One of the main drivers for traditionally Democratic states and voting blocs to vote for Trump during the 2016 Presidential Election was the superfluous increase in premium costs due to Obamacare.
According to an article published by CNN in October, Obamacare has resulted in an expected average increase in premium costs of around twenty-two percent.
Forbes published an article on the date that states premiums have risen twenty five percent.
According to The Fiscal Times, in some states such as Tennessee and Oklahoma, the increase in premiums went to over sixty percent.
In the same article from The Fiscal Times, Arizona’s premiums are projected to cost roughly over $420 in 2017, an increase in over one hundred percent.
Besides the increase in health care coverage (and in less choice as to who provides the care), another issue that drove many traditional Democratic voting blocs to vote Trump was a general uneasy feeling surrounding Obama’s “foreign policy.”
Obama vowed to draw red lines which no one was allowed to cross in both Syria and Ukraine.
Needless to say, Obama quickly erased those lines due to a number of factors, one of the main being a timidity never seen in presidents since the days of pre-Lincoln America.
It can be objected I’m being too harsh on Obama and his foreign policy, but the evidence says otherwise. Crimea is now part of Russia, with hardly a finger being lifted to stop its annexation from Ukraine; Syria is in turmoil and in the grips of a horrendous humanitarian crisis which seems to have no end in sight.
One of the few times that Obama did display leadership – when he toppled Libya’s dictatorial government under the leadership of Gaddafi – has resulted into the destabilization of the country and the displacement of thousands of people.
Domestically, Trump is the result of Obama’s policies.
Trump’s claim that the Obama administration has led to an increase in death by guns (and the recurring theme by some Democrat-leaning commentators that all guns must be taken away from law abiding citizens) has undoubtedly led to many seeing the Democrats as unable to deal with social realities.
One cannot call an entire disenchanted class racist for eight years and not expect that class to take heed of your wishes. Likewise, being lectured to does not mean that those who were harangued for the better part of eight years will heed your ordained wisdom.
If all is doing as well as Obama has been saying it has, then so many Americans wouldn’t have looked for change. What could be more of a change than Trump?
Obama’s legacy, which may have been one of “Hope and Change,” is Trump. What a bummer.
