Mm-kay. Here’s how that would work.
—Obama held the Presidency for 8 years. Twice as long as Trump. So, in order to prove the Obama years were at least as politically violent as the Trump years, we would have to find at least twice the amount of political violence. Can we?
—The two major political movements of the Obama era were Occupy Wall Street (on the Left) and the Tea Party (on the Right). You might think either one, or both, were kind of kooky or misguided or politically wrongheaded — but neither one was especially violent.
—“Black Lives Matter” got its start in 2013-‘14 after Trayvon Martin was hunted down and killed, and Michael Brown was gunned down. Much can be said in either specific case about the victims’ alleged culpability in their own deaths, or about racism in policing and American society overall, and whether rioting in response to lynchings and police brutality is justified. Far beyond the scope of this comment. For simplification, let’s just treat Obama-era BLM-related agitation to be about on-par with Trump-era BLM-related agitation, even though there’s no real question that summer 2020 was worse.
—McCain conceded the ‘08 election to Obama, Romney conceded the ‘12 election to Obama, and HRC conceded the ‘16 election to Trump. Just as every other losing Presidential candidate has done in an unbroken chain dating back to the beginning of our Republic, with only the possible exception of the contentious election of 1876 as an outlier. Until… you guessed it, Trump in 2020.
For anyone who lived through and remembers the Obama years vs. the Trump years, there is no question that during the latter 4 years, American society became coarsened and cheapened and more egoistic and self-regarding and conspiratorial and whiny and violent, just like the character of the man in the Oval himself.
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