As the mid-term elections nears, the Democratic Party in America is facing a backlash for the audacious hope for change promised but hardly delivered. Perhaps, President Obama needs a miracle from heaven.

President Obama inherited a major trunk load of fatal issues from the Republican Bush Government - the major economic/unemployment crisis, an increasing financial debt crisis of well over 1 trillion dollars per year, a looming major social security funding crisis. All Obama did was used his political capital that he had with the House and Senate overwhelming majorities and mandate for change was to enact a major health care reform which added coverage for an additional 30 million which even though is just and fair could be ill afforded and business have had to pay for it. This energized the “Tea Party” movement which came about by the health care fiasco, and sustained by the regular news of high unemployment rates.

President’s Obama preoccupation with health care left him little leverage to support basic Civil Rights for gays including the repeal of DADT where gays are ungraciously discharged from the military simply for being gay despite many years of honorable and sometimes life risking service for the nation. There was such a grave element of injustice in DADT and the reasons of low morale/unit cohesion given by the Christian Right to come against gays were simply unfounded especially when gays have been serving in other major armies, as they have done hiding in the closet in the American army. Fighting for gays in respect for the DADT would have given Obama much more of a moral mandate. The Health Care reform may cost a trillion dollars, but the repeal of the DADT would have saved the Government billions by not needing to recruit/trained new soldiers to replace gay ones.

Ironically, the Christian Right has often portrayed gays as linked the Nazi party and how good and violent they were as soldiers for the Third Reich. Yet, now when the push for their full inclusion into the army was made, they are now claiming it would have detrimental impact. Lies and rhetoric only undermines the moral standing of Christianity itself. The truth was that at least 150,000 gays were targeted and killed by Nazi Germany just for being gays. We see the roots of such anti-gay sentiments in Uganda and Nigeria. The Nazi thought they were fighting for God and for the Catholic church in attempting to eliminate Jews and the Gays, much like the Christian Right today against gays.

Yet, President Obama to his great discredit did nothing until a year into his presidency when he was forced to take “baby” steps to honor his promise by constant bitching of the small group GLBT advocates. There is nothing to show for the massive support given by the GLBT community to support Obama. Further insults came from the negative news of how the Department of Justice is defending the DADT which has been very successful in getting the courts to declare it unconstitutional.  The greatest irony is how successful the Gay Republicans “Log Cabin” movement had in getting their appeals successfully through the courts further undermining Obama’s position when he was forced to defend it even though he did not agree with it principally.

President Obama came to power with a mandate for change, yet for all the promise he did not addressed the basic core issues. For example, his economic stimulus was targeting at saving businesses too big to fail who had caused the financial crisis in the first place. Secondly, very low interest loans were made available so that the banks could loan money – the money which they only hoarded or gain a handsome profit by loaning it out at the prevailing rates. The rich and powerful benefited from the massive profits now being made by the companies and a rising bull run in the stock market whilst we have a huge number of unemployed – 10% officially and some say 20% unofficially. President Obama did not address the grave injustice and inequality but instead his actions only benefited the rich who would vote Republicans anyway. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.

President Obama did little to encourage Christian voters to support him and instead only further alienated himself by supporting the building of a mosque near the 911 ground zero in New York , appear to side with the Palestinians in the Middle East dispute over Jerusalem,  and had failed to emphasize the overall Christian nature of America by saying that it was not a “Christian country”. He seldom go to the Black American churches to bring in the support from his black supporters and emphasized his Christian credentials. As a result, many though he was a Muslim thus causing further disapproval in the light of the 911 incident, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which has a strong religious motives.

Despite all his missteps, President Obama is probably the best American President they ever had. He had integrity and probably too truthful unlike previous Republican President who had no issues in lying about the weapons of mass destruction or implementing tax cuts for the middle class/rich until the deficit sky rocketed, or relaxing the Wall Street financial rules allowing the financial institutions to make trillions yet all based on a big bubble. But people do have short memories of those who had caused the financial crisis and the ongoing wars, for President Obama had failed to properly focus on the culprits letting them have a distraction in the Health Care Reform.   

We have a great tragedy in the making in President Obama who offered so much of an audacity of hope and the promise of change yet implemented changes only in the health care that most did not appreciate nor have asked for. He needs to show the audacity he had promised to bring change into the major issues facing the American nation and offer strong reasons for each group to support him. Perhaps, we should never have depended on one man alone and expect him to do miracles. All of us have a part to make change possible.