Readers here know that President Trump was not my favorite candidate, and I have had numerous reasons to differ with him ever since he first became a candidate and up to the present.  But then, in a presidential election, the perfect candidate is never one of the options.  All you can do is choose between Option A and Option B.  Every candidate is badly flawed, and it's only a question of how badly.

So, now that we've had almost 6 months of Trump after 8 years of Obama, have things gotten better or worse?  OMG, it's not even close.  In honor of Independence Day, we should all thank God that we have finally gotten rid of Obama.

I will emphasize one of my recurrent topics, which is energy policy -- a subject which has somehow gotten completely intertwined with something called "climate change."  I find it beyond comprehension that this country elected as President, not once but twice, a man who not only thought impoverishing the people by increasing energy prices was a good idea, but promised, and then in office tried, to do everything he could to make that happen.  If you have never watched this January 2008 video of candidate Obama promising to make electricity rates "skyrocket" ("Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket"), you should.  The man actually thought he could change the weather by making you poorer!  And he looked down with supercilious scorn on anyone who dared to question him on that subject.  

And then, upon becoming President, he tried to push the plan through.  He briefly got control of both houses of Congress, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but couldn't get the cap-and-trade price increase plan to advance.  Whereupon he set about to try to accomplish the same ends with the "pen and phone."  Next thing you know he was blocking pipelines; obstructing energy exploration on federal lands; forcing the closure of close to half of our electricity-generation capacity and replacement of same with uneconomic, expensive, intermittent and ultimately useless "renewables" like wind and solar; and agreeing at Paris without Senate consent to hobble the U.S. economy by forcing decreases in carbon emissions while the entire rest of the world (excepting the guilt-ridden dopes in Europe) got a pass and continued to build multiple times the coal generation capacity than we ever had.

This was not mere incompetence.  It was intentional, active effort at destruction of American prosperity.  Only by the grace of God did we have an energy sector not under the thumb of the President, that was able to circumvent Obama's efforts and produce the fracking revolution in spite of everything the President tried to do to stop it.

Over at the Supreme Court, Obama appointed people (Sotomayor and Kagan) who, whatever else, were completely reliable votes for unchecked expansion of the administrative state and of the total discretion of the President and his minions to do whatever they want by pen and phone and without checks and balances.  A third Obama appointment -- who would have cemented a solid majority for more of same for a decade or more to come -- was only staved off by a near political miracle.

Obama declared "income inequality" to be "the defining challenge of our time."  And then he proceeded to demonstrate that he knew nothing about the subject and to do everything he could to make things worse for low income people.  That is, everything other than increasing handouts and dependency.  But maybe that was the real point.  Food stamps exploded.  Social security disability exploded.  But how about making it easier for low income people to earn enough money to get ahead and be independent?  See above on intentionally increasing energy prices.  Did he even realize that the burden of such price increases would fall most heavily on the poor?  Of was he planning to fix that with a new handout program and more dependency?

Pushing income inequality as a moral issue, Obama lectured Americans that "at some point you've made enough money."  The Wall Street Journal reported over the holiday weekend that Barack and Michelle have just contracted to buy the mansion in Washington's Kalorama neighborhood that they have recently been renting.  It is 8200 sq. ft., and the price is $8.1 million.  I guess that moral lecture did not apply to ex-Presidents of the correct political affiliation.

And the kowtowing to foreign leaders and to international groupthink!  The United States does not have to apologize to anyone for its success.  We have the economic model and the economy that work, that have made us successful, and that we should offer as a model to the world.  And we had a President who did not like our economic model, was ashamed of our economy and of our success and of our country, and went around the world apologizing.  If you have not seen it, you might enjoy this article from Bloomberg over the weekend headlined "China, Germany Step Up As U.S. Retires From World Leadership."    Don't worry, it's not just Bloomberg.  Our entire press has no idea that "world leadership" comes from economic success and not from going along with international groupthink.

Our current President?   He issues too many tweets, some of which we might wish he could take back.  Big deal.  Meanwhile, he actually thinks that the idea of America is a good idea.  Undoubtedly that is the main reason that he is vilified by the Left.