A number of leftwing writers have gone into full “protect the precious” mode over Barack Obama. As more and more people have been noting just how badly Democrats have done in the age of Obama, goal posts are being moved to show that well, we need to look at different starting and ending points for the Democrats.

The reality is that with Barack Obama as President, Democrats have done terribly. Down to local, municipal seats, we have to go back to the late 1800’s to see a party so ruthlessly purged by the voters and, back then, it was the Democrats too.

Under Barack Obama, Republicans control about two-thirds of state legislative chambers, the majority of Governor’s Mansions, and both Houses of Congress. The Democratic bench has been purged leaving behind few young, fresh voices who can take over. The gains made by Democrats pre-Obama in 2006 and with Obama in 2008 have been destroyed.

Obama has shown no ability to get people to the polls unless he himself is on the ballot and even then has only shown himself to have impact on other races in carefully targeted places. For example, the only reason gay marriage passed in some states in 2012 was because of careful vetting by Team Obama to put those questions on the ballots in already liberal states at the same time Barack Obama would be on the ballot.

Otherwise, it collapses. From gay marriage in North Carolina to marijuana in Ohio to Democrats nationwide and every state where Obamacare is a campaign issue, Barack Obama has been a loser for the Democrats.

To say we need to move the starting and ending point to see just how badly Barack Obama has been for Democrats is to really note one thing. As Dan McLaughlin put it:

Best you can say for this argument is that Obama was an asset to his party until people saw him govern https://t.co/e8Tmxk69H8

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) November 5, 2015

Barack Obama was an empty vessel into which people poured their own hopes, dreams, and ambitions. He’s left the nation more divided on racial lines, less tolerant of regional and cultural differences, weaker abroad, and more impoverished at home. There’s your fundamental transformation — a fundamental trasformation now at work in American politics rendering the Democratic Party more homogeneously leftwing and also less able to win elections.