Obama and the End of 'Hope' in American Politics

November 2008. Do you remember that month?

That was the month in which, supposedly, our nation took a turn for the better. The election of Barack Obama was to usher in a new age not only in American politics, but American society, as well. This was to be the reversal of eight years of disastrous foreign and domestic policies by the Bush Administration, practically overnight. The recession was soon to be curbed, education and health care were going to be fixed, and America was going to finally upright itself after the 2007 housing crash.

What has President Barack Obama and his administration done for this country or you? Anything positive or for the most part, negative? Tell us in the comments.

Obama’s election represented not only a changing of the guards politically, but culturally. This was the president of my generation, a symbolic transfer of power from uptight, wrinkly-skinned Republican business barons to well-educated, civically-engaged men of not only color, but youth. A lot of people tend to overstate the issue of race in regard to Obama’s election and understate the issue of age—I would say that Obama was elected more on the factor of his connection with my age group than anything that had to do with ethnicity or heritage.

There was no doubt that Obama’s election was symbolic on many accounts. Depending on who you asked, it symbolized the “death of racism,” “the triumph of technology,” “the rise of civic engagement,” and—above all else—“hope.”

A hope that the economic downturn was only periodic. A hope that we could learn from the errors of the 90s and early 2000s and forge a more dependable, stable market. A hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be the moment that signaled the beginning of that great new age in American history.

Did you vote for Barack Obama? Will you do it again? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments.

Now, it’s almost 2012.

The economy is in far worse shape than it was four years ago. The national debt is climbing higher and higher, and job creation is virtually nonexistent.

Those social services Obama pledged to be a champion for? Never happened. Social Security hasn’t been fixed, Medicaid and Medicare are economic quicksand traps ready to implode at any moment, and that newfangled health care package that was supposed to be the greatest improvement to American quality of life since the New Deal?

Beyond dead. Not just “dead,” but its corpse has practically sublimated into natural gas.

Obama promised America “change,” and boy oh boy, did we ever get it. Prior to 2008, Americans were wary of government solutions, but they still had some faith in the capabilities for politics to right the numerous wrongs of society and economy.

And today, we’re absolutely soured on the notion of politics solving anything in our country.

Do you have any confidence in American government? Can we turn things around? How? Tell us in the comments.

The abject failure of the first Obama term has effectively decimated the public’s hope in the political process within America. Let this not be a one-sided drubbing of the Obama Administration, however, because his failure is a joint effort between the left and the right. At a time in which unity and commitment were necessities for digging this country out of a financial quagmire, Democrats and Republicans remained partisan, playing the same old party games while millions of Americans lost their very reasons to live.

And then, out came the lunatic fringe. On the far right, Tea Partiers that want to implement Mosaic law as national policy, and on the far left, supposed “99 percenters” that clamor for unrealistic entitlement programs so grandiose that even Fred Engels would consider their vision “too much.” The downtrodden, dissatisfied with their elected officials, turned to carnies and snake oil salesmen like Glen Beck, Alex Jones and Keith Olbermann. Political discourse in the U.S. became a Baskin-Robbins of ideological madness, with 31 flavors of outright inanity to choose from.

And now, we get to repeat the process all over again. Despite all of my badmouthing of President Obama, don’t let that mislead you into thinking that I would vouch for any of the Republican candidates for presidency, either. Nor would I consider any third-party nominee—be they Libertarian, social-Democrat, Communist or Prohibitionist—fit for the Oval Office.

By now, we already know the outcome, no matter who we elect. Call me cynical if you wish, but I prefer the terminology honest even more.

Outside the Social Science Building at , there’s a pro-Obama poster taped to the window of some professor’s office. Over the last four years, I’ve watched that sign deteriorate, turning from a bright, red-white-and-blue banner in 2009 into a weathered, tattered and color-drained piece of paper in 2011.

And in many ways, that’s not only what’s happened to Obama’s promises of “hope” for our nation, but what’s happened to our belief in politics as a culture, too.