When the space shuttle Endeavour was flown along the California coast on the way to its retirement home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles last September, it passed right over my house in the Monterey area.

As the carrier-plane with the shuttle atop roared above me and I turned to watch it as long as I could before it disappeared over distant treetops, I found my eyes brimming with tears.  This sudden flood of emotion took me completely by surprise.  “Where did that come from?” I asked myself.  These weren’t the tears of someone overly impressed by technology; it had to be something much deeper.

Later that day I figured it out.  The space shuttle physically represented much of the greatness of America, our adventurous and pioneering spirit, our ingenuity, our bravery, our drive for achievement, the promise of tomorrow.  In short, it stood for so many ingredients of the American Dream.  I realized the tears flowed because, as the shuttle vanished into the distance, a part of me had instantly but subliminally sensed that it was a metaphor for the disappearance of America’s greatness.

One individual, a man named Barack Obama, with the aid and comfort of a political party and a mainstream media that worships at his alter of socialism, has succeeded in killing the American Dream.  It is dead and buried and he stands atop the grave site, patting down the dirt with a shovel.  If those of us who love the America we have known all our lives cannot weep over this, what can we weep over?

As much as I like and respect Rush Limbaugh, having been a regular listener since he went national 25 years ago and knowing he is right 99.9% of the time, I sadly disagree with his recent observation that the American Dream is not dead.  Not only do I believe it is — and how I would love to be proven wrong — I do not see a scenario whereby it can be resurrected.  In the months since last November’s election I have gone beyond pessimism to what I see as mournful reality.

There are several reasons I believe the American Dream is gone forever.  For one, reality tells me that changes made when Democrats are in office are set in concrete while Republican gains are easily reversed.  With the possible exception of ending the Cold War — and even that is in doubt depending on Vladimir Putin’s future behavior — is there anything left of Ronald Reagan’s legacy?

Reagan revived the American spirit while Obama has stomped on it and thrown its remains into the dumper.  Does the 4^th of July still feel the same to you?  How long has it been since you heard a crowd holler, “USA, USA?”  Reagan said patriotism would be lost if it were not “institutionalized” in our culture.  Obama never invokes patriotism because he expects devotion to him, not to country.  While Reagan’s presidency was all about America, Obama’s presidency is all about Obama, the cult of personality.

Reagan’s policies helped create a booming economy (although he credited the American people with achieving it as was his custom) while the Obama economy is permanently stuck in the “new normalcy” of malaise, deliberately created.  Reagan’s top tax rate of 28% is long gone while Obama has adopted the credo that the power to tax is the power to destroy.

The fear Reagan struck in the hearts of tyrants through a strong military has been replaced by Obama’s diminished military and international contempt for America.  While Reagan trumpeted America’s role in spreading freedom throughout the world and his policy toward communism was clear, (“We win, they lose”) Obama’s foreign policy should be accompanied by a laugh track, as we’ve seen with Syria.

I’m glad Reagan is not alive to see that virtually everything he achieved is gone.

In addition to burying it, Obama will be dancing on the grave of the American Dream when Obamacare takes full effect.  I believe it will not be defunded and it will not be repealed.  Obamacare is going to be the greatest disaster ever visited upon this country, causing tremendous economic, psychological and physical suffering.  Even some Democrats and members of the mainstream media may rue the day they supported it when life-saving procedures are denied them or when their loved ones die while on long waiting lists for medical care.

Add to all of the above the fact that Obama has become the first U.S. president in history to eliminate the long held system of checks and balances.  Back in the days of real journalism the altering of the three branches of government would have been a major news story, but not any more of course.  Don’t expect to see The New York Times report Obama’s virtual abolishment of the Constitution.

Through a combination of executive orders, having government departments impose regulations that take the place of failed legislation and by mandating this and mandating that, Obama has made Congress irrelevant.  Speculating about whether the Republicans can hold the House next year or possibly even win the Senate is meaningless.  What difference does it make when Obama can and will do what ever he wants and Congress be damned?

Because it’s hard to see a scenario for a GOP comeback one has to wonder if the Republicans are in for a long drought at the presidential level.  Voters seemed to be saying in the 2012 election that they prefer big government, more government spending and greater government control over their lives if it means being taken care of.  It is highly unlikely that Obama, with his disastrous domestic and foreign policy records, would have been reelected were it not for his creation of a dependent society.

With increasing numbers of Americans becoming dependent on the federal government in one way or another every day (“free stuff”) the Democrats are well positioned to win future elections by saying, in so many words, “If you elect the Republicans they will take away your benefits.”  It will be a lie of course, but a lie dutifully reported as truth by the mainstream media.

Who might the Republicans nominate as a “savior” in 2016?  Does it matter when who ever it is will be destroyed by the Democrats and the mainstream media the way they destroyed a decent and honorable man like Mitt Romney?  Perception is reality in today’s world and the Democrats have successfully painted the GOP as the party of evil.  Good luck finding paint remover.

And let’s not forget immigration reform.  If Republicans support it we lose by creating millions more Democrat voters and if we oppose it we lose by creating millions more Democrat voters.

If the Republicans don’t make a comeback it means the next president may well be Hillary Clinton.  If you’re sick of being called a racist because you oppose Obama’s policies, get ready for eight years of being called sexist if you oppose Hillary’s.

I read recently that many Americans are actually suffering depression over what has happened to the U.S.  They start each day with a pall of gloom hanging over them because of how our greatness has been diminished.  I’m among them.  My morale has been crushed by Obama’s hatred for the free enterprise system and his successful demonizing of achievers and success, by the race-baiting and manufactured class warfare that have created such huge and ugly divisions and simply by knowing the country is led by a man with contempt for the values and virtues that once made America the greatest country on earth.

A Republican friend recently pointed out that Obama is dropping in the polls.  His poll numbers can fall to zero but it means nothing because he is still president and his destruction of America will proceed apace. And there is nothing that can or will be done about it.   Impeachment?  Forget it.  Not even a Republican-controlled Congress would want any part of removing the first African-American president.  Scandals?  It’s becoming increasingly obvious that they will amount to nothing because this president and his media allies have decreed it so.

Obama has already kept his promise to fundamentally transform America and it’s amazing how easily he has done it.  It demonstrates the fragility of freedom that Reagan warned us about.  From now until the end of his presidency the further dismantling of this country is all frosting on the cake.  America will carry on in some form or other, of course, but it will never again be the America we’ve known.  It’s Obama’s country.  We’re just living in it.

Obama will go down in history as one of the two most consequential U.S. presidents.  Whether he or Abraham Lincoln is seen as number one will depend on whether historians view the saving of America or the destruction of America as more important.  I think it will be the latter and that is cause for one to weep.

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