Matt Taibbi thinks Barack Obama's popularity will soar during a Trump presidency. It'll have a lot to do, he thinks, with the contrast between him and his successor. Here's one key excerpt…
Think of the discipline and equanimity it must have taken [Obama] to not show anger and maintain an air of positivity given the vicious absurdities he had to work through, including the ones emanating from none other than Donald Trump about his birth origin. The birther controversy was racism and profiling elevated to a Wagnerian level: Here was a black man who'd made it all the way to the Oval Office, and a giant portion of the population still considered him to be literally trespassing.
That such an idiotic campaign may have launched Trump into the White House to succeed Obama is an incredibly bitter pill, but this story isn't exactly over yet. When Trump takes over he will immediately have to reckon with Obama's example, and this is a historical popularity contest His Orangeness seems doomed to lose.
I don't think even Trump's most enthusiastic supporters expect him to go through his first year in office without a number of childish tantrums and financial scandals. The first wave of scandals, in fact, already seem to be lining up. Get ready for the moment when Republicans in the House and Senate — who kept demanding more and more investigations of Benghazi and Hillary's e-mails each time the last round of investigations produced no evidence of wrongdoing — have to explain why they don't want to look into how rich Trump and his cronies are becoming in office.