great president. If we were going to have a first Black president I like my African descended brothers and sisters wanted him or her to be the best and brightest member of our community.    

TransGriot, 'Why Barack Obama Will be A Great President'  February 28, 2009

Four years ago I wrote a blog post that not only that laid out what President Obama's historic run for president meant to me at that time, I also wrote that February 2009 one explaining why I confidently felt he would be an outstanding Oval Office occupant.for the next four to eight years.


He hasn't disappointed me.   President Obama took over during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, stopped the Dow from freefalling and stopped our nation's slide into a second one.

This man saved the American automotive industry, has had 33 consecutive months of job growth, appointed our first Latina Supreme Court justice in Sonia Sotomayor, passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act,  the Affordable Care Act, repealed DADT, ended the Iraq War, has us on track to get out of Afghanistan by 2014, undid the damage the GW Bush administration had done to our international image and reputation. .

In addition his aggressive persecution of anti-terrorism efforts has decimated the leadership of al-Qaeda, disrupted their operations and has Osama bin Laden resting at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.


Oh yeah, did I mention that he has been the best president ever as far as trans people like myself are concerned on issues of importance to our community such as getting the Byrd-Shepard hate crimes bill passed, appointing Amanda Simpson to an important job in his administration and his administrative heads issuing trans friendly directives and changes that have benefited our community?

And all of this was done while facing Massive Resistance 2.0 by the Republicans hellbent on making him a one-term president.

So yes, with us being two days from a critical election, I know this is the best man for the job of leading this country.  he has been tested, has grown in the job and deserves a second term to clean up the steaming pile of Bushit that was left on his Oval Office doorstep.
  
But I also knew that President Obama getting that second term was going to be harder than his winning the initial one on that historic night four years ago.

So have I had moments during this presidency when I've been upset that he hasn't gone far enough in terms of moving this country forward?   I certainly have.  I still believe this country needs universal single payer health care and also subsidized day care.  I believe DADT should have also addressed the issues of transpeople in the military

Am I still as proud of him and the First Family occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as I was four years ago?  You damned skippy I am.   I also see the importance to our next generations of kids in seeing someone who looks like them in that office who didn't have everything handed to him on a silver platter like Mitt Romney did and knowing if they bust their butts in school, they could one day be taking the oath of office themselves even if they are in a single parent home or a home with two mommies and two daddies.

It has also been important for me as a trans person to know that I have a president who values me, my fellow transpeople, the trans community and our untapped potential to help it move forward.

But it has been a life changing experience to see someone of my ethnic background in the Oval office and representing me and our nation on the international stage.

It has been depressing to see exactly where the United States is in terms of getting to Dr. King's dream of a color blind nation.  I see the white sheet wearing racism come roaring out of elements of white America who still have the misguided notion that this country belongs exclusively to them.  They have directed unprecedented levels of animus, disrespect and racist negativity at this president.    

It's also the major reason many of those whit voters are reverting to the same self destructive tendency they have had for over 150 years of voting against their own economic and political interests by casting ballots for an incompetent white man who repeatedly lies to them on November 6. 

I've done my part to move this country forward by early voting back on October 22.  Others are doing so as I write this post and both candidates criss cross the battleground states trying to get those last minute votes as other Americans who haven't had the chance to early vote get to weigh in on Tuesday.

but yes, I'm definitely hoping and praying that by 11 PM CST Tuesday the networks will have called this election for President Obama and I can go to sleep knowing that he and the First family won't be leaving Washington DC until January 21, 2017.