Letters: People should be thankful for Obama

As America looks forward to another presidential election, I’m thinking about how much I’m going to miss President Obama. He got more people than ever interested in politics. It was really nice for us as African-Americans to see a president who looks like us and who understood what people of color deal with in America.

President Obama worked to get affordable health care to more Americans, unemployment is down to 5 percent, and gas prices are under $2. He got American soldiers out of the quagmire in Iraq, which I got to see first-hand as a soldier deployed to Iraq. It seems that America should have been appreciative of the things that Barack Obama did as president.

Unfortunately, many Republicans make President Obama sound like the worst leader ever. It seems as if they forgot that President George W. Bush had gas prices up to $5 a gallon, job growth was at a stand still, and unemployment was above 8 percent.

So how can President Obama be so hated? Because racism and hate never died in America. Race relations may have improved over the years, but there is still a lot of bigotry and bitterness in this country. The Republican presidential candidates are spewing a lot of hate and bitterness, especially the frontrunner.

America needs to move forward, not backwards to divisiveness, which is all the Republican candidates have to offer.