division

But the Obama years brought a dramatic rise in vitriol and division among Americans — led by Obama but practiced by both sides of the political divide. Obama divided Americans by black and white and Hispanic; by men and women and the newly evolving list of “others”; by gay and straight; by rich and poor; by urban or rural; by favored industry and unfavored industry and so on.

Many of these divisions were well established in the Democratic Party and part of the strategy for winning elections. But Obama, as the first black President, had the unique opportunity to take a large step toward healing national race relations. Instead he made them much worse, and that is true on virtually every front of the divisions he employed. On theother side, some traditionalist Americans found him so arrogant and off-putting (mostly aside from race) that they developed a personal hatred for him, also.

So the poison of dividing Americans by every category possible to pit them against each other for political gain was coursing through the nation’s veins going into the 2016 election.

At the same time, hard-working Americans were sick of the game where everyone pitted against everyone else and policies seemed designed to make America weaker as a nation. And to be fair, that is essentially what Obama wrote in his book. He genuinely thought, and presumably still thinks, the world would be better if America was not so dominant. His policies worked to make that happen.

In this election, however, instead of the Democrats going for the