Maybe you’re right, but I also believe this country would not have been dramatically different if Mitt Romney had won in 2008 or 2012 (I present him as a hypothetical candidate in 2008 because John McCain would have been a total disaster).
It’s funny you mention that because, though I mention that I left Seattle for Kentucky in 2011, I actually bought the property in 2008, two weeks before the election.
And I thought McCain would win!
I just couldn’t believe the country would elect an utterly unqualified candidate solely because of the color of his skin. I was deluding myself and learned from that error.
But I thought McCain would have been a catastrophe. I think a case can be made that Obama won because McCain was such a poor option and Trump won because Hillary was such a poor option. But regarding Trump, I really do believe it was mainly because the Obama presidency was a disaster for way too many “rank and file” americans. Even black Americans.
There's something to be said for that, but I'm not convinced that a president leaving office after two terms has all that much influence on the next election. I think the quality of the candidates matters far more than the outgoing president. That's why the candidate from the incumbent party has lost the last three elections that were held under this scenario: Clinton in 2016, McCain in 2008, and Gore in 2000. These three were simply awful candidates and awful people.
I think Trump's biggest asset was a surge of outrage across this country when we arrived in 2015 and learned that the frontrunners for the 2016 presidential election were two @ssholes named Bush and Clinton. The Democrats rigged their primary to get their @sshole nominated. The GOP had enough principled, outraged people to make sure their @sshole was less popular among Americans than ISIS when he left politics in humiliation.