Since Obama took office, Democrats have lost a near-filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a huge majority in the House, 11 governorships and 1,000 legislative seats around the country. How could even a Republican president have led the Republican party to more success than Obama has?

Republicans are now getting very close to control of enough states to call a Constitutional Convention and enact their wishlist. Prayer in schools? Creationism taught instead of science? A ban on Islam? An end to the fourth and fifth amendments? A ban on same-sex marriage? Criminalization of homosexuality? A ban on interracial marriage? A ban on abortion? A ban on birth control? A ban on unions? A revival of child labor and debtor’s prisons? A revival of blasphemy laws?

How did we get here after making gains in successive elections under George Bush?

It didn’t help that throughout his presidency Obama blamed “Congress” for obstructing his agenda. Pro tip: When your party controls Congress, which it did for Obama’s first two years, blaming Congress is how you campaign against your own party. And when the obstruction is due to the Republicans’ declared strategy of unprecedented opposition to everything that you try to do, even if it’s things they had previously supported, even if it’s to prolong the recession, it’s political malpractice for a Democratic president not to hold the Republican Party responsible.

It didn’t help that Obama has never fought for a popular agenda. People wanted a public option. Sure, it might not have passed, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have pushed for it. That way, when Obamacare’s flaws became evident, he could have said, ”See, we should have had a public option.”

Same with the stimulus. It wasn’t big enough. But, instead of asking for the right size and making Republicans responsible for shrinking it and all the misery that resulted, he took credit for it. And ensured that Democrats would get the blame for the stagnation because it was, in fact, half a trillion too small.

Same with the banksters. Unlike the savings and loan meltdown, which led to the prosecution and imprisonment of hundreds of S&L executives, Obama sided with Wall Street. He not only refused to prosecute anyone for wrongdoing, he made sure their bonuses remained intact. While doing next to nothing for Main Street.

Same with the Iraq war. People opposed it. But he just continued the Bush-Cheney policy.

Same with the Afghanistan war. People opposed it. But he just continued the Bush-Cheney policy.

And then, proving that he’d learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan, he pursued regime change in Libya and Syria. Unless, of course, his real aim was to line the pockets of defense contractors, in which case I guess he learned the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan pretty well.

His final gift to the Republican Party was Hillary Clinton. His final fcuk you to the middle class, to the working class, to the very same people he said in 2008 clung to their guns and religion because for decades no one from either party helped them. People he chose to do nothing for for his entire presidency. People Hillary Clinton promised in word and deed—ignoring them throughout her campaign—that she would ignore in her presidency.