The arc of the moral universe simply did not bend in the way Obama presumed.

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Since the first days of his presidency, Barack Obama has cast himself as occupying "the right side of history" and exploited Martin Luther King, Jr.'s phrase that, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."   

Now in the final days of that presidency, even Obama must be confronting the distressing possibility that the phrase is either an empty one, or alternatively that the arc actually bent against him and marooned him on the wrong side of history. 

In objective historical terms, of course, the concept of the universe's moral arc bending toward justice is of dubious merit.  After all, under that theory modern times should presumably have manifested diminishing injustice. 

But has that proven true?  The 20th century stands unrivaled as the most murderous in human history.  Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Fidel Castro alone slaughtered on such a scale that accurately estimating the deaths for which they're directly responsible within the tens of millions remains impossible. 

It's worth noting that none of those murderous tyrants employed industrial modernity toward reducing government's reach, expanding individual freedom or life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as our Founding Fathers envisioned.  Each of them instead sought to maximize government control over human beings and stifle their freedoms.  That fact offers a superior historical lesson to vague notions of a "right side of history." 

Assuming the merit of the concept for purposes of argument, however, it has treated Obama unkindly. 

As he now surveys his surroundings, Obama sees an opposition Republican party dominating America at the federal, state and local levels to a degree unseen since the 1920s.  For eight years he demonized Republicans and questioned their very morality, hoping to convince the electorate that they're unfit to govern.  But instead of vanquishing Republicans, he himself stands vanquished.  That dissonance between Obama's understanding of "the arc of the moral universe" and the reality he sees after nearly a decade in the White House must torment him in his private thoughts. 

And what meaning must Obama glean from the stunning election of his longtime nemesis Donald Trump?  Just a short time ago, Trump sat captive to Obama's withering mockery at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.  Today, Obama's antithesis prepares to usher him out the door. 

Or consider his presidency's signature "achievement," ObamaCare.  When he signed that legislation in March 2010, the American public opposed it by a polling average of 50.3% to 40.3%.  Six years later, opposition to the law maintains the same 10% differential over support. 

Beyond ObamaCare's unpopularity, the law has suffered constant logistical failures and it even earned Obama the "Lie of the Year" for assuring us that if we liked our insurance plan or doctor, we could keep them under ObamaCare.  As a result, repeal and replacement stands atop the agenda of the incoming Trump Administration.  It has confirmed the folly of big government, not the merits. 

The arc of the moral universe simply did not bend in the way Obama presumed. 

Consider also climate change hysteria, another one of the Obama presidency's central agenda items.  Perhaps no contemporary moral crusade better typifies the "arc of the moral universe is long" mantra, given its conveniently distant time horizons.  The well-subsidized anthropogenic global warming industry intentionally cast its projections into faraway years and decades, confident that by the time the actual evidence arrives, it will be too late to matter. 

But we're now over a quarter-century into the synthetic global warming scare, and temperature projection models have been proven almost uniformly overhyped.  Whereas in 2005 we were instructed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that man-caused global warming would bring an increase in similar disasters, the U.S. has now gone a record eleven years without a major-category hurricane. 

The arc of the moral universe may be long, but not long enough to conceal climate alarmists' failures. 

The broader reality is that platitudes like "the right side of history" are tools typically employed by the statist political left to rationalize dominion over the "little people" who are deemed unable to recognize what's good for them.  The good news is that time occasionally catches up with them and exposes their artifice. 

That has certainly proven true for Obama and his legacy. 

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