The way the Republicans treated our first black president was so disgraceful, so indescribably awful, so unprecedented in history, it can only be compared to the worst of the Jim Crow era in the South. In fact, if Barack Obama were not black, you can be sure the Republicans would never have tried to pull off such a massive dirty trick. They needed the acquiescence of their party members and they got it. We’ll never know how much better off the general population of America would be if Obama had been allowed to govern in the regular way.