This piece, written by Jack Perry, originally appeared at lewrockwell.com.
Many people are alarmed and concerned that president-elect Donald Trump will undo and dismantle all of President Obama’s accomplishments and hard-won achievements that have benefited the American people for some eight years now. I think, therefore, we ought to recognize and applaud these accomplishments so that we do not forget them or so lightly discard them.
President Obama’s great endeavor to bring democracy to Syria has resulted in a catastrophic war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Lest you think this a small feat, bear in mind it took nearly a decade for the Iran-Iraq War to rack up that death toll over almost a decade of scorpions-in-a-bottle fighting. Of course, President Obama can also be congratulated for helping to launch a war that will certainly be more than a mere legacy from his administration. No, a war like this is one parent can be proud to hand down to their children, just like the war in Afghanistan which will probably be left in the will for the next generation to fight in it.
President Obama overcame the natural reluctance in arming terrorists in order to arm terrorists in Syria. President Obama assured us that if background checks were needed in weapons transactions, they were certainly needed here in the United States, and not in a region where all of the “Syrian moderates” would have been called “prohibited possessors” within the United States proper. This was no easy task since the last terrorists we armed with TOW missiles took out some Israeli tanks with them. Be that as it may, we can thank our lucky stars President Obama had the foresight and wisdom to arm people that we could later deny having armed after they got away from American control. This was easy to do since the weapons, wisely, flowed from an Eastern European weapons dealer. President Obama, we applaud this creation of an army that will nip at our heels for decades to come.
President Obama comforted us with assurances that what we thought were “terrorist attacks” in the United States were, in fact, not terrorist attacks at all. Rather, it was “gun violence” and so we could all take solace in the knowledge that those guns got up and perpetrated those attacks all by themselves. The cure would be more background checks, so long as background checks would not be done on overseas weapons transfers to prohibited possessors, er, the Syrian moderates. President Obama reassured us that the only real terrorists were, shockingly, in every police department in the United States. We are grateful to President Obama for having cleared up this error in the realm of semantics for us.
The economy rebounded, again and again, thanks to President Obama. Never before has America seen such spectacular growth in the consumer industries of pawn shops, payday loan chains, auto title loan establishments, rent-to-own centers, and credit collection agencies.
 
President Obama helped get America spending money it didn’t have again and people barely able to pay the rent were once again receiving pre-approved, high-interest credit card offers in their mailboxes. This was no easy task and President Obama is to be applauded for overstocked display cases at pawn shops and “For Sale” signs in front of homes in every neighborhood across America. Thank you, President Obama, for bringing quiet neighborhoods back to America once more. Even if it’s because no one lives in them anymore.
In a nation of around 320 million people, President Obama created hundreds of jobs. We ought to give credit where credit is due because now America can compete with India for coveted customer service call center jobs. We thought we had lost the “Cubicle Gap” with India. But now we are once again staffing anthill-like call centers with flexible schedule positions that provide much-needed jobs for Americans to make payments to payday loan chains and all the pre-approved credit cards that went out like fliers from supermarkets. Thank you, President Obama, for all the great careers in sandwich assembly, sign-twirling, espresso slinging, handbill distribution, door greeting, grocery bagging, and errand running. You got America twirling signs and putting extra pickles on sandwiches again, Mr. President. We doff our silly management-mandated company hats to you.
President Obama’s signature accomplishment is the great health care plan of ObamaCare. They said it couldn’t be done, Mr. President. They said no one could screw up American health care any more than it already was. But you proved them wrong. How can we ever thank you? You have driven up premiums, caused insurers to pull out of entire states, and forced people to buy insurance that won’t be able to afford the rising premiums. You did this brilliantly through the fiat of making it a law you have to have health insurance or pay a fine. Mr. President, it usually takes a dictator to accomplish something like that. But you and your party proved that wrong, too. How can we ever thank the Democrats but, more so, President Obama for a health care plan that makes the old Soviet Union health care plan a better idea?
President Obama’s war on terrorism has worked so well, Europe has seen terrorist attacks that dwarf that Munich Olympics Massacre. The tactic was “Let’s fight them over here and over there, but don’t call them terrorists so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings”. The need to protect feelings was a brilliant move since we all know that terrorism begins as a self-esteem issue. Indeed, the tactic of paying people to fight the government fighting the terrorists will be a tactic they’ll have to re-write Clausewitz altogether about. And opposing the governments fighting the terrorists? President Obama, you must have lifted a page right out of “Fighting Terrorism For Dummies”. We applaud your low-budget Pericles approach.
I’ve probably left out a lot of other great accomplishments of President Obama, but we don’t have time to bring them up right now. Over time, we will see them bear fruit, almost like a forgotten banana in the backseat during summer. Over time, we will see even more chickens in every pot coming home to roost. Thank you, President Obama, for an America, we can be proud to say “It was like that when I got here…” about.
Jack Perry [send him mail] is a writer living with his wife in the Sonoran Desert where he writes, reads, bakes bread, makes arrows, walks, and documents the foolishness of government itself. When the government is speaking or acting, Jack observes his own Rule Number One: Always Assume It’s A Scam. A perennial desert rat, wayfarer, and path pilgrim, Jack also enjoys silence—especially from the government.