Today's Left finds cohesion by exalting oppression, even when that oppression is exaggerated or fabricated. Despite being a numerical minority within the bigger tent of the Democratic Party, that cohesion and the energy that comes with it has enabled its flag-bearers to gain outsize influence in the public sphere, and has enabled the Left to dominate policy.
Obama won the Presidency twice, comfortably, but far from overwhelmingly. Nevertheless, he governed as if he had received a progressive mandate. He stubbornly clung to that belief even as the voters repeatedly spurned his party. In the special election after Ted Kennedy's death that saw Republican Scott Brown break the Dems' Senate supermajority and crush Obama's hopes for a magnificent socialized medicine bill; in the 2010 mid-terms when the Tea Party movement swept the Democrats out of power in the House; in the 2014 mid-terms when his party lost the Senate; and in the thousand-plus legislative seats his party lost at the federal and state levels during his tenure. Make no mistake, Obama was a disaster for the Democrats, and he didn't even have the coattails to secure a victory for his heir-apparent Hillary Clinton over the very flawed Donald Trump.
Trump's rise in 2016 was a direct result of leftist hubris. The decision - and yes, it was a decision - to allow 2.5M migrants to flood across the southern border gave Trump the wedge issue that he needed to separate himself from the GOP pack, and helped him secure his improbable victory over Clinton.
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