From our bench along one wall of the studio, the little girl’s dad leans toward me. “She tried that on me once,” he sighs. “I was standing in the bathroom and she ran up and got my leg.” I laugh and try to imagine the scene.
But Donald Trump is president, and my imagination is permanently elsewhere these days. From the small Arizona karate studio, my mind wanders to a beautiful D.C. day in the fall of 2015. I’m returning from the West Wing to my office. As I walk up the EEOB steps, David Simas walks down. Beneath his cliffs of hair sits a bewildered, can-you-believe-it smile.
“Donald Trump!” grins the president’s political director.
“Donald Trump!” I grin back.
Don’t get me wrong—we’re not happy to see him run. His campaign, only a few months old, is already a national disgrace. What Bush hinted at, and Palin masked with a smile, Trump bellows at the top of his lungs. Dog whistles have become primal screams: Mexicans are murderers and rapists. Illegals are stealing our jobs. Obama founded ISIS. Vladimir Putin is a role model. Journalists are the enemy. White supremacists are just fine.
Yet as campaign people, it’s impossible not to revel in the chaos. Watching Trump tear through the GOP primaries is like watching a sworn enemy suddenly realize the full implications of owning a pet chimpanzee. Republicans had plenty of chances to cut him loose. They chose not to. Now it seems obvious that Trump is poised to tear apart the conservative movement. A majority of voters will reject him. There’s no way he will win.
We are two-thirds right, which is a little like describing the Hindenburg’s final voyage as “mostly without incident.” Still, it’s worth noting: the party of Ronald Reagan died with Donald Trump. For years, Republicans like Paul Ryan pretended their voters cared about conservative ideology: tax cuts for rich people; widespread deregulation; manly chins. Trump exposed all that as nonsense. More than anything, he realized, the Republican base was motivated by a kind of equal-opportunity resentment. To the question, “Who’s screwing you over?” Trump’s answer was simple. Everyone. He attacked undocumented immigrants one minute, Wall Street bankers the next. He was buoyed by fears of global elites and racial minorities alike.
And he guessed, correctly, that many Americans felt democracy was a luxury we could no longer afford. “I alone can fix it!” he announced in his convention speech. In the hall, the audience cheered. On our gray Martha Stewart Living couch, Jacqui and I stared at our TV in shock.
“There’s no way voters will actually go for that, right?” I asked.
“No,” Jacqui said. “No way.” But her voice lacked confidence.
Technically, of course, Jacqui was right: Hillary Clinton won the most votes on Election Day. But those votes came from the wrong places. Trump surged in the swing states—in my former turf of Wayne County, Ohio, he beat Mitt Romney’s margin by a whopping thirteen points. By the end of the night, thanks to the Electoral College, he was president-elect.
That was three months ago. Now it’s Saturday, January 28. In Washington, our new commander in chief is calling Putin from the Oval. In Arizona, Miss B goes over footwork before next week’s yellow-belt exam.
“Imagine there’s a bug on the floor,” she tells her eager student. “What’s the grossest bug you can think of?”
“A scorpion!”
“All right, a scorpion. After you kick, I want you to put your foot down and squish the scorpion, okay?”
The bright purple hair tie bobs enthusiastically. The first grader resumes practice. And as she does, I remember the first time I saw her: in a campaign video, just a few days old, tubes running in and out of her chest. The second time I saw her she was in her father’s arms in Charlotte, watching her mother address a rapt convention hall. One year after that, thanks to the law that lifted the lifetime cap on her insurance, she had her third and final open-heart surgery. It went better than even Stacey had hoped.
“HICE!” Thwack.
“HICE!” Thwack.
Zoe Lihn brings her tiny foot down, hard, onto the mat. That scorpion never stood a chance.
THIS IS WHY I’VE COME TO ARIZONA. IN WASHINGTON, THEY’RE already talking about undoing everything Obama fought for. Which executive orders will be rescinded? Which laws will be repealed? And it’s true: part of Barack Obama’s legacy lives on paper. But another part goes to elementary school in Phoenix, loves Mexican food and stuffed animals, and is hoping to ace her yellow-belt test next week.
Some accomplishments, in other words, are impossible to undo. Millions of people found jobs thanks to Obama’s decisions. Soldiers who spent Christmas 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan spent Christmas 2016 at home. Bin Laden was on the loose eight years ago. Now he isn’t. Even Trump can’t change that.
Also, while POTUS didn’t upend our politics like I had hoped he would, he completely transformed our culture. Barack Obama grew up in a kind of gray area, torn between races and worlds. During his presidency, a new generation of outsiders—gays and lesbians, African Americans, immigrants, science nerds, kids with funny names, and so many others—grew up feeling part of America in a way they hadn’t before. And a new generation of insiders—kids like me but younger—grew up learning there’s nothing shameful or scary about people who are different. That kind of sea change can be postponed for a while. But it’s nearly impossible to reverse.
Nor is repealing laws as simple as it sounds. I don’t mean to be naive. As Zoe practices a series of decisive blocking motions, the Trump presidency is just eight days old, and already it’s clear that plenty of progress will be rolled back.
But it turns out even voters who didn’t like Obama shared many of his priorities. Americans want clean air and water. They care more about middle-class wages than upper-income tax cuts. People insured thanks to the Affordable Care Act have no interest in seeing their health care disappear. In a representative democracy like ours, popular opinion isn’t everything. It is, however, something. And right now, it’s largely on the former POTUS’s side.
So, at the end of the day, was Barack Obama a good president? It’s a question I thought had been settled the night of the Charleston speech. Now here I am, in the shadow of Trump, asking it again. And yet, while the future has become frighteningly uncertain, it’s impossible to watch Zoe Lihn lose herself in a flurry of kicks and punches without being confident about the past. Of course he was a good president. Look at her go.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT OBAMA’S LEGACY. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?