GOP reaping what it sowed

“You lie!”

Those two words will long be remembered as the tipping point of the presidency of the United States – at least when the occupant of the White House is a Democrat.

In November 2009, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, tossed political decorum out of the window when he yelled out “You lie!” to President Barack Obama, who was addressing a joint session of Congress.

Obama had gone to Capitol Hill to deliver a major speech on his health-care initiative that came to be known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

The president, who had been in office less than a year, sought to reassure members of Congress that the health-care legislation would not mandate insurance coverage for undocumented immigrants.

There are pictures of the president at the lectern and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, sitting behind him at the moment Wilson delivered his two-word shot heard round the world.

Obama is shown staring tight-lipped in Wilson’s direction, while Pelosi, a veteran member of Congress, is seen with her mouth open and her eyes as big as saucers.

The congressman subsequently apologized, but the damage was done. Those two words directed at the president opened the floodgates to similar disrespectful comments from other Republicans and Obama’s detractors around the country.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the eight years of his presidency were marked by personal and political attacks the likes of which haven’t been seen in the recent history of the presidency.

Political heritage

Criticism – even harsh criticism – of an administration’s policies and actions is very much a part of America’s democratic heritage.

But what is not acceptable is blatant disrespect for the office.

And yet Republicans in and out of Congress showed no reluctance in seeking to diminish the power of the presidency under Obama.

Like the “You lie!” words shouted by Congressman Wilson, a warning uttered by veteran Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also had the effect of undermining the administration.

In December 2010, McConnell told the Heritage Foundation, “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”

Obama ran for re-election in 2012 and won.

It wasn’t the first time McConnell had talked about crippling Obama’s presidency. In July 2010, he publicly stated that his No. 1 goal was to make Obama a one-term president.

Then there was the widely publicized meeting on the tarmac at the airport in Phoenix in January 2012 between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican.

Pictures of the meeting show Gov. Brewer sticking her finger in Obama’s face as she makes a point.

She claimed she felt “a little threatened” by the president, which is why she came across so aggressively.

But the pictures were a reminder of just how disrespectful Republicans were during Obama’s tenure.

And who can forget the headline-grabbing anti-Obama campaign conducted over a period of two years by none other than Donald J. Trump, the New York City real-estate billionaire who was sworn in as president Jan. 20.

Trump not only fueled the so-called birther movement that sought to delegitimize Obama’s presidency, but gained national attention when he demanded that the president provide legal documents to prove that he was born in America.

Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a father from Kenya. Because of that, his critics claimed that he actually was born in Kenya and brought to Hawaii as a baby.

Trump’s attacks brought him even greater national attention than the reality television show he hosted because it bolstered the narrative that the first black president in the history of the nation was in the White House under false pretenses.

The argument was made that Obama won because the wrong people voted for him in the 2008 election.

But it wasn’t just the president who was disrespected and denigrated. First lady Michelle Obama and the couple’s two daughters were also viciously attacked.

The most egregious display occurred last November when Pamela Ramsey Taylor, director of a West Virginia nonprofit agency, posted on Facebook the following comment after Trump had won the presidential election:

“It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I’m tired of seeing a [sic] Ape on heels.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Taylor, who headed the Clay County Development Corp., was referring to Trump’s wife, Melania, and to Mrs. Obama.

It is noteworthy that Mrs. Trump was born in Slovenia when it was part of Yugoslavia and came to the U.S. as a fashion model. She became a permanent resident in 2001 and a naturalized citizen in 2006.

Taylor’s Facebook post brought this reaction from Beverly Whaling, mayor of Clay: “Just made my day Pam.”

After the feathers hit the fan, Whaling resigned, while Taylor was ultimately fired.

There are many more examples of how the Democratic president and his family were treated over the past eight years beyond the usual rough-and-tumble of partisan politics.

But now, with Republican Trump in the White House, these same GOPers and other supporters are demanding that all Americans respect the presidency by tempering their criticism of the new president.

Indeed, some of the very people who remained silent while Obama was criticized in newspapers, including The Vindicator, made fun of in editorial cartoons and blasted on radio, television and the internet for his policy initiatives are now having convulsions because not everyone is worshipping at the altar of Trump.

Republicans sowed the seeds of political discontent during the tenure of the first black president of the United States, but now they expect total fealty for a white braggadocious billionaire from New York City.

Makes one wonder.